the trick is to keep breathing

well, it's 11 January; I've mourned 2017; I've tentatively dipped a few toes into the water of 2018; and I have a plan.

I've set some goals for myself: I have some that will be goals for the year, but with all of the shit going on right now, I've decided to run my life like I ran the pilot plant: quarterly goals, evaluation, and adjustment of said goals, with monthly check-ins.

I had a great set of plans for January, but then we decided to get fucking married and now I really need to reevaluate larger goals in that light. The wedding is 14 April, which means that - even though we are going for the most informal wedding ever - we still need to get information out to people who need to travel as soon as possible.

As I am a nerd who loves symbolism, I have decided that the theme of this year is 5H: Home, Health, Hobbies, Habits, and [some H word that really means Vocation] (i haven't picked the last one so I am open to suggestions):
- Home means the continuation of reclaiming my house from the Black Hole disaster, and working towards floor replacement, kitchen remodel, new bedroom set, basement setup, and porch renovation.
- Health means continuing work to get control of my fibro, eat better and drink less, add exercise back into my routine, and lose weight.
- Hobbies means creating spaces in my time where I can pursue my creative (and noncreative) hobbies: writing, doodling, knitting, gaming, anything else I decide to pursue; it means giving them priority space in my schedule.
- Habits means consistency. I need to build it. It means finding what works. My word for 2018 will probably be sustainability because that's the core of what I need to figure out.
- Vocation (or whatever word) means finding satisfaction in my work; figuring out what it is about this kind of work that I love doing, figuring out if this new position can become something fulfilling or if it is, after 13 years, time to move on from this company.

So let's have a minute or two and talk about what I want to establish the beginning of this year, and some of the yearly goals overall...

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( and i'm good at being uncomfortable )

As for resolutions, those seem bigger and broader, so after reflection those need to be in a different post. One thing I can say is that I am devoting these first three months of work in the honor of:

• Emma Swan
• Avatar Korra
• Carrie Fisher / General Princess Leia

yes, i'm an old, but may these badasses guide me through the beginning of this year.

I've been doing moderately better at getting my workouts in. I say 'moderately' because I've been hampered by my neck -- I've had the stabbing can't-turn-my-head type of pain on and off but more or less consistently for the last 6 weeks. Some days my neck will move and it's just pain, maybe a 4 on the pain scale; other days it locks up and I can't look over my shoulder or touch my ear to my shoulder, and that's somewhere like an 8 or 9. It's easy for me to ignore lower levels of pain - I haven't had a pain-free day in at least seven years - but this is severe and hampering enough that I'm finally taking steps to get it looked at. My chiropractor says it's a pinched nerve. My doctor gets to weigh in this afternoon. More on that later; the point is, I've been fighting whatever this injury/malady is, and many days, I don't feel right doing any kind of full workout when I'm in that much pain.

The real point of this post is that I'm thinking of switching gyms.

Right now I'm a member of RPFitness and I don't really have any problems with it. It's a very nice gym. The equipment is well-kept, it's rarely too crowded to do what you want to do, and it's about $38/month. They offer some classes for free (yoga, some body pump type classes, spinning), and some you have to pay for (the "FIT" classes, which are kind of like 30 minutes of BodyRock with a trainer), but with my schedule my ability to attend classes is limited. Right now I only visit once, maybe twice a week, to use their weight machines, freeweights, and other equipment, because I'm running outside so much. I've already been considering alternatives, because $38/month is only a dollar a day from one point of view, but if I only go 4-8 times a month, isn't there some other way I can do those exercises and not pay for it? You know?

The new gym that I'm looking at is $53/month, but it has a pool. Recently, for whatever reason, I've really been missing swimming. I was a state-level varsity swimmer for all four years in high school, and I taught swim lessons during the summers I was a lifeguard to help put myself through school. I love swimming, I always have, and as I get older and these fucking injuries get worse and worse, I've started thinking about it more and more. I may have come to terms with what running does for my body but that doesn't mean I like it. At all. And I won't know until I try, but since swimming is a known quantity, a known positive, I feel like I'd be more likely to stick with a workout routine that incorporated swimming than I have been with running - I can train for races, but I've proven that left to my own devices I rarely run (until I start feeling gross). Consistency has always been my problem and it's stupid to assume that will just go away with a simple switch, but at the same time, if it's something I enjoy more, I should be less likely to skip it.

So for $15/month more I would have everything I have now, plus access to a track, plus access to a pool. And a hot tub and sauna.

In September I'll be done with my race commitments, and I have really been thinking about putting running on the back burner and trying three months of using swimming as my cardio. I called RPFitness, and I can actually "suspend" my account for up to three months - I won't use their gym and won't pay for a three-month period, but if I decide to go back, I can do so without having to pay their initiation/enrollment fee again since my account was suspended rather than cancelled.

Of course, to join the other gym I will have to pay an enrollment fee, which is... usually it's something like $275 which is ha ha ha no, but right now they're running a deal until the end of August, and the fee is very highly discounted. So on one hand right now seems like a great time to try it out - I can suspend my RPF membership, pay a lower fee, try the other gym out for 3 months, and make a decision in November.

On the other hand: I have to do it before the end of August, and the Akron Marathon Relay we always run is at the end of September, so in September I'll still be heavily running because I'll be training for the race. Also, even the discounted enrollment fee is still a lot of money and I won't get that back, whether I stick with the new gym or return to the old: it's lost on the chance that I'll like this gym better. Even though I have a good job and solid savings, poor!Sev still lives in my backbrain, and I don't like just throwing money around simply because I have it available.

( Pros and Cons because I love lists )


So that's what I'm musing on today.