The Inability to Say No and the Return to Gumption

I’ve noticed something I find interesting, my morning rants are less of a rambled mess and have a pattern of an overlaying meaning embedded inside. I’m not sure if that means that these are more successful or less. I am tired. I have 4 days until a blissful rest, but I feel that looking ahead to much is not a good pattern for me. This is a circle I continuously get caught in as I get involved with something, feel overwhelmed, and look for its end. Really not the healthiest way to live, but I feel like I’m not a lone in this, in fact I see it daily on the faces of people I interact with. It seems life is passing me by but time goes to fast, my days weeks and months have all speedily sped past me. Few things really make me realize how quick everything is going, because usually I am right along piling things on my plate.

I feel like the kid in line at the cafeteria who says more please, and instead of getting a little more, the tray is so full I can barely manage to carry it. Sometimes I wonder if people really know how much is going on for me when they ask me to do something else, because I have this awful tendency of not being able to say no. I think it must be hereditary, or a trait I learned too well.

Anyway, now, as I have embarked on my own and have my own family unit, now I cannot say no. I think it drives Ryan nuts, and somehow he puts up with all of the nonsense that me saying yes to doing everything accomplishes. Last summer after all my classes, I was beat, worse than beat, I was a limp scraggly noodle, like the one that gets over cooked and is sad and pretty gross on the bottom of the pan. Well Ryan is a genius and knows me and my own sad little ambitions all too well, he made me take fall semester off. I benefited hugely from the escape and was so bored with all the new found time I had that I was and still am super thrilled to be back and at it again.

School excites me, and for those it doesn’t I don’t think they have given the whole learning process a fair shot. Although, I hate when papers are left for me to read because someone thinks I will benefit from the information. I like choosing what I read, and almost take people reading things to me as a threat of war. I guess it is just all in how they approach the topic and convince me that they are sharing whatever they are sharing because they are educated on it, or because they are genuinely just sharing. When people share things because they think I need to hear it I typically plug my ears and feel infuriated that they think they know what I need better than I do? It is pretty silly, but I remember countless experiences where my mom would pick out articles and make me read them, and I was severely scarred from the experience.

Just yesterday she left something on our kitchen table quite near to Ryan’s Mac, and I read it happily when I saw it, thinking perhaps Ryan had printed it out. After I read it, I realized it was too cutesy for Ryan’s taste and that I knew my mom was dropping by to pick something up, and so the gears began to turn and an intense feeling of trickery and mischief leaped through me. She had left it for me to read. The feeling grew until I was sure of it and then felt beguiled, but I would not know for sure until Ryan told me, and so I waited and while I waited I played a slew of ridiculous messages explaining to me the fastest way to get out of my neighborhood to somewhere else. I just started laughing, how ridiculous could this be? And who would suppose I needed any instruction? Ah yes the ludicrousness was overwhelming, but instead of getting mad, I just laughed and kept laughing, Ryan opened the door to my giggling and was quite confused, and I wasn’t done, there were still 3-4 more messages, starting out “Angie I was wrong, you do this”. I got a pretty big kick out of it, as I felt my free will being stripped of me and my resiliency to take another route fortified.

We hiked Ensign Peak a very small jaunt, and not at all a big hike, but I have discovered something. I have sad little feet that are not strong and are too used to small activity as opposed to hiking; small activity being walking on sidewalk, as opposed to a trail on a mountain. Poor little feet, they are still not very happy with me, but they will get stronger. Other good news, my legs have muscle! Its pretty exciting for me and I am still at a quandary as to how to get upper body strength. Ryan says since I can’t do any pushups, that I should do a pushup a day for a week and then two, and so on. He’s been suggesting this for months but I always find some excuse or other, but I think after writing this, it proves it has been on my mind and therefore I should try.

So, if I can get lower body strength, I am sure that somehow, and with lots of work, I can get upper. I am kind of scared to tax my body too heavily, but that is part of the reason to get into shape. I found out that appearances are far from accurate and that I have a higher risk for certain diseases because of the lack of exercise in my life.

We got the Wii fit, but I need to have the resolve to use it daily, which at this point, from a lack of time, I seem to not have. Well here goes gumption and hoping something comes from it.