Ouch

October 1, 2008..... "so with all the thoughts and feeling going through my head and all the changes in my life in past few weeks, I have desperately needed an outlet. Three weeks ago I was in the middle of training for a half marathon when I had to stop because of a knee injury. I had been training, almost daily, since June and was up to 7 miles when I hurt my knee. When you are running that much, a sudden stop feels like running full force into a brick wall. My mood changed, my attitude changed, I was exhausted, depressed and frustrated. I was disappointed in myself and knew I would be letting a lot of people down if I did not complete this marathon.

After two weeks of being off of my knee it finally started feeling better. And then I got sick. Again, no running when you are sick. At this point I had gone 2.5 weeks without running at all. I can't even begin to tell you the mind games that go on in your head when you have trained so long, have SO much personal energy and determination vested in something and then BAM.... it's taken away from you for reasons beyond your control. I didn't ask for a knee injury, I didn't ask to get sick. I didn't ask to stop running. I couldn't. And I hated myself for it."

In late spring of 2008, about a year after I had lost my husband to cancer, I decided to go to nursing school. This was a HUGE decision for me, one that I knew would take comitment, hard work and dedication. I was notorious for getting grand ideas and not following through with them. One of the things Michael told me before he passed was that he wanted me to find something in life that I loved and that meant something to me and most importantly... to stick with it, even if it got hard. I knew going to nursing school was that big thing. I wanted to have a short term goal before I started school so that I could prove to myself that I could set, follow through and accomplish something out of my comfort zone. I chose to run a 1/2 marathon. When I decided to do this I couldnt even run a mile. My journey through nursing school has so much paralleled the training I did for that 1/2 marathon. Today I find myself in the same place, mentally, as I was 3 years ago.

The day that I hurt my knee training, I knew something wasn't right. I was in pain, I wasn't keeping my normal pace and kept hearing a "crunching" noise. I decided to run through the pain, ignoring the warning signs that I needed to slow down and take a break. I knew I was pushing myself, but that was part of the "plan" to get my goal accomplished. About the third week of January this year, 3 weeks into the quarter, that same feeling came back to me while I was in school. I was tired, getting headaches, becoming more irritable and easily frustrated. In my head though I was telling myself, "Suck it up, power through". As the weeks progressed the headaches got worse, tired turned to exhausted, and everyday happiness turned to feelings of bitterness about almost everything. Thank God I had my husband and my son to keep me grounded, but eventually even those two couldnt save me from what was happening in my head.

It's hard to admit when symptoms like fatigue, irritation, apathy, anger and bitterness become a part of your everyday life. I had the notion that I just needed to put on my happy face, keep those feeling in my own head and get over it. I am enormously blessed. I know this. I have an amazing husband and a beautiful son who are happy and healthy, we have jobs and own a home. I also knew that something wasn't quite right when I could visibly see those blessings and still feel so hopeless inside. Within the last few weeks, my feelings could no longer be surpressed and they surfaced in the form of tears. Almost everyday tears the last few weeks. I didn't want to do anything. I stopped caring about school, but kept studying (clearly not retaining much). All I wanted to do was sleep. My frustration level was out of control and the thoughts and expectations I had of myself were irrational and unrealistic. My self-esteem was shot. I honestly have felt the last few months like I have been running this never ending marathon in my head and today I finally "hit the wall".

Failing this quarter was certainly not in my plan. Neither was injuring my knee. Like that marathon training, I have so much personal time and energy that I have thrown into school and today it was taken away from me. BAM. Like the forced break in training, I am forced to take a break from school. I thought I had prepared myself for this possibility but today after seeing that "F" on my grade post, it hit me hard. And it hurt, a lot.

Without the option of going back to school right away, I am realizing I have a lot to work through in my life now. I have been going and doing for so long that I have forgotten to taken care of me and the things and people that matter most in my life. Facing a state that could certainly be catergorized as "depression", I have to know that hitting this wall happened for a reason. It's my forced rest period and as painful and disappointing as it is for me, I have to accept it.