Exercise and Family: Love and Hate in That Order

 Exercise works. My body responds beautifully to exercise. I like working out. I may not enjoy walking as much as I thought. Certainly outdoors is a better experience than the treadmill, but the neighborhood is only just. So I can use the treadmill just as easily as a neighborhood walk and I can do it all at once. 

I dropped 3 or 4 pounds in the first week I went to the gym. I also have my food intake under control, so that helped. But usually when I go to the gym I gain weight at first. Not this time. I feel like a dying flower and the gym is water being poured all over my thirsty leaves, reviving me. 

I don't know why I get the heebies when I think of going to work out. Months and months go by between visits sometimes and I just don't want to get up from my recliner, drive 1 mile and scan my card at the desk. It's so easy, and I'm there for a small amount of time. I have lots of free time and my long workout is now about 40 minutes. I can lose 40 minutes in doom scrolling before breakfast. All the times I was going to the gym regularly, I felt so good. I would feel revived again and again. Each time I left the gym it was as if I was being reborn into yet another, better self. 

Maybe I'm afraid of success or failure. My mind tells me about all the times I've quit and how comforting it can be to sit inside all day and do nothing. My health matters now. I have lost my edge in staying healthy all the time and so now I need to put the effort in to maintain my I Never Get Sick mindset. Maybe I'm afraid of leaving the house and coming home late, getting into terrifying trouble as I did when I was a teen. My mother really is a monster. 

I was in 6th grade, living with my siblings, mother and stepfather in Parma, Ohio. Jack had gone out for the evening, and the 4 of us were laying together on the couch watching TV. When Jack came home, he fought with the screen door, banging it over and over again. Looking at his red, bloated face when he came into the room, he looked drunk and enraged. My mother said, "The deal's off, Jack." Without warning, he grabbed her, pulled her up off the couch by her robe and slammed her up against the wall. I don't remember what he said, but I remember my mother looking at him stone-faced while he spat venom at her. He let her go and stormed off. She returned to the couch wordlessly. Later, she attacked me for not defending her. For just sitting on the couch and "loving it" that he was abusing her. I hate her. I really don't want to. I want to feel indifferent to her. I want to feel sorry for her being such a loser while also feeling superior that I alone am keeping her alive. 

Sometimes, though, when I think about how my brain must be damaged from all the hell she inflicted, I do hate her. I get my revenge by going to Ohio and not visiting her, by refusing to respond to her incessant "I love you" texts and by not giving in (too much) to her drama. It's its own kind of illness, to be sure. But I"m in control of this one. And I continue to work on not hating her. My damage is long since done. I have tools and skills to manage my mental health, and I am using them. Sometimes I can't help how I feel. Always, I can't help how I feel. I can only help how I react. I'm still sad and angry about Grant. I still think about him. I wish all 3 of these things would go away. They might and they might now. It has only been 4 years but then again it has been 4 whole years already. On the down side of 5 years really. I don't know anything about him and I don't want anything to do with the monster who cut me out of his life. But I do miss him when I think of a good memory and I do get sad when I think of a sad one. The sad ones far, far outweigh the good ones. It didn't end the way I wanted and that bothers me. I think that might be a key factor in this. It was out of my control and that unsettles me. That's probably it. I'll continue to replay things in my head to resolve it. I'll continue to resent him for the things I did that he didn't appreciate. 

Really, none of my "loved ones" appreciate what I voluntarily do for them. I need to stop. Even trying to make a family out of Zach & Josh is wasted time. It has come about as far as it's going to, and I torture myself with any delusions that it will be deeper or feel more connected. Most of the time, I am fully OK with that. I need to remember that. Just like I need to remember that I love the gym. Put your time into things that reward you and that you love. If it's Planet Fitness over Family, then that's what it is. To act otherwise is a form of insanity. Good one.