Tuesday #6 – An Emotional Day of Lunch, Therapy and Yoga

I’m dropping the “tips” from Tuesday for posts that aren’t ordered into tips.

Today has been a very long and emotional day. We started out by getting up early for the pancake breakfast fundraiser at the big kids’ school. It is amazing how quickly little people will dress themselves when there are pancakes on the line.

After dropping off the baby, I headed to mass. Wow, it seems like so long ago all of a sudden. I don’t really remember much about mass this morning, other than I sat in the front row with my friend.

After mass I visited the “cafe” in the library to visit with my older parishioner friends. I remembered to bring my own snack since I am tracking my food for my gym program. It was a good thing too because there were some very sugary treats on the line.

I still had a bit of time before my lunch, so I wet home for a few minutes to collect my rental house’s checks and took them to the credit union.

Lunch

I then headed to Salata to meet a friend from church. Her husband is halfway through his chemo and radiation treatment for a cancer somewhere in his neck. We ended up sitting around for two hours visiting.

One of my primary agenda items with her was to inquire regarding her own self care. I have learned quite a bit about self care in the past 6-8 months and, as suspected, she was not doing very much. So we talked quite a bit about the logistics of self care and how hard it is to accept and coordinate help.

I heavily emphasized gym time and massage as particularly helpful. I also shared with her the care calendar website that I used to coordinate people to hang out with Kraston so that I could do some of the things I needed to do for myself.

After we parted ways and I settled into my van, my eyes started to get very fuzzy. I knew this lunch and conversational topic would be difficult, but I didn’t realize how difficult until after it was over. I haven’t reached back and thought about the summer that he went through treatment in a while. I’ve spent a lot more time of late thinking about that last time he was in the hospital.

I was 7 months pregnant with baby girl when he was diagnosed. She was born the week before he finished his radiation treatments. Talking about this and thinking about it was harder than anticipated. I thought I had told my stories enough, but seemingly not.

My therapist tells me I need to talk about those difficult times more, but it is hard when I feel like everyone has heard these stories and most people are well moved on. This was nearly two years ago that I was reliving and discussing.

After settling down a bit, I still had some time to pass before therapy. So I went to CVS to buy pullups, went and put gas in my car and cleaned out my van a bit. It was a good thing too because I had a ripening box of milk in the boys’ trashcan in the far back. It was dreadful. I almost gagged. No more milk boxes in the van, I say (until the next time).

At Therapy

I struggled a bit with what to day, which is pretty unlike me. I rarely have trouble coming up with something to talk about.

I talked about my lunch and about how tired I had been this past week. She asked if I thought I was depressed and I agreed that maybe I was a bit. I think it is mostly related to not spending enough time with other people (all the extrovert problems, I guess).

She also said she felt like there was something I wasn’t talking about. Normally when she calls me out like that, I know what it is that I’ve been stewing about and was having trouble getting around to, but this time, I wasn’t really sure.

I mentioned that I felt like my blog posts the past few days have been more recounting my day adn less reflective of my feelings. She asked if I was feeling a little numbed out and I agreed that probably I was. That I’ve been feeling the past few days a bit like a teakettle getting ready to boil over and have been struggling to hold the lid on. Seemingly there are some feelings that I’m a bit scared of.

On a bit lighter note, she told me I was a good rubber band. I seemingly have a large dose of resiliency such that I seem to be good at stretching and then returning back to generally the same shape.

Yoga Tears

After all that, I promptly went home and took a power nap. If you have been paying attention you’ll note I haven’t mentioned the gym yet. I had discussed with my trainer going to Sky South for a dance class and then staying for her Stretch Yoga class. I felt like my flexibility is a bit lower that I’d prefer, so I agreed. Since I sometimes have rough therapy sessions, she’d said the yoga would help with stress.

Now I have taken a few yoga classes with my trainer, but apparently not any stretch yoga classes as I was wholly unprepared, mentally, for that class this evening. Both the music and the poses were extremely reminiscent of the prenatal yoga class that I took the summer Kraston was going through his cancer treatments. Ever time we folded over this evening, I started tearing up and barely kept from actually crying.

I just kept remembering the yoga class I went to when he was in the hospital the first time. It was Thursday, the day after his surgery and his family was still in town visiting us in the hospital. So I decided to go ahead and go to my prenatal yoga class. It was only the first or second time I had been, but I knew I needed a break. I haven’t thought about that class in a long time.

I remember how confused one of his sisters was that I was leaving. She told me recently that it had taken her a long time to understand why I needed to do that. I remember crying during that class every time we were laying face down.

It was one of the few times I actually remember crying while he was sick. I got really good at not crying. It’s only took 6 months of weekly therapy to help me figure out how to start crying again.

After yoga, when everyone else had left, I shared a little bit about this with my trainer. Afterward she asked me if I had plans Thursday evening and mentioned that she might be going to do one of those painting, Pinot’s Palatte things. I hedged a bit at the time since the only time I’ve ever been there was a couple’s painting night with Kraston and I think 4 of our best couple friends. I remember how much he hated how expensive it was.

Apparently once I’ve identified my fears, I tend to like to confront them. Who knew? So if we get back in time for a power nap, the idea of going has been growing on me the past couple hours.

Final Note

So I’ve got a bit of soul searching to do, to figure out what feeling is scaring me right now. I’ve also got to work on being around more people the next few days to see if I can draw myself back the slope I’ve been sliding down the past week.