It really bites when you feel so inspired that you have to get out of bed late at night and write something but then it sounds like shit. Who was it that said he never had to edit what he wrote in the middle of the night? The jackass. I got up at 1:00am feeling that I absolutely had to write a post but I deleted it three times because it didn’t sound the same way it did in my head when I was laying in bed.

I was laying there thinking about the precarious position I am in right now in my life. I’m straddling the edge of recovery and the pursuit of dreams. It’s a strange thing, recovery. You just stop caring about the things that have always been important to you. The day to day, “What do I have to do now?” just consumes you. The bare minimum become so much work that you can’t do anything else. Like, who cares anymore if I always wanted to sing the roles of Susannah or Zerlina or if I wanted to be a social vixen and all that jazz? Bitch, please, it’ll be a miracle if I wash my hair this week.

Coming out of the fog of depression, injury, trauma, or all three takes all your energy. Maybe you start a blog about it to use up some of that time. The point is to pass the time and get to the next day.

Suddenly, though, you’re reminded of yourself. That fierce, wild, confident, adventurous, quirky girl you were and those long buried desires attack you like a wet gremlin. Maybe you hear a song, see a picture of someone from your past, see a picture of yourself from your past, see old friends, whatever, but the fire is relit, the gremlin’s got you by the jugular. This is a strange and difficult place to be.

This is where I am. I’m not yet out of the mire but I’m tantalized by the prospect of being so. Right now I’m straddling the worlds of sick and well. I’m in progress. My body isn’t healthy yet and the in between stage is gross. My body looks deflated and sloppy. I’m still working jobs I don’t like to get money to get back to where I wanted to be. I’m finally ready to be social again but don’t have friends close by.

I would say it’s a Catch-22 but I think that would be an incorrect usage of that term. It’s just the in between. It’s awkward like adolescence. Desires are burning in me but none can yet be fulfilled. My mom used to call it the pullet stage. How’s that mental image?

I guess that’s why I started the Change it Up Challenge. I wanted to change things up and get closer to the “after” picture. I want so badly to be there and moving on to greater things and to get out of the in between.

I was successful this week with the challenge. I had several salads this week and snacked on tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, and sugar snap peas. Unlike the utter failure of last week I was totally successful and I could feel the good it did me.

Completing goals for this next week is going to be hard but it’s important to keep going, so I will. The challenge for this week is to increase how much you walk. Four days this week make a pointed effort to do an extra walk (in addition to your workout). You can take the bus instead of driving, take an after work walk, go shopping, walk to the market, whatever but for four of the seven days this week walk your butt off. You don’t have to wear a pedometer or count your steps but walk enough that you really feel the difference.

Don’t forget to tell all about it. You can’t win a prize if you don’t let me know that you finished the challenges.