Keeping Momentum

BrigidForged

Well-known member
Shieldmaiden from France
Pronouns: She/They
Posts: 515
--- Previously Nanna Io in case anyone is confused ---

Thanks all for the healing vibes!

We are only halfway through December, but as the next two weeks promise to be extremely intense, I am going to do a year's wrap-up today.

This year was... something. It began with breaking off a toxic relationship, followed by my bipolar hitting me hard due to months of incorrect treatment and knocking me on my knees. This lead me to gain 8kg in a month which combined with basically spending a month in bed put me in my worst physical shape ever.

I finally got back on my feet, started hiking regularly, and met my current boyfriend which I can genuinely say is the best thing that ever happened to me. He is the first partner I had who loves the outdoors as much as me. He is athletic and sports have been a center of his life since childhood and he has been supporting me through my fitness journey in a way nobody has before, encouraging me to just be consistent and do the best I can, while pushing me to not limit myself to what I think I can do.

I had the happiest months of my life between May and August, we spent the weekends hiking or being outdoors in one way or another. I started running regularly and hit a 5K. I genuinely had not been this happy in months, possibly years. All this despite work starting to unravelling which I will get into later because it is actually relevant.

Then August, my knee started acting up, I finally went to the doctor who diagnosed me a tendinitis and prescribed me an MRI and scan. After confirming the tendinitis with a physio, I started shockwave therapy and had hopes of recuperating... just to find out I had a frayed meniscus a month later. In practice this means I may never run again and that also, many activities I really enjoy like skiing are out of bounds if I don't want to risk it to break. I also need to avoid things like deep squats and lunges, and high-impact training is off the table until I see a physio again for PT this time.

I won't lie, not being able to run it hit me hard, and though I immediately moved to swimming and cycling, I don't think I was in the right mindset. I am not a strong swimmer, I was never taught front crawl and had to learn it by myself meaning I have a horrible form. When I tried to look for classes, I had to confront myself that adult classes don't really exist unless you have your own pool and the finances to hire a private coach. It was not motivating in any way and I don't think I was in the right mindset despite trying to trick myself into it. I also joined a wonderful yoga course, all things which let me to unexpectedly move in with my boyfriend (long story).

Finally, in the swimming group I joined one of the coaches was kind enough to suggest to help me with my front crawl and then... I was hit by illness, a new bout of depression, another illness, followed by weeks of overtime at work, then a shoulder tendinitis and finally I just gave up on my courses and decided to get back to my beloved Darebee for FIT December. Here I had another wake up call which is that at 32 my body does not bounce back as quickly as it used to in my 20s, and during the plan exercises on day 16 (I think)? I got some unusual pain in my groin and so I really turned it down a notch and skipped to vitality for at least the next 7 days (I will decide then what to do).

This was my fitness journey, now to work and life because it is relevant...

I am moving to Germany on the 27th of December.

Why? Because I got a new job, I won't say where for confidentiality and anonymity purposes.

Long story short, there were massive organisational changes in my current job leading to a complete change in focus and roadmap, which hit my area particularly hard to the point of our new tasks being literally undoing 5 years of work. I was not particularly worried for my position in particular, but it was honestly depressing and so I started looking for a new job. I got an offer in July which I declined on condition that my company would place me on a different project. That seemed ALMOST to work out and then last minute it fell through.

This was however probably, once again, the best thing which would happen because through some contacts of my boss, who is an amazing person and recognises when people have run their course and puts happiness of her employees over company gains (same for my CEO, yes I was extremely lucky with my company the past years) I managed to get an incredible position. It will be also extremely challenging and I cross my fingers that it will work out.

Also, yes, my boyfriend will be following me once my trial period is over, assuming all goes well. :ss:

I am overall, very, very happy at this moment despite all the challenges over the past year and I am so happy I took a risk declining the offer I had in July (which was by no means a bad offer either and still a very good opportunity, just miles behind the one I finally got). I am also a bit exhausted from all the farewells, I had not realised how many connections I had built over the years.

Since it looks like this year every bad happened so something better could follow as a result, I am much more optimistic about my injuries. Maybe it was a wake up call to finally being consistent instead of exercising by waves. It will be a serious motivation to start cycling, which I have wanted to do for a while but was hesitant due to the necessary investment (this is also motivated by my boyfriend who is an avid cyclist), and I do plan to go back to swimming though I need to put it on hold for a while due to not having a pool nearby.

There is also another major thing I want to change which is related to my change in avatar and username, but as this post is already too long I will go into more detail into my new thread here: https://www.community.darebee.com/threads/hold-the-flame.1337/

Thank you all for supporting me through the year, I will try to go through your threads to catch up and wish you all the best personally. And if I don't manage to update again, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and an Amazing New Year!

:gotthis::fireworks:
 
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