Slipping through thoughts

I slipped on a some ice today getting out of my car.  I didn't fall rather I felt my feet slide over the slippery surface and I smiled.  I miss figure skating and all that is associated with it for me.  All day, I've been feeling like something is missing along with twinges of regret.  It started so simply... I glance at myself in the mirror and immediately thought, "wow, you're losing your shape."  Of course, that initial thought was quite an exaggeration and I quickly stepped in to correct myself but I can't deny that I've allow myself to "let go."  Out of all my goals for this year, motivating myself to exercise for twenty or thirty minutes three times a day is proving to be my most difficult challenge.  I find this strange because I actually really enjoy exercising.  All throughout my youth, I was very active and always involved with something being swimming, skating, playing field hockey.   Over the last ten years, my physically activity waned, began to be something that occurred in small spurts, and then seemed to disappear all together.

More than my size, my physical fitness, my lack of energy, it is this thought that depresses me most.  Somewhere along the way I just let it all go and I regret allowing figure skating to slip away.  It was such a huge part of my life.  It was fun, active, challenging and it gave me a space to release my feelings.  When I find myself thinking about it, I feel anger flicker through me.  My jaw becomes rigid, my brow furrows, and my throat tightens as I feel the heat move freely within my chest.  Why so angry?  I haven't talked much about my past here and I don't know how much I intend to discuss it but skating is one of those things he took from me.  Rather, I allowed him to color my association with my once beloved sport.  It was the easiest way for him to intrude into my life when I just needed my space.   He was always there and always watching; his presence preventing me from expressing or even allowing myself to feel any of the negative feelings.  Off the ice during breaks, it became another place for him to humiliate me.  A place that once gave me confidence and made me feel empowered slowly began to change as he did whatever he could to break me down in the small, subtle ways that were his specialty.

I don't enjoy thinking about him but alas, it is hard not to these days.  Mostly, I want to get my skates, get back on the ice and reclaim what I lost.  There's fear there though.  I'm so quick to judge myself and berate myself for letting me get here.  The uncertainty I felt on my skates the last few times I stepped onto the ice and my inability to skate around the rink for ten minutes without feeling breathless infuriates me.  "How did I get here?  Why is this so difficult?" are just small samples of my thoughts.  The truth is, I haven't skated in ten years and never replaced it with anything just as active so of course it feels totally different.  Not to mention, my body is different.  Skating is a sport where you feel every pound gained or every inch you grew in height; it throws off your equilibrium.  Still, I'm so hard of myself and I feel embarrassed that after all those years, all that money, all I can do is skate really fast around the rink.

Truthfully though, I need to approach this with "compassion" as my therapist would say.  I can't reclaim anything if I leave the ice feeling more miserable than before I laced my skates.  I need to fall back in love with the sport; take in the details.  I need to feel the ice under my blades, assert that control, and fall... hard.  Funny, I even miss falling.  There was something strangely therapeutic in the falls and the frustration that many times followed.  One of my biggest realizations this year was just how little my head communicates with my body.  Describing the feeling of anger like I did above was almost impossible just a few months ago.  Anytime I tried to notice what happened within my body whenever I felt any emotion, I would completely shut down and numb out.  It's something I've began having to do when he and I started dating and it's something I didn't realize I lost until recently.  It's no wonder, I've fallen away from activities that force me to listen to my body.  I no longer remember how to do that.  It's why I get injured so easily when I begin an exercise regime, I can't hear my body tell me when enough is enough.

I need to get back on the ice.  I'm ready for the process of putting some of my pieces back together.  Tomorrow, we're due for a blizzard but I can make the phone calls, find out when there's ice.  There's a lot I still need to work through before I begin this but this is the first step.   I'm ready.