Author: Chete

Getting back up on the saddle, literally

When I was about 7 or 8 my brother and I would spend a weekend every three months with my dad’s parents. My grandfather had a mustang named Sugar Foot. Sugar Foot was a wild mustang that my grandfather had broke. We were able to ride him, he was pretty old when I was really ready to ride him.

So at one of the visits I got to ride Sugar Foot, my grandfather was with me. He had told me to be carful on how I nudged him. Well I didn’t nudge him correctly and he bucked me off. I feel of my wind knocked out of me and stunned. I was about ready to start crying when my grandpa came and stood over laughing. Asked if anything was broken, I said no. Then he said get back on… I did and was a little upset, mostly because I didn’t understand why you would have someone get right back up onto a horse that just threw you off their back like a bag of potatoes.

I got back onto that horse still hurting, but I kept riding. I went and took him around the house by myself. He began to start bucking me off, this time I wasn’t in a field with grass to lessen the blow, but a gravel road. So I just thought to myself “not again, I will not get bucked off again”  So I let go of the reigns grabbed him by the mane and held on for dear life. He finally stopped, and I rode him back to the barn.

It wasn’t till  I was older that I would really understand and appreciate the meaning of this moment. Without these types blips in life I truly feel like for myself I wouldn’t have learned how to push myself forward through the bad.

Before the heart stops…

I have been asked how much I am going to open myself up on this blog. At first I do feel that I need to be guarded. Yes, there are some things that I will keep private, just because I feel there is a such thing as sharing too much.

But there is one thing that I have been grinding on, if I should share or not. It has been my depression that I had afterwards, and before as well. It’s taken a lot more for me to share this.

About a year before my SCA I had my daughter, I was over weight and just very unhappy with myself and my body. I also was unsatisfied just how things were going or not really going. I felt like I was just drifting, no real sense of direction. Don’t get me wrong I love being mom. Sometimes I just like to sit back and watch the, They are amazing. It’s hard to find yourself and to keep who you are while trying to be a mom and basically give yourself over to everyone else’s needs and wants. I was so stressed out I really think that my stress and unhappiness added to my SCA .

I don’t remember much leading up to my event. I just remember feeling like I was drowning in my own depression, wanting to cry out for help. Why I didn’t say anything to anyone was because I was afraid.

 

Watching the track

Seeing something you love to do from the sidelines is so hard. And I know I am not the only one who is on the sides and wishes they were out in the action.

It’s so strange, not being able to play something that did save your life and is now untouchable. Though I am not out there on the track I have still kept involved. This hasn’t been just a sport or something to pass the time for me, it has been an outlet and a way to just be. The people I skated with aren’t just teammates, but family.

It feels like you miss out on so much not being involved on a weekly basis. It hurts seeing people out there, strategy planning, training, pushing themselves. At the same time I am proud to know them, call them my derby family. When we haven’t seen each others faces for sometime, they are always there to greet with a huge smile and a hug.

Seeing some of the skaters that I have skated with or that I have helped train that are still skating, there is a sense of pride that boils in me. That I was able to be apart of their world.

 

 

Keeping up with the… Well, everything

The program that I am in, we have school as well as clinical hours in a hospital. It’s very draining, you go and have your clinical spend all day running around trying to figure out what is what. You get home and have to reign yourself. in to study. I live in an area where we don’t have that particular type of education close. So about once a month there is traveling out of state and having crash courses within 2 days and you are sent back to fend for yourself on your studies.

So it gets pretty crazy. There are times that I feel like I have to fight with myself to keep moving. My energy levels are not where I feel they should be. Most days I feel like I swim through a viscous substance. I force at times my body to continue to push itself to do what it needs to preform. It is very exhausting, and frustrating. I try not to say anything because there are those who are single mothers or are taking care of family that are able to hold down a job or two and are making it work. They quietly help push me to continue.

Trusting yourself

For so long I have had such a since of mistrust in myself. I know in part it is because I always tried to do and be what I felt others wanted me to be. In a way I realize that has opened the door in my life to people who manipulate. Then the feeling of self-doubt becomes even more vivid. It becomes a cycle, of emotional baggage that you end up carrying for someone else, mostly because they don’t want to carry their own, they know they can pull your strings to carry it.

Most of my life I feel that I have led a very well choreographed life. I wait on who ever is directing the show and go from there. Which should never be, something that someone who is strong can standup and take the lead, not for someone else but for themselves. For me it’s so hard to do, because it’s easier (but not healthier) to just play the role.

Since the SCA I have pushed away from what has felt comfortable for myself and perhaps others around. I know that I am no longer the person who will just sit by and let people push and pull my emotions. I have truly found my strength, it was a terrible way to find that strength, but I guess that I have found none the less.  It is hard to change your behavior but I don’t feel like I am holding so much inside that it hurts anymore.

With all of this I have been able to authentically trust myself. It’s still hard for me to get over the fact that it took such a dramatic turn of events to find this for myself, but it is paying off. I don’t feel like I am as much of a stress case when it comes to my personal life. Because I know what my end goals are, and I know there will be challenges getting to that point and some bending of those goals, but it will give me some meaning to all of this.

Getting in the program

So, I haven’t written in so long and I have missed it. Writing on this has been such a help for me to keep myself focused and to be able to see where I am and where I have been. I think sharing it with others helps.

I worked so hard to get into a radiography program. My goal is to do Echo. I got into the program last Fall. It has been none stop, it really has taken more out of me than I thought it would. In the end I do think it will be worth it. I defiantly don’t have the stamina that I used to have. It’s been a struggle to balance home life, clinicals, studies as well as my health

Having the support from family and friends has been a godsend. My fellow students have also been a cornerstone in my continued education. It has been a tough transition from stay at home mom to a full time student and having clinical hours in a hospital. But with the support from everyone around me makes feel that I can continue this venture at full speed.

