Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Two Weeks Today

I've hit two weeks. I'd be thrilled if I weren't so jangled.

Just a sidenote, here, for everyone who has been reading and has been supportive and what have you. I have not only been dealing with quitting smoking - that's quite enough, thankyouverymuch, to cause my stress level to skyrocket. I have also been dealing with life issues, centered around my stepson and around my husband.

On the husband front, I worry about his health a bit - I wish he would take better care of himself. If you've been reading the blog you know that we had to take him, via ambulance, to the emergency room about a week and a half ago - he would like to view the whole incident as the exception and not the rule, and I would like to embrace that. But the fact is that he'll be 49 in November and I wish that he would eat better and get some exercise. Both of his parents have died this year (that's a whole different story) and the mother of close friend of ours just passed as well as a contemporary in the Washington DC music industry. There comes an age when your parents start to dwindle and then the next age where your friends start to dwindle - he's now dealing with that. Because I see him dealing with that it makes me think of him and wanting him to guard his health carefully. It makes me worry.

The second issue is stepson related. He's utterly and totally adrift. I won't go into the details but he has definitely had his problems in the past. He's gotten through some of them but his propensity to lie or, at best, to omit the truth is getting taxing. He's 20 years old, will be 21 in March, and has NO prospects, gumption or drive. That's disturbing enough - he has lived with us for nine years now - but my husband, because he loves him, wants to make excuses for him. We worry and we fret and we try to coordinate in compelling a change in the stepson but my husband always relents. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that relenting isn't doing the stepson any favors. It's just frustrating - and another constant worry - because I've been here before and I know that the whole situation is speeding towards some dramatic and complicated flare-up that will take my time, effort and money to correct. That's the way it always goes. So I stand between the two of them, trying to work with EACH side to see the right path (or at least the right steps to the right path) and I don't always make much progress. Again - frustrating and stressful.

So that has been added into the quitting smoking thing. It hasn't helped, I'm sure, but hopefully the quitting smoking thing will get easier and leave me more room for all the other things.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

6 Comments:

At 1:47 PM, Blogger Larry Kollar said...

I can certainly relate to your stepson issues with my own offspring (age 17), especially the lying part. I expect the next dramatic flare-up in about a half hour from right now, when he gets back to his aunt's from school to find his girlfriend has been booted.

When in November is your husband's b-day? Mine is also in (late) November. I've gotten to where I'm eating a little better (usually) — I've almost completely knocked off the sodas, even diet sodas, and trying to watch what & how much I eat.

The exercise part is troublesome, though: we have a whole garage full of exercise equipment, compliments of some in-laws, but it's just too dang hot this time of year to workout in a garage with no A/C and passive ventilation. I have a weight room at work I can (and sometimes do) avail myself of, although I'm often sort of, you know, working when I'm at work.

I've been threatening to bring the exercise bike into the living room & wire it into the TV so you can't watch anything unless someone's pedaling....

 
At 8:58 PM, Blogger RenaRF said...

What was the girlfriend doing that she got booted?

Husband's b-day is November 21. He doesn't really have a weight problem, though, which makes it difficult to get preachy, you know? I worry mainly because he has lost both of his parents when they were relatively young to issues that he should be cognizant of.

The exercise thing is a matter of discipline - and I speak on that from pure experience. The key is finding something that you're going to be able to stick with over a long period of time and then, for one month, writing out a schedule and sticking to it. No excuses short of legitimate and serious family emergency. If you have to break it for any reason, you start the discplined month again. By the time you finish it, you can't do without the exercise - your physiology now has it habitutally. Make sense? Just try it - just one month and make yourself stick to it. Choose your exercise carefully and stand by it.

That's my advice, on that anyway. ;-)

 
At 10:02 PM, Blogger Larry Kollar said...

She was giving him cigs. That was part of the agreement with Big V, that she wouldn't do that.

I went & picked him up from work this evening; he wanted to talk. Among other things, he admitted he's hooked on the butts. Dang. He tried cold turkey & couldn't do it. I suggested nicotine gum or even just plain sugarless gum; my mom said part of the habit (she quit when I was a kid) is just having something to put in your mouth. [Are you old enough to remember that TV show Kojak? He was using suckers as a substitute.]

Amazingly enough, there wasn't the expected blow-up, although he's peeved enough that he'd like to come home if he thought he & his mom could keep things civil.

On the exercise thing, I've heard that three weeks is the average time to develop a habit. Funny thing was, yesterday my stomach muscles were still sore from the crunches I did Thursday. I did a few anyway, and more today — the soreness was still there but tolerable. Between that & the weight machines, I noticed I gained a couple more inches on the pull-up bar (I'll get all the way eventually).

 
At 10:04 PM, Blogger Larry Kollar said...

Good point, stormbob! (BTW, where's your blog? I got a 404 on the one in your profile. Let me know & I'll give it a linky.)

 
At 10:13 PM, Blogger RenaRF said...

What can I say - I'm a fucking martyr. ;-)

Thanks guys - I appreciate the thoughts and the conversation and everything else. Shoes sound like a good idea, StormBob - I'm not much of a movie goer. Can't sit still for that long. ;-) I also have a half spa day after Labor Day so that's good, too.

As far as son goes, I'm not surprised. Smoking has seen a resurgence in youth. My stepson has the same issue - for us, however, mere cigarettes are a blessing from the other things he was doing. You have to want to quit. You have to decide. And even then you don't really want to - you simply reach a point where your fear from not quitting overtakes your willingness to continue to smoke.

I would tell your son this, however - it's so difficult to give up. I mean, it actually hurts in some ways, hurts emotionally. The sooner he can get away from it the smaller the impact of the hurt. n I don't know a better way to describe it.

Best to you guys... and good luck.

 
At 10:47 AM, Blogger Larry Kollar said...

Farf... hm. I kind of like it. Kinda like “fart” but the kind that ends with a hiss. OK, when I get around to changing my Kos name, y'all can call me Farfbob. Until then, I'm still Dirtbob.

 

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