The gloomy return of the mid-life panic!

I finally dug myself out of the 'poor me' attitude this evening long enough to go for a 20 minute walk before blogging. On my walk I realised that the mid-life-impending-doom-fear-of-death-and-mortality crisis had snuck it's way back inside my brain.

I was walking in fear. In fear of a heart attack (yes I have risk factors), in fear of leaving my children behind, in fear of not having left them with a true legacy of 'me'.  I find it hard to even type those words, so strong is the gripping emotion.  This was the kind of emotional turmoil that had taken hold of me (at times) prior to the great Bruce Springsteen catharsis in March. Listening to Bruce evaporated my fears, galvanised my resolve and until the past few weeks, I have not looked back, particularly in terms of physical fitness and responsibility for my physical well-being.

I've struggled emotionally and with time since my Dad went back into the nursing home. The idea that he would pass at any moment was difficult to accept, as was the about-face of realising that the doom and gloom predictions were again a little overenthusiastic.  At the moment Dad is quite stable, if chronically unwell.

I think that the single most important factor to all the 'energy organising' that I do is to ensure that I have 1. nurtured my physical self so that I am a fully functioning capable human and 2. developed or maintained or discovered? a sense of 'me' so that I know whatever the future holds, that my children know 'me', they are not seeing only a shadow of the whole person.

I am fairly sure at the moment I'm very shadow like. I think this is what has been bugging me for a while. Part of the solution I know from previous experience is to focus in on the single important thing, and allow all other things to fall as they will after that.  It seems to be effective. It is certainly a message I would like my children to remember -that their Mum instilled in them a sense of exercise for well-being, as well as living by that example.

I need to be considerably more active to be a poster child for health and exercise, but today I am satisfied that I at least had a go. I walked from the mechanics to playgroup, to the bus stop and back this afternoon (about 1.6 kms round trip) and then for another 20 minutes walk tonight. I took every opportunity this day offered to be more active.

On the subject of the authentic self that I feel I am not honouring, particularly in relation to my children, I found this article interesting.  It never occurred to me to make a list of the things I like about me, and at the moment, I think our family could benefit from one of those sticky wall projects where each person's name is given a describing word around it.  This isn't what the article is about, it is quite different, but for someone who is extrinsically motivated it always pays to keep an eye on the kind things that others who love me are saying about me!

Right now my mind is a bit of a puddle, I had so many more coherent thoughts but the fingers will not keep up, and the mind is interrupted with housework.