Lost opportunities

I lost out on a good opportunity. That's okay though because obviously if I couldn't work it into my schedule and take care of ME at the same time, it wasn't that good of an opportunity. Allow me to explain.

Many, many years ago I was diagnosed with a full range of mental deficiencies from Bipolar Disorder to clinical depression. According to one set of foster parents, as a teenager, I was even diagnosed with Disassociative Identity Disorder. (Man, were they ever wrong on that one! rofl) But that's how bad the mood swings were.

Every single medication I've ever been on has had a very bad reaction with my body. It took me a long time to figure out why. I was quite simply misdiagnosed. A lot. Okay the depression thing really was it and I still battle with that one every single day.

As part of the battle, there are several things that I do since I can't take medications. I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I eat a LOT of fresh fruits and veggies, keep carbs low, red meats down, etc. But one other thing I HAVE to do, I HAVE to get a good work out in each night.

I'm not talking about going for a nice long walk, or jogging on the treadmill for a while. I mean I have to tax every single one of my muscles that I am able to, and really make them work. It's okay to skip a day occasionally, but not too many days. The mood swings come back, and I am highly irritable. Okay, irritable doesn't cover it. I am out right angry for no reason at all and want to bury everyone I see in my back yard. Scary, huh? I don't like me like that at all.

So anyway, the other night I had the great opportunity to lead a project that looks like it will be fantastic. I was offered the project lead position, and I gladly took it. I arranged a time when we could all meet, and still fit my workout into my schedule. Now, I don't tell people "I have to work out tonight so I don't drive you to tears tomorrow." I tell them something like "I need to spend time with my child" or "it's my husband's night with me" or something like that. Sounds a LOT better, and lets people know that I do have my life prioritized.

So here I was with this hour between dinner time and go work out time, only the agreed upon meeting time got changed on me. It would be two hours later, right smack in the middle of my workout time! I knew what I was risking when I said I couldn't make it at that time. I knew what would be at risk if I skipped the workout altogether though.

The hardest thing for us, as humans, to do is to learn how to prioritize our lives and how to pass up the great in pursuit of the better. I think, especially for us women, we have a hard time of letting ourselves be the priority for a while as well. We put everything and everyone else first. Kids, husband, work, make dinner, clean the house, cuddle time, spouse time, etc. There are only 24 hours in a day and 6 to 8 of those we spend sleeping! So when we try to make ourselves take two to three hours of each day for just US, well, it's hard to do. There are so many other important things to take care of first.

The human body though requires us to have some sort of outlet. For me, it's exercise time. For you, it may be photography, or singing, or dancing naked in the rain. It doesn't matter what that outlet is. What does matter is that you take the opportunities to have your time. You matter. Make you a priority. If anything else doesn't fit into your schedule with you as a priority, then it just wasn't meant to be a part of it anyway.

So the moral of today's nice long rambling story is simply this: Take care of you first because nobody else will. (And digging all those holes in your backyard would make your neighbors quite suspicious!)