It occurred to me today that while it's embarrassing to walk around my office in my dorky-looking running gear (I do this as little as possible; I change in the restroom, drop my stuff at my desk and FLEE out the door to go run, then return to my desk, grab my bag as quickly as possible, book it to the tiny shower room to wash and change), I am grateful to have midday runs as an option. To make it work with my hourly schedule for my fulltime day job, I bring my lunches to work (Whole30 batch cooking, yay) and eat at my desk, then during my lunch "break" I go for my runs on the trail behind the building. The benefit of having the trail, and a private shower, is a huge plus for me when there's no other time I could build this in.
Tonight my mom and younger brother return from a trip to Disneyland. They live in the house where I grew up, about 20 minutes from my apartment. While they were out of town, my mom had asked me to look after her four cats and bring in the mail...and when she asked me my blood pressure skyrocketed. Not because it was an out-of-line request (I've watched her animals dozens of times), but because when you have so little free time, a small task can eat up almost all of it.
To put this in perspective, my days this week have included:
- Checking on mom's house/ cats in the morning
- Work
- Running training
- More work
- Rehearsal
It doesn't sound like *too* much, unless you factor in the commute times. It's a 15-20 minute drive to my mom's house from mine in the morning, depending on traffic. Work is a half hour in the opposite direction, so I tacked more time onto my morning commute. Thank goodness I don't have to travel anywhere in order to get my exercise in. Commuting to rehearsal involves picking up my bf at the lightrail station (his car is out of commission at the moment) and then driving another half hour down to Gilroy for rehearsal. We typically get out of there about 9:30PM and it takes almost an hour to drive home (and that's if we don't have to stop anywhere on the way.)
It would be very, very easy for me to get overwhelmed, throw my hands in the air and say "fuck it" and cut the workout and Whole30 out of my plans for the day since they take up way too much additional time and are a pain in the ass to manage. But in this (increasingly) batshit crazy world I inhabit, my workouts and my eating are two of the (minute) few things I control. So I want to take control, and I want to take ownership, and I want to take care of myself. So I schedule.
I batch-cook my meals, which isn't glamorous and involves me eating almost all my meals out of 10-year-old plastic dishware that I think came with lunchmeat a lifetime ago. I pack my running bag, including shower essentials, the night before so I don't have the "I'm in a rush" excuse in the morning. Having the running training apps with the built-in calendars helps immensely, not only to see progress but to help plan for specific events like the Turkey Trot and Fairy Tale Challenge.
Today I got an email from my cousin (a friend and fellow theatre/ film enthusiast, with whom I'm working on a series of short films called Moments in Shakespeare). He was distributing information about an upcoming shoot we're doing, for a scene from Two Gentlemen of Verona, and thank goodness he was flexible with my schedule because I literally have at least one thing in my calendar, every day, from now until mid-November (and a pretty full slate after that, as well). It'll also be Day 1 of my next Whole25 (following the one-day break I'm taking after my current Whole30 - my friend's birthday celebration involves visiting several dairies a couple hours' north of us and I'll be damned if I'm visiting cows and buffalos and NOT sampling cheese).
I also nearly cried when I saw the preliminary schedule for The Laramie Project, which the stage manager sent us in the middle of last week. Rehearsals begin while Inspecting Carol is still in performances, which means I'll be going from Saturday evening shows in Gilroy to Sunday blocking rehearsals in Palo Alto (which can be 6-8 hours long!). I love rehearsal, and blocking, and all that theatre nerdy shit. I couldn't figure out why I was so anxious and frustrated and I believe it was because the scheduling didn't "work out" perfectly on its own. It needed finagling and work (from me). Sometimes I have conflicts. Sometimes I'm double-booked and have to cancel one thing over the other.
Sometimes I don't get the day off I want, to lounge around in my underwear and drink Tejava and read comic books with my cats. Sometimes those days are filled with rehearsals or extra work. Sometimes I have to spend those days buying groceries, and cooking a week's worth of chicken and vegetables.
It'll be in flux for a while (and with the holidays approaching I recognize that my anxiety's going to be more kinetic than usual.) After The Laramie Project closes, I'll have a week off, then several days in Florida including the 10K and half marathon, then the literal day after the half (and my mom's birthday!) is our projected start date for rehearsals for Distracted.
Oh, I may have forgotten to mention Distracted. I'm excited and seriously stunned to have landed the role of Mama, and at a company where I haven't worked before to boot. I imagine it'll be especially challenging going from one deep dark emotional place with Laramie to a completely different (but still heartbreaking) one with Distracted. That runs through the beginning of May.
Lots and lots and lots of things. Scheduling (and having one calendar to which I refer) helps me immensely.
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