Home(s) Away From Home

I haven't written in quite a while, but life has been pretty busy in the last few weeks. I turned 31, moved out of my apartment in DC (back home to Roanoke), worked a week of 14 hour days, and I've been in Kansas City for work for the last week. I still have another week out here, but so far everything has gone well (knock on wood) and I'm actually not feeling stressed out for the first time in weeks.

The cool part of my job is that I get to travel for work occasionally. Not so much that I ever feel like I'm perpetually living out of a suitcase, but enough so that it keeps life exciting. In the last three years I've been to Atlanta, Cincinnati, Ft. Lauderdale (twice), Charleston, Richmond, Dallas, Cary (NC), and now Kansas City. It's likely that I'll continue to travel between 2-4 times/year if I stay in this position and while that means time away from my home gym, it won't always mean time away from CrossFit. The CrossFit community is vast and welcoming and you can usually find at least one box to visit in most major cities. 

This week (and last) my box home has been CrossFit Northland.

I was really excited when my Google search - the first thing i did when learned the training location - turned up with a box less than a mile away, literally right across the highway from my hotel. I was even more excited that they agreed to work out a pro-rated membership deal with me so I could train with them for the two weeks I would be in town. Hotels these days have nice enough gyms, but if you want more than a treadmill and dumbells, it's nice to have a box close by.

I'd previously spent time at CrossFit RVA in Richmond and CrossFit Deep Ellum in Dallas while on travel and had great experiences at both. In addition to joining District CrossFit I've dropped in at a few other DC area boxes so I've gotten used to being the new girl in a "strange" box. Even coming back home to Brickhouse there are always those first few minutes of awkwardness and uncertainty - Where do I put my stuff? Where can I mobilize? Where's the bathroom? Are the girl bars 22s, 33s, or 35s...and where are they? Do you use clips for strength work? For the most part you can observe the locals and pick up on the customs, but I've also found that at least one person, usually more, will recognize the new face in the room who looks a little bewildered and out of place, introduce themselves, and take you under their wing for the hour. If you've never been that person to a drop-in at your box, you should be.

I also enjoy visiting new boxes because even though CrossFit is pretty standard and universal, every box has a little bit different approach. Every coach you encounter has a different style and explains things in their own way. Just like with any kind of learning environment, when you expose yourself to different methodologies you increase your chances of deepening your understanding of the subject. One cue or drill that you haven't gotten or done before could cause something you've struggled with for months to finally click. 

CFN recently started an Olympic Weightlifting class that I attended the last two Tuesdays. Since the class is new it was really a back-to-basics experience and relearning some of those initial basics really helped to strengthen my lifts. Just changing my set-up and focusing on a few specific things got me really close to a PR snatch last night and made all my preceding attempts feel much more solid and consistent. I honestly haven't felt that good about my lifts in a long time. 

Bottom line, if you get the chance when you travel, make it a point to visit a local box. Sure, in those first few moments I may feel a little "first day in a new school" tentativeness, but I know that these people are my brothers and sisters and that we've all struggled through Fran and that the same hate-fire for burpees burns equally hot in their hearts as it does in mine. I've been lucky to find places away from home that feel as comfortable as my own box and I believe that any opportunity you get to make new friends, learn new things, and test your courage in a new situation is a worthwhile endeavor, in my humble opinion. 

Shout-out to the coaches and athletes at CrossFit Northland. Thanks for being awesome and friendly and letting me crash the last two weeks. Definitely check them out if you're ever boxless in Kansas City. www.crossfitnorthland.com  

 

Controlling Change

Historically, big changes and chaotic situations have not been my most shining moments. Some people live for a crisis and thrive in the world of clutter and disorganization. I tend to go into a stress spiral and my life becomes a mess.

Probably one of the worst and most frustrating times in my life was the spring semester of my (first) senior year in college. I was living in my own apartment that year and I went home for Christmas. I had a day, maybe two back at school before I left to go to Ireland with the marching band for the New Year. I had decorated for Christmas and came back with all my gifts and didn't really have time to put anything away. I did my laundry, repacked, made sure I had my passport and all those other really important things one needs when going overseas for a week. Ireland was fine but involved a lot of walking and I was only about 2 years post accident at this point, so it also involved a lot of pain, which was frustrating because we went to Ireland to march in a parade that I wasn't able to march in. (I kinda hate parades, but that's beside the point.)

We got back from Ireland a day or two before the semester started, so barely enough time to get life situated again and get my books and supplies for my classes. The Christmas tree was still up. My presents were still stacked in the living room. 

That semester was tough for a lot of reasons. I was chosen as president of my fraternity and had a lot of changes to make and drama to deal with. It was also when I started my education classes and preschool practicum. It was a lot for me to handle, and even though I was 3 years older than my peers, I quickly got overwhelmed. I was sleeping all the time, was in pain all the time, was struggling to meet deadlines, feeling like I was terrible as a teacher, and having mild panic attacks every time I had to speak in class or in meetings. I ate horribly and a lot. Sometimes to the point I thought I might throw up. I cried a lot. It's my go-to response when life becomes too much. The Christmas tree stayed up until April.

I've heard, probably on an HBO Lifestories: Families in Crisis, that people with eating disorders, particularly anorexia, often resort to disordered eating as a way to exact control over a life they feel they can't control. I tend to throw up my hands and surrender to the chaos, finding it impossible and futile to try to cling to anything if I can't hold on to everything. There's no use juggling if you only have one ball in the air, right? Then you just look like a pathetic clown who doesn't quite have her act together.

I'm realizing now, as strange as it sounds, that it would be much better if I acted more like an anorexic. I mean that in the sense that my health is, and has to be, the one thing I exact control over...especially when everything else is a mess. Like big changes at work, stressful workloads, new responsibilities, moving. I can't use stress as an excuse to give up.

I also found that life is much more manageable if you can find a way to force it to make sense. When I took over my new duties at work it was like I suddenly became the most popular girl in school over night (a la Teen Witch minus the magic powers). My email inbox that I'd prided myself on keeping well ordered and organized was a disaster and looked as if it were hemorrhaging. My clever system to color code action items in red became useless and daunting when the entire inbox was red. 

Even though I'm normally a proponent of moving the office into the digital age and reducing our paper usage, sometimes the meat of what someone needs gets lost in the abyss of an inbox full of lengthy emails. I pulled out a notebook and made a To-Do list of all my action items and was able to reduce 3 weeks worth of emails down to about 30 that needed my attention. I was able to group several like tasks into one line on the list - Scan Minutes - Save VISN reports. Much more manageable than staring down 30 emails with their attachments, wondering where to start. After a week I'm almost all caught up even though my list ultimately stretched onto a second page.

I'm not really one to buy into cliché sayings (as much as everyone loves them, Eleanor Roosevelt quotes kinda make me dry heave) but as I've been trying to work through the stress of the last few weeks I keep coming back to the Serenity Prayer. To really be in control I guess I actually need to think more like an anorexic alcoholic. I need to be at peace with the things in life I can't control and be courageous enough to take control of the things I can change. I need to recognize the difference between the two and focus my energy on those things that will be the most beneficial.

I wrote before about having one thing to change at a time. Mastering that one thing and moving on to the next. Chipping away at the big One Thing (improving my health) one little thing at a time. I am in control of that change. I'm the only one that can be in control so if I'm not driving that train there's no one else to take over. I've caused a derailment too many times to not know this to be a certainty.