Why was I holding on so long?

As the leaves let go of the trees and the earth where I live prepares for winter, I’ve been finding myself letting go of who I’ve become over the last 10 (or so) years.

When I agreed to work a couple of Saturday shifts a month at the fitness center, the pain and fatigue from my my osteoarthritis was a bit more manageable.

Overtime, between changing my depression medication to one for ADHD and ditching the Fibromyalgia medication as per my doctor, I couldn’t commit to those Saturday shifts anymore. The shift was until 8pm and as my days flowed, I’ve just found that my body is very “sore” from daily life after 4pm.

If I find that I’m in “that much pain one day,” I’ll take medication.

Unfortunately, the side effects either make me dizzy, nauseous or both. I don’t know how I’m going to feel daily or even towards the end of the day which make those Saturday shifts difficult to commit to.

While I don’t take the medication often (maybe once or twice a week), I’d like to just have that option to be home.

I was hesitant to stop working completely at the fitness center, not only because of money, but because it meant letting go of my “personal trainer identity.” I didn’t want to be “lost” or find myself again at almost 35 years old.

At the end of the day, who cares? Life is a journey, not a destination as we’ve been so ingrained to think [in our society].

I partially started this NSM for this reason to; I wanted to see where I was spending money and what habits I had developed since starting back working in the fitness industry.

Personally, I work better at budgeting when I cut things out. I realized I was spending extra money on those Saturdays to stay [extra] caffeinated with Starbucks and extra fed like buying more protein bars and pre-packed items and so forth.

I know I’ve mentioned some of these things in the past but wow.

So far my goal was to cut my grocery bill by $100 but I think I’m on route to cutting it by over $200, which is insane. Granted I know everyone’s circumstance is different and they can’t just leave a job to cut things out of their budget.

This is just what worked for me; the more I work “extra”, the more I spend “extra.”

Really sitting down and taking them time to anazlyze every detail of my spending and habits has been quite eye opening. I will admit it took my some time to get to this point (over a year) because I didn’t want to face any of it.

I obviously wish I did it sooner then later as I would have saved me quite a lot in terms of time and money, but I’m giving myself grace and learning from it.

One day at a time, my friends.

–Sabs 🌿