The Me I'm Not

Inside of me is someone I'm not. She is very active, being especially fond of jogging, bicycle riding and rock climbing. She is cheerful and enthusiastic, curious and outgoing, energetic and optimistic. She is not depressed, nor is she manic. In fact, she doesn't really understand the whole depression thing. When she looks in the mirror, she can't figure out who the overweight, middle-aged, out of shape, depressed loser is that stares back at her.

How do I reconcile these vastly different desires? Is there a compromise? Even if I had the energy, how do I overcome the rest of the barriers, especially the physical ones?

I have a million and one excuses for not listening to that me that I'm not. And while I recognize that they are excuses, nonetheless I don't know how to overcome them.

My #1 excuse for not bike riding: I don't have a bike and I wouldn't be caught dead on Kid-2's bike. (Pretty good reason, there.)

My excuse for not rock climbing is pretty solid, too. No place, no money, no skill, no strength and bad knees.

Jogging is a bit more complicated. Yes, I have bad knees and jogging isn't exactly the best activity to do with bad knees. But that's not what fazes me. There are two main barriers (apart from the energy/motivation/depression stuff that applies to everything in my life *sigh*). The first is where? I don't want to jog in the neighborhood - not with this body! HUMILIATION!!

The other is time. Even if I found a place where I could jog without embarrassing myself beyond recovery, and I could afford to go there, when would I do it? Right now it's all kids all day every day. Once school starts, I'll have about six weeks of mornings free until Baby-Mommy gets rid of Baby-Mommy's-Boyfriend. At that point, I will have Baby from 7:30 in the morning until 8 at night Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and sporadically on Saturdays. Come October 26, it's all me all the time for our household. So when, exactly, am I supposed to do this???

So, for the foreseeable future, the me that I'm not will have to keep looking out through the eyes of the me that I am and live her adventures in her imagination. She is none too pleased with it, but c'est la vie......