When to Say When: Finding Balance

I go to the chiropractor every two weeks--I have the appointments scheduled out into infinity--and I really believe it's the reason I can do the things I do. The huge scary knot in my neck is finally gone (most of the time)--what we (including physical therapists and several massage therapists) thought was knotted muscle was, in fact, my cervical spine. It was the massage therapist I've known the longest--the one who's in her 70's--who finally said, concerned, "Ricë, this doesn't feel like muscle. It feels like bone." Which set me in the right direction.

Anyway--that's not what this is about. This is about balance. I go to this guy every two weeks, and when something else goes wonky, I take his advice. The EGE goes with me, and they talk chiropractor-to-coach--he tells The EGE what I need to do, and The EGE asks questions about form and repetition so that, when I get home and can't remember if I'm supposed to do it this way or this way or maybe THIS way, he can go, "No, you're supposed to do it this way," and then can demonstrate.

So in addition to the walking I do every day (except when it's hideous outside; I'm no fool), I do neck exercises and yoga every night (except when I don't have time. Sigh), and  crunches and leg raises every day (pretty much), and three days a week I do these resistance things with bands for my shoulders and back.

Good grief. I got to figuring out it, and I'm spending a couple hours a day doing this stuff. Now, I love the walking--I've been walking ever since I had to quit running. And I love the yoga, although it does get boring, doing the series of things I need to do for flexibility. And the crunches aren't bad. But the arm things just irritate me, in part because they have to be counted, and as you know, I avoid things that have to be counted. Plus they hurt my shoulders and elbows. In fact, my shoulders and elbows just hurt. The shoulders wake me up in the middle of the night if I sleep on them, and my elbows are painful to the touch. I told the chiropractor this, and he asked a bunch of questions and poked around and basically told me what he always tells me: 1) You're getting old and 2) here are some more exercises.

So I sighed and came home and, grudgingly this time, tried them. I'm such a dork. I take my vitamins and do whatever exercises I'm supposed to and eat so strictly and blah, blah, blah. So of course I did the exercises.

And they hurt my neck. And then I realized:  it can go on like this forever, more and more exercises for more and more things going wrong or changing as I get older. At some point, I'll be spending more time doing exercises than I will just living my life. I'll be in there with bands, counting reps, over and over and over. And for what? I realized that the shoulders and elbows started bothering me right about the time I started working out at the gym, doing seated rows on the machine. So it's possible that the reason they hurt is because of the exercises, not in spite of them.

So I resolved to stop. Maybe not forever, but for 4-6 weeks, just to see. I told the chiropractor this yesterday. He was not impressed. He didn't argue with me--he's a smart guy that way--but he did tell me that I've got to do something to help prevent osteoporosis. "Because of your build," is the way he puts it. Skinny, bony, long, thin white woman, pretty much. And walking isn't it. Nor yoga. I need resistance, he says. His warnings were dire.

The dude freaked me out, is what he did.

I came home and dutifully looked online for "osteoporosis prevention," and the site I found first seems to say walking is good, which is not his take on it at all. I have more checking to do, but I also have some choices.

How much time am I willing to spend taking care of myself for later, a later that isn't guaranteed and may never arrive, vs. actual living right now, which includes not just the amount of time spent doing the exercises but also the resultant pain? I don't know. I really don't. I'm a firm believer in taking care of myself now so I won't suffer later, but I don't want to waste all my Now on some unguaranteed Later.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately, about balance in all areas of my life. It's been a really busy couple of months, and I've realized that I'm doing a ton of stuff that maybe isn't where I should be putting my energy. There are things I do that I'm paid to do that I love to do, but there are other things that I'm not paid to do that aren't that great and that help other people WAY more than they help me, and I've got to think about whether or not that's what I want to do with the extra hours that I have. I like to do those things--that's not it. I love to be productive--I was trained since birth to work hard and have something to show for how I spend my day. For years I believed that, because I work at home, I should have a list of what I've accomplished to relate to The EGE when he comes home and asks what I did that day. I finally realized that he's not asking in order for me to justify my existence; he's asking to make conversation, because he likes to hear what I'm up to. If I told him I lay in the hammock all day and read a novel, he'd say, "Great. Was it good?"

I've always thought that I should work all day long, even if I don't have a full-time job, and even if I'm not getting paid a full-time salary. That's how I justify being alive:  by working. You've heard me talk about this before, and I'm sure I'll talk about it again. I have no solution here, no big revelation. I haven't figured it out, but it feels like I'm closer to finding balance.

This weekend everyone we know, pretty much, is in Houston at Adorn Me! (the "!" goes with the title). We'd love to be there, and we could have been making new contacts and finding new artists and taking photographs and video. I could have gotten us there for around $1000 for 3-4 days. And then I had to stop and accept that while it would be fun for us, it wouldn't be $1000 worth of fun. And the stuff I'd do--the photos and the videos and the making contacts--all of that would benefit other people way more than it would me. Oh, sure--I love meeting new people and seeing new work, and I love the rush of new ideas. But it doesn't pay the bills, me going out and talking to people. The things I do that pay the bills are things I do sitting here in front of my computer. And unlike the people I'd be talking to--the artists and teachers working there--I don't make money when I travel. They teach, they get paid. I go and do all this stuff, but I have to pay to do it. After adding up the miles (19,584) we traveled and money I spent (A Ton) going to art retreats and book signings last year, I'm really having to think about balancing that out with other things. I can't keep doing things that 1) involve lots of work but 2) cost me money rather than make me money. It's kind of foolish, in fact.

And, uh, also financially impossible. You know?

So: balance. The things I'd love to do, and the things it makes sense to do. The time I'm willing to spend preparing for the future and the time I'm actually living Right Now. Man, this balance thing is complicated, isn't it? You get on a track and start following it, nose down, like a scent hound, and you're going at a good clip, getting a lot of hits, and you look up and realize you're far, far away from where you thought you'd be, and you've passed a lot of fabulous scenery that you never saw, with your nose down like that. You've spent 2 hours a day at the gym listening to the sweaty guys making those hideous, quasi-orgasmic noises, and you've missed the sunshine and first leaves of spring and summer afternoons lying in the hammock. Maybe your spine will be straighter in 20 years because of those hours at the gym, but what have you sacrificed to get there?

I tried out my new ideas about balance yesterday. The EGE got out of school at noon, which he swore he'd told me about the night before but which came as a complete surprise to me, and he picked up cupcakes and coffee on the way home. I'd like to tell you I met him at the front door with a hug and a big kiss, but what I did was have a little temper tantrum, kind of stomping around and gritching. It's so hard for me to turn loose of what I think I Should Be Doing, to just let it go. But finally I did--finally I turned off the Today Is a Work Day, So I Must Work part of my brain, and we spent the entire afternoon Not Working. A Thursday! Not working!

Whoa.

It was fabulous (brand new cell phones all around!), and this morning I told him we've got to figure out ways to do this more often (well, not the Shopping for Cell Phones part). Sure, it's tough--he subs every day, working on requests from teachers who call him even if we're out of town (we're in the Cafe du Monde having coffee last November, and he's on the phone explaining why he can't do art classes that afternoon)--and I have things I need to do. But the rewards are sooo worth it:  a sense that life is full of other possibilities, just below the surface. The sense that, if you look up and quit sniffing the track on the ground, there are things right in front of you that you hadn't even noticed.