Back on the ball (once again)

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur for me, with little time to stop and think, much less time to write and get my thoughts out of my head.  That's been unfortunate, as without a release, a lot of thoughts were running around in the echo chamber that is my mind, and at times, I've lost real perspective on my situation. 

A few things have changed this week, though, and I now see some relief to the pressures I've experienced for the last four months; some of which were caused by external factors (e.g. someone on my work team being transferred away from my team) and some caused by internal reactions to some good opportunities that presented themselves. 

A big one of those opportunities faded slowly away, and I was reluctant to recognize facts until just now.  I had my epiphany this week, and finally accepted that I need to move on, and that actually gave me a lot of strength, reducing my stress almost instantly when I finally admitted to my wife and myself that option was closed. 

Not surprisingly, this amount of stress (and the nature of it) caused me to lose focus on other goals, and since I am an emotional eater (related to something I can control, even if not in a good way), I have not lost the weight I had hoped in the past few weeks.  Bummer, really, but that's all.  I'm not defeated, just set back a bit, and I can see progress on the road ahead.

It's also helping that it's almost Spring, and that the snow has started to melt.  I can see the sides of roads and sidewalks again, which means I can run outside more often, which helps my psyche a lot.  Biking season is just around the corner, I sense, and I can get out again to prepare for triathlon season, as I'd like to get in more than one this year.  That and my 160-mile bike trip with the scouts will have me on the roads quite a bit this season.

So it's goodbye to this Winter, hello to Spring and Summer again.  I haven't managed to build up my summer body in the winter, so you won't see me on the beaches without a shirt flexing my manly muscles, but then, no one has ever really wanted to see that.  My goal - being reasonably overweight, but fit enough to keep up with my teenagers this year.