Recalculating Goals

Disappointment in yourself is the hardest thing to shake, emotionally. It’s not as crushing as the loss of a loved one, and it isn’t as bitter and brash as anger.

But it creeps around and hangs out in literally every corner of your thoughts. It pops up when you’re not thinking of anything in particular. It lurks behind your assessment of every action you take. Worst of all, it takes a big, smelly shit on every single accomplishment.

I’m disappointed in myself because i can’t swim for the requisite 400m for the Tri i was going to attempt in May. Still can’t. i want to tell myself it’s because things got in the way and i couldn’t make it to the only gym with a pool than can accommodate my work hours. I want to tell myself that yes, i am improving, i go at my own pace.

But after you realize that you lived under a series of excuses for much of your exercise life, you see anything like that as merely an excuse, which is what i’m doing now.

I could’ve gotten up at 4:30 three days out of the week; but getting up that early fucking BLOWS. it does. i hate it.

I could have gone in the afternoons- only the pool is overtaken with families and other afternoon swimmers and it takes a 20-min wait just to get half a lane.

those feel like excuses. I failed to get as far as i need to be by this point, and i’m extremely disappointed in myself.

Turns out, i can’t compete in the original Tri anyway. Work got in the way, for reals. (I could say life, but to equate office work to life makes my stomach turn).

I work in a place where business picks up at the end of the month, and i’m required to work the last weekend of every month. The Lake Hickory Tri is the last weekend of May; and FitBloggin ’14 is the last weekend in June. Upper management decided that one end-of-month-weekend a year, they can make an exception. I had to choose between abandoning the reason i started blogging again, and the reason i became healthier in every way.

That was kind of a no-brainer. (also had to pass up running a c
harity 5k at the end of this month for the same reason. There are a million things i want upper manage to eat, and most of them rhyme with Truman CiCi’s.)

So i have to figure out where my next steps are. i want to do a Tri, any Tri. a small one. not at the end of the month. Alan, fellow blogger and all-around excellent human being, encouraged me to look up other local Tri’s sponsored by the gym he & i share. That’s Step #Next.

the other is learning to get over bitter self-disappointment. Sammie (my hero) poked my nose about it.

“It’s not failure, you’re just recalculating goals.” She’s right; i can take that in logically, but i have to try and take it into my heart. Always leave it to an English major to phrase things perfectly.