Today's Confession: I Don't Know the Difference Between Being Lazy and Being Sick

It’s been a few days of relatively serious confessions, but I shan't spare you without mentioning last night, which included such momentous events as: curling up into a ball on the bed, unsuccessfully trying to find a diamond earring, and spilling a cup of near-boiling tea on my lap and our gorgeous hardwood floors. (To make matters worse, it was Marco Polo from the renowned Mariage Freres tea company.)

(Really Big, Mr.-Movie-Announcer Voice): It was the night FROM HELL.

Cancer is exhausting. I know what you’re thinking – thank you, Captain Obvious – but I have what I refer to as “the wimp of all cancers.” I’m not diminishing the difficulty of cancer or thyroid disease, but ThyCans (thyroid cancer patients) don’t have to undergo the extensive treatments endured by patients of other cancers. It doesn’t typically metastasize (spread far), the survival rate is high, and doctors will tell you, “If you’re going to have cancer, this is the best one to have.” (Har, har.)

However, it is still tremendously difficult; partly because it’s cancer, and partly because you have to deal with surgery, radioactive iodine therapy, AND being completely hypothyroid. I‘ve been sub-clinically hypothyroid for over 7 years, so I’ve dealt with fatigue. Through it, I worked while going to school, doing triathlons and marathons, etc. But nothing I’ve experienced before compares to this. Cancer (and having no thyroid at all) have officially promoted me to the upper echelon of exhaustion. Just call me the Senior Vice President of Drag-Ass.

I guess I should be pleased about where I am. Some ThyCans with my hormone level are not even working full time, yet I'm working, dog-sitting, trying to work out, entertaining out-of-towners, looking for new jobs, going to 4-hour graduation ceremonies, cleaning the house for 4 hours and planning for another race. (You get the picture.) I, however, am ROYALLY PISSED. My exercise for the week was a mini-weight-workout (1 set each of about 4 exercises) and an hour of golf.

That’s it.

To me, that’s NOTHING.

And I realized, after several hours of berating myself and wallowing in guilt, that I don’t know the difference between being sick and being lazy. In fact, I never I have.

Looking back on my training logs from the past few years, you see semi-legitimate excuses (couldn’t swim because of lightning), but you also see a lot of illness. The problem is, I lump it all together with laziness (and, ultimately, failure). Instead of looking back and thinking, “I did all this with cancer and asthma,” [which I’ve tried to tell myself, (I’ve even tried publicly declaring it)], I look back and think, “wow, I was a total slacker.” And people I respected and admired didn’t know how sick I really was, so they were constantly reinforcing this dysfunctional belief by saying things like, “If only you had half the fitness that you have determination,” or, "I really don't know if you can accomplish all that. Are you sure you want to try that? Are you really able?"

Now, to be fair, almost all my friends are my friends because they challenge me to consider things I would never consider on my own. And none of them are scared to say what's on their mind. Which leads me to what another friend asked me last night during my meltdown: “Don’t you realize that you pick all the biggest goals? PhD, Ironman, etc.”

She was kind of right. I mean, I DO have lofty goals. Part of this is because I’ve developed this semi-conscious belief that the two worst things in the world are failure and mediocrity. I want to be the best of everything, at the top of everything. That isn’t to say I haven’t re-evaluated my goals along the way (if I can teach with a Master’s, cool; I liked Half Ironman and don’t care to shoot for 140.6 anymore, etc.) But she made a good point – if I’m constantly reaching for something that is BETTER, how can I ever be happy with ANYTHING I have/achieve/etc.? Is it possible that I'm constantly thinking I (and nothing I do) is ever quite good enough, and thus I need to reach for the next/bigger/better thing?

It hit me on the way home today, and not just because this blog is about finding the strong, positive side of even the darkest, most bitter moment: it's not that I think I need to prove that I'm better that I reach for the highest thing I can achieve. It's because I know I can.

And then an even more important revelaton hit me: just because I know I can doesn't mean I always have to.

That's today's confession. Stay tuned for such side-splitters as Exercise Makes Me Feel Fat and I Lose Jewelry.