Focus......

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”- Arnold Schwarzenegger
“The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger

FIGURING OUT THE FIFTIES.... SO THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT.......

Wednesday 3 November 2010

No-Worries.....

Ok... so I have worked at it and I am conquering the hermitism one smile at a time....

It certainly helped that Melbourne Cup arrived the day after my pledge to No longer hide away...

So with this in mind I smiled at everyone I could and made huge amounts of eye contact with the crowd in the club, I bought my sweeps from the Legacy Ladies and even though I had already lost $4 before the race even started due to the Calcutta draw - nope still no idea on how that works - and one of my sweeps horses being scratched, I managed to come out with 1st and 2nd out of my two remaining tickets and won the hugely princely sum of $54.00!!!.. my first.. and most likely my final... win on any horse race in my entire life... about a dollar per year... not too bad...

Even though the only time I wasn't kept restrained within my windowless box was for a quick lunch with Mum and Dad and then the few minutes that the race ran, I still made sure I purposefully did not avoid anyone....

The night before I chatted with others at the gym, actually stopped training to do so... now this is something that really does go against everything my mind is telling me to do... but you know what... I did not suffer.. I did not waste away and loose muscle... I really had a great training session and pushed heavier than I have in a long time...

Same thing last night, not so much chatting but I definitely did not avoid making eye contact or saying hello and once again upped my weights on nearly every exercise... hmm might be something to this me thinks....

Today was thrown into turmoil with Dad having another one of his nauseous turns, Mum phoned me just as I was getting dressed for the gym this morning and we finally got back to their place at 3.30pm. Spending the day in the hospital certainly ensured that I spoke with complete strangers, and not just answering the appropriate questions or translating from soft spoken doctors to almost deaf 85 year olds... No I also made small talk with the nurses, had complete conversations with ambulance drivers and security guards.. of course being stuck in a hospital corridor for 5 hours before an actual bed was available for Dad made chatting to random people not only easier but almost necessary to stop going mad....

Also being locked into the health system meant that food was totally beyond my control, although mine was all ready and waiting before I left, for some totally insanely optimist reason I decided that I wouldn't be long and had no need to take my prepacked food with me... smack on the head time!!! what the hell was I thinking!!!

So my food today consisted of hospital coffee shop cakes, fried goods, biscuits, one sad chicken (and I use the word chicken only because that's what the label said) salad sandwich and numerous cups of brown water labelled as coffee...

Main thing is Dad is back home, which he actually really never needed to leave, but for the fact that the emergency doctor was only available if the emergency was within Brisbane city limits after 4am.... mental note always be violently ill either before 4am or within Brisbane City limits... Of course if a Bribie based doctor actually made house calls, or even emergency call outs this would also have saved the hospital and ambulance service (and us) 12 hours of time... All that was required was one injection of anti nausea drug that he has in tablet form but due to being sick could not swallow, once this was administered (8 hours after he was collected by ambulance) he could go home... after it took another 3 1/2 hours to do the paperwork...

Tomorrow is a new day with new people to greet and speak to... tomorrow is a new day to push heavier weights and reach new goals... tomorrow I am eating my clean food and hoping that the mush that I had to eat today is removed from my system by the cardio I do in the morning... lol

3 comments:

mq01 said...

so glad to hear that dad is ok. keep it up with the extroverted smiles and talks my dear. it gets easier. matter of fact, you may like for all those great people that you are connecting with to come work out with you or come up on stage :) if they are not up there with or alongside you, i bet they will at least have your back and be right behind you pushing you along. (did any of that make sense?!)
:D xoxo

Raechelle said...

Glad your Dad home and better again!
Well done on stepping out of your hermitness-I know what that's like for sure!
xoxo

Oz said...

Just found your blog. Glad your dad is home. Mine is 86 and still lives with my mom who is 90, in a house by themselves.

I am approaching 50, looking to learn from you, so figure out the fifties and let us know what your figure :)