At the end of every season, I like to take off a couple of months. It's downtime from "training" and more like exercising for the sheer fun.
This year, in particular, doing any type of exercise was difficult. After one of those "out of the mouths of babes" type of moments I realized what happened.
My son informed me that I'm a "giver". He says, "you give and give and give. You never take. Today you need to take. We want you to."
Well, looking back over the past 2 months, I realized that I gave too much. After giving too much, all that was left was this empty shell. Finding time to exercise felt impossible; finding the ENERGY to exercise felt impossible.
That's when it hit me. We all have times in our lives where we need to take care of other people or we have emergencies that need our attention. But, we can't live like that and doing so for an extended period of time turns us into self-sacrificing empty shells.
The past is the past. It's time to move forward.
Or in my case, it's time to make me the priority again.
This morning, instead of working and doing things around the house, I dropped the boys at school and did what I used to do: head to the gym. I ran on the treadmill. I lifted weights. Tomorrow, I'm swimming for the first time in almost 2 months. Swim--that is if I don't sink.
I can handle losing a little fitness, but I won't lose myself again.
