A Different Kind of Loss...

I was belly aching about plateaus.  I'm still bellyaching about plateaus, but on February 21 of this year (my mother's birthday) I watched her die of acute hyperthoracic hemorrhagic shock-- basically a severe liver bleed that couldn't be operated on to save her unless her BP raised above 65.  We watched all day and it never went above 49.  My siblings and I had to give the okay to cut the meds keeping her swollen and not getting better.  Within 15 minutes, she had slipped away.  A loss is a literal thing that takes on a surreal horror quality.  In reality, sudden black holes tear open in front of you and you fall in flailing.  Disbelief, anger, shock, grief, it's a joke, right?  Signing death certificates, cremation permissions, ah, but none of it seemed real even though I was there through it all.

I had stopped exercising for a full week after that.  I forced myself to eat which was hard at first because my body stopped giving normal signals for tired or hungry or living.  But come next Monday, I remembered my mother's pride at my fitness improvements and I got back to it.  However, I had an appetite again, so I threw away counting calories and started writing and drawing again.  It's a generic sentiment to say 'my mother would have wanted this.'  I don't know that.  Even when she was alive, I was never positive about things like that.  While it motivates me thinking she would be proud (she was always proud of me), I couldn't go back with a mentality that wasn't about how it benefited me, first and foremost.

It will take me a bit, updating my records on here and such.  I've been keeping them on cards still so it's a matter of transferring it electronically.  I had gotten up to 180 on my weigh-in, but after one week of resuming calorie counting, I dropped back to 178.  Even on a shitty comfort eating streak, it was maintenance mode and I am relieved I didn't sabotage my weight. The last thing I needed was guilt or sadness with so much else weighing me down.  Oh, fuck you, pun.  I see you there.

In any case, I finish up this second round of P90X3 and I'm going to do the PiYo challenge next.  When the boys are out of school, I'm scooting to the original P90X to kick my ass.  It's a schedule that will fill my daily workouts up until school starts again and I'll probably just revert back to P90X3 if I'm still aiming for weight loss.  Rinse, repeat.

I imagine grief is going to keep ripping holes in my reality, but damn it, mom, I'm still doing it.  And every time I don't get to tell you about a milestone, I'm going to talk to myself in the mirror where I can still see parts of you in my face, probably ugly crying and laughing at the same time.  And fuck, I'm really going to miss doing yoga with your dog.  Why the fuck is grief so stupid?