I’m sitting around after a nice, loooong workout. This is the last day of a much appreciated three-day weekend, giving me a bit of a “decompression” day. My personal reboot. I needed it.
He went to work in the morning, and I did part of my long, grueling, Saturday workout. It was a rough morning for me; it’s a rare occurrence for me to cut that workout short. Most of the morning was spent working through the spiraling anxiety. I kept mentally going there – who were they, why them? – over and over and fucking over again. When it gets like that, I can’t stop. It’s compulsive. Like that flap of skin on the roof of your mouth when you inevitably burn yourself on that first bite of pizza, I just kept poking it. Does it still hurt? Yes, you fucking idiot, it hurts, so stop doing it. Just fucking stop.
The rest of Saturday was busy. He got home just after noon, and we went out and got the week’s groceries. The afternoon was spent watching Netflix, and doing my makeup for our extra fancy dinner out.
We try not to eat out very often. More often than not, we bring bagged lunches and cook dinners together. We might grab something quick if we’re out shopping at lunchtime, but these days, we don’t do a sit-down restaurant anywhere near as much as we used to. However, it’s become tradition over the last couple of years to go out to someplace really nice when we get our tax refund. This year was no different, and after a bunch of reading reviews and comparing menus, we chose a nice place downtown.
As is protocol for these dinners, we both tried things we normally wouldn’t order, either because the places in our price range don’t carry them or because it’s just out of our comfort zone. We ordered appetizers that didn’t feature a bottomless basket of nachos; I tried escargot (OMG, it was delicious) and pickled onions (eh, not so much). I willingly ordered a dish that came with a side dish of cauliflower. He, the man who will usually order a good steak if it’s on the menu, ordered a seafood casserole.
Seafood casserole with asparagus 
Baked, stuffed shrimp with spicy cauliflower
“Look at this giant shrimp,” he said.
“That’s a lobster tail, dear.”
We had no plans for yesterday. He brought up the possibility of a long workout to make up for the one I didn’t finish on Saturday. While it was good in theory, it wasn’t in the cards for us. I was still in a bit of a bad frame of mind. The morning was especially bad, which is typical and par for the course. I’m just alone with my thoughts, poking at the pain again until he’s awake and can get me out of my own head. Additionally, it always takes a few days for me to start to feel ok after the spiral hits. Instead of holding in shit and letting it fester, I uttered the phrase that strikes fear into his chest: can I ask you a question? I got my answer, and some reassurance. There was some TV, some chores, and a fun couple of hours playing Boss Monster at the dining room table. We watched some more Netflix, curled up on the couch, snuggled under a comforter because our 125-year old house doesn’t hold in heat worth a damn.
Today has been nice. While I’m still feeling a bit rough, I finally got to do -and finish – my long workout. My reboot. Turning it off and then turning it on again. I pushed hard, and I know that I’ll probably feel it tomorrow. I’ll be at work and reach for something over my head or squat down to grab something and my muscles will burn, just a little, just enough to make me remember the weekend. Again, like the burn on the roof of my mouth, I’ll make any excuse to bring about that familiar feeling of hurt.
But, like I always tell him, I don’t mind it. It’s a good hurt.