My goals is to really buckle down in school and work on writing more, because this is really a been a good release for me.

I hope I can make it up to those who might actually be reading this!

Chete

 

Running… a forward movement

I have always done the running thing. I have gone in and out of love of it ever since I can remember. Now that I am not doing full on roller derby (les sigh), I have to find other ways of dispensing what little energy I have.

So I do strength training, but I don’t do so much weight lifting (avoid screwing up my leads). I know there are very many thoughts about running whether it is good for you or bad for you, how much you should be doing  all of that jazz. I will admit I have been gaining weight, especially this last year, I had to have my meds increased. It doesn’t feel good stepping on the scale and a pound is added… Also having to find a happy balance of pushing yourself but not pushing yourself to the point of causing an arrhythmia or just going over your allotted heart rate (that part really blows). I started out as slow as I could, but I did and still get frustrated with myself for not feeling like I push myself hard enough, though I know I am doing what I can.

Back to why I run. Like I said I have always had a weird relationship with running, I either love it or hate it. And I am still there, sometimes it feels good and sometimes I don’t bother. But lately it has been nice, I think because instead of running around on the streets I found a trail to run. Pretty sure it’s not really made for running, more like for mountain biking, or hiking. I like it anyways, I have already busted my knee open on it, there was a lot of cursing.

I get to go on my own pace and I have to (sometimes) really focus on where I place my feet, especially on going down the hills, there is a lot of loose rocks. It gives me the time, not necessarily to think about the day but to see where I am at, at the moment. That is something I felt I always needed to work on, just being the moment and turning off the crap around me. It feels like that is what running is giving me at the moment, I am not focused on how far I have gone, my speed or the calories I have burned (or haven’t). Just there outside within the sage brush and relishing those moments alone.

CPR class and a weird sense

Now that I have started to go to school for a medical profession there are a lot of things that you have to do to get going for school and the profession. One of them for me is taking a CPR class. Normal enough right, lots of people do it.

It was normal, I guess. Well, honestly I felt weird. I did what was asked and learned what all I need to do to help save someone. Pushing down on the manikin, I just was kinda dazed out on the feeling of the chest compressions. 30 and 2, 30 and 2. What did it feel like, the pressure from someone pushing down on my chest trying to give enough force to push my heart to start again. The breaths that go in and let the chest raise and fall.

I just kept imagining myself, and my friends going to work and being able to set aside that their friend was so close to death to be calm and composed to do what was needed. 30 and 2, 30 and 2. I guess for me I just get a different perspective, there were moments I thought I might have lost it, but I think it was knowing I could give back one day what others have given me.

If anything, having the CPR training is truly an amazing thing to have. Sometimes it’s just you and the person, or help can’t get to you in time. You are the first in the line of defense to help someone live.

Changing goals

In school they talk about how you can be who you want to be. Ummm, fuck no, sorry but that is a load.  I try not to tell my kids the same thing, because I want them to be better and wiser than me. But the reality is, not all of us have that control, and also saying that gives a sense of entitlement. There are these things called circumstances, they like to pop up and really screw with things, and if you want something you need to push yourself past those things to grab your end goal.

Starting school was more for me to help get my brain going. I didn’t really expect any long term education was going to come out of it, especially a career path. It was honestly to make sure the 5minutes plus my oxygen deprived brain didn’t kill out on me all together going forward.

I have not and still am not one of those people who are like, wow this is what I am going to do and I am going to do it. I am the type who starts something and then I am like ummm this is not for me, or I get bored. Hence why I have had so many jobs, because I get bored because I don’t ever see a chance to progress.

Starting out I just took some basic classes, mostly because I didn’t remember much (it had been 10 years plus). I found that I actually enjoyed the challenge and I missed the learning process.  I got one year in, which considering I was not even a year out from my SCA. But after that year, I found something that would be cool, radiology. It wasn’t just to take x-rays that I was looking at, but to get my foot in the door to do echocardiograms. And thus a new part of my life starts (well another one).

Stay at Home Mom

Just from how people have acted when I say that I am a stay at home mom(mostly scoffing), that there is a bad wrap about it, lazy, boring person. Not going to lie, I would like to have nothing to do and be bored out of my mind. But it’s not like that for me anyways. What my day is like the same thing day in and day out is so mundane. Though most days get derailed anymore since we have moved to the “country”. Either have a goat terrorizing the garden, or the one duck has managed to trap itself in a bucket. My daughter who never leaves a moment to be dull by coloring something or dismantling something you didn’t even know it could be taken apart or my son who has great stories to tell but unfortunately they have no ends.

For me I feel like who I am has gotten lost in the day in day out of motherhood. I have been so uncomfortable for doing things for myself. People say go ahead and do it for yourself, splurge a little bit. Fact is, I feel guilty about it I don’t feel like I add much in the way of family finances, and I use money that I have never thought of as mine or have felt like I was apart of making it.

I think now I am learning how to have time to myself, but also how to cherish the time I do have with my kids. My views of spending time with my kids is now something more than just a day in and out experience, but that I have the privilege of being at home with them. Soon it will change, and I will miss my time with them.

Seeing where I was before the SCA as a woman and a mother… Well, I feel that I have changed dramatically. I know I keep saying that, but it is not nonsense. Where I would just flow in and out of my days in a blur. It was not at all the life I wanted. Did I want kids and the house and the husband, yeah. I think growing up and having things happen to myself, it has made me look at me, or the not me. Now seeing what all is out there, I am scared to go right back into it. I now understand than I can be who I want to be and still be a mother.