Morning Page: Discipline
Discipline for doing daily journaling, it turns out, is something I don't have. I have, instead, occasional bouts of intention and follow through, followed by long spans of distracted spending of my time on other things.
But you know, they say the thing about trying to cultivate good habits is not to beat yourself up for your failures, so instead of wringing my hands over the number of times I've started and stopped the habit of morning pages, I figure I'll just get on with things and try again, while motivation is with me.
They also say to make goals specific and achievable. So my goal with morning pages is to write them weekly. And if I manage to do more, yay, but if I achieve at least one a week, I'll have succeeded.
Also I intend to ignore the whole "morning" thing. And to let myself write whatever the heck I please. And to be aware that I have an audience, and not care. So there, discipline.
So on my mind today is health, Or lack thereof. I'm on the next to last day of a two week course of prednisone, and while it was a huge win in terms of being able to breathe, I am feeling so inflated it's not funny. My belly is protuberant like a beach ball and my cheeks are chipmunkish. And while part of me knows it's a side effect and that I've been ill, another part feels indolent and unattractive. Especially because darksideofstorm, my much loved housemate, started a new fitness program the very same week I got so sick, so while he's off exercising and slimming down and looking fabulous, I'm blowing up like a puffer fish and wheezing and lying around being pathetic and envying him his athleticism.
Which adds to my unattractiveness. Petty jealousy is hardly the stuff dreamboats are made of.
Maybe if I can make myself go to the gym during the day while he's at work, I'll stop feeling so pathetic. There's that discipline thing again, too.
I wish I was one of those people for whom exercise is its own reward, but it's just not. I don't enjoy it. I want to enjoy it. I want to be one of those people who says they feel emotionally better when they exercise regularly. I want to be one of those people who can tell a difference in their health and energy when they exercise regularly. I'm not. From what I can tell, when I exercise regularly, I get a tiny boost of emotional well-being from being able to say "I am doing this thing I don't like because it is good for me, see I am a responsible adult," and that's it.
Maybe I need to get back into Fat Acceptance and adjust my thinking that way.
Years ago, I subscribed to a FA magazine that I don't think is even published anymore. It had photos and essays of fat people doing active things, being happy, wearing clothes they liked, and generally not bowing to a culture that says fat is pathological.
In the last ten years, fat has become the new boogie monster. It's medicalized and stigmatized like crazy these days. Newspapers decry the "obesity epidemic" but always with that edge that says it's the fatties' fault-they make bad choices, eat bad things, don't try hard enough, don't care enough, and while we're at it, they're bringing the rest of society down and costing us money. A thin lifetime smoker who gets lung cancer and emphysema gets more sympathy than an active but fat person who gets diabetes. Nevermind that more than two-thirds of North Americans are considered "overweight or obese". Seriously. Two-thirds. What that means is that "normal" weight isn't the norm. The norm is to be fat.
I look at my round belly and feel disgusting and hopeless. And I look at athletic people and think: I can never be that. I feel less than. A second-class citizen at best.
Aaaaand now I've depressed myself. Maybe stream-of-consciousness writing is not such a great idea after all.
I'll remind myself that I once thought it was unattainable to transition, and that turned out to be false. It took money and effort and time, but mostly what it took was a willingness to believe that I could be a man if I wanted to be. And now I am one.
So there's that.
Maybe when I stop being so wheezy. Maybe even if I don't stop being so wheezy. Maybe next week. Maybe I will try one more time to make exercise a habit.
But you know, they say the thing about trying to cultivate good habits is not to beat yourself up for your failures, so instead of wringing my hands over the number of times I've started and stopped the habit of morning pages, I figure I'll just get on with things and try again, while motivation is with me.
They also say to make goals specific and achievable. So my goal with morning pages is to write them weekly. And if I manage to do more, yay, but if I achieve at least one a week, I'll have succeeded.
Also I intend to ignore the whole "morning" thing. And to let myself write whatever the heck I please. And to be aware that I have an audience, and not care. So there, discipline.
So on my mind today is health, Or lack thereof. I'm on the next to last day of a two week course of prednisone, and while it was a huge win in terms of being able to breathe, I am feeling so inflated it's not funny. My belly is protuberant like a beach ball and my cheeks are chipmunkish. And while part of me knows it's a side effect and that I've been ill, another part feels indolent and unattractive. Especially because darksideofstorm, my much loved housemate, started a new fitness program the very same week I got so sick, so while he's off exercising and slimming down and looking fabulous, I'm blowing up like a puffer fish and wheezing and lying around being pathetic and envying him his athleticism.
Which adds to my unattractiveness. Petty jealousy is hardly the stuff dreamboats are made of.
Maybe if I can make myself go to the gym during the day while he's at work, I'll stop feeling so pathetic. There's that discipline thing again, too.
I wish I was one of those people for whom exercise is its own reward, but it's just not. I don't enjoy it. I want to enjoy it. I want to be one of those people who says they feel emotionally better when they exercise regularly. I want to be one of those people who can tell a difference in their health and energy when they exercise regularly. I'm not. From what I can tell, when I exercise regularly, I get a tiny boost of emotional well-being from being able to say "I am doing this thing I don't like because it is good for me, see I am a responsible adult," and that's it.
Maybe I need to get back into Fat Acceptance and adjust my thinking that way.
Years ago, I subscribed to a FA magazine that I don't think is even published anymore. It had photos and essays of fat people doing active things, being happy, wearing clothes they liked, and generally not bowing to a culture that says fat is pathological.
In the last ten years, fat has become the new boogie monster. It's medicalized and stigmatized like crazy these days. Newspapers decry the "obesity epidemic" but always with that edge that says it's the fatties' fault-they make bad choices, eat bad things, don't try hard enough, don't care enough, and while we're at it, they're bringing the rest of society down and costing us money. A thin lifetime smoker who gets lung cancer and emphysema gets more sympathy than an active but fat person who gets diabetes. Nevermind that more than two-thirds of North Americans are considered "overweight or obese". Seriously. Two-thirds. What that means is that "normal" weight isn't the norm. The norm is to be fat.
I look at my round belly and feel disgusting and hopeless. And I look at athletic people and think: I can never be that. I feel less than. A second-class citizen at best.
Aaaaand now I've depressed myself. Maybe stream-of-consciousness writing is not such a great idea after all.
I'll remind myself that I once thought it was unattainable to transition, and that turned out to be false. It took money and effort and time, but mostly what it took was a willingness to believe that I could be a man if I wanted to be. And now I am one.
So there's that.
Maybe when I stop being so wheezy. Maybe even if I don't stop being so wheezy. Maybe next week. Maybe I will try one more time to make exercise a habit.