This Old Lady Body in Each Day

Oof. I’m back to the gym this week. Just trying to ignore the fucking headache I’ve had since yesterday morning. I’m so tired, and my sore legs make moving both difficult and painful. Wah. I would like to do my fitness test before Christmas, which doesn’t give me much time to train. I’m hoping 30 days is enough. I’d like to get my fucking promotion already ThankYouVeryMuch. Between that stupid shoulder injury I had this time last year, and then heat exhaustion all summer while trying to train… I’m just fed up. No amount of pain or headache is going to stop me from this shit now. I hope I don’t eat my words.

I’m experiencing something again that I wrote about back in the Before Times of 2020… Red is being Red and I’m feeling stifled. She loves a good narrative - it’s normally one of the things I like about her, her dedication to the story is a stark contrast to my dedication to the Truth. That is quintessential Red.
But when her narrative starts rewriting my reality, I get my back up. The other day she tried to tell me that I love cacti. I do not. In fact, they mostly make me angry. She really wanted to be right (granted she might think I love cacti because we drove 5h round trip to a “rare plants sale” so I could buy hardy cacti for my garden. But that was 2019 and I basically hate them now).
Weird aside: It’s fairly common knowledge that the key to improv is “Yes, and…” I LOVE a good Yes, and. But when my sense of justice, my need for capital T Truth, or the heart of my own stories conflict with the thing I’m supposed to be saying yes to, I just can’t. And it feels like Red is really pushing me into a corner, wanting me to Yes, and something that feels like a betrayal to myself.
(the last time this happened the story she was trying to rewrite was M’s and my synchronicity, specifically the part where he knew me as a baby and made him sound like a pedo, so, way easier to justify my irritation/anger).
Today she made a comment about me “since basic”, that somehow I was meticulous or tidy before basic and after I’m a bit of a disaster. Which is absolutely not in line with my own experience or my personal narrative. I’m not saying she is wrong, necessarily. My memories are notorious for being selective and favouring my own perspective (which is probably true of most people, but especially so for me because of ADHD). But I’ve always been a disaster, and hell yeah I’ve changed A LOT since basic, and we’ll never know exactly how because a global pandemic bulldozed all those traumatic moments into an incoherent mess.
I know how trivial these examples seem, and I know I sound petty. There’s a possibility that emotional dysregulation or rejection sensitivity may be at play. This feels like an attack on my being, this person, my wife, telling me I am someone when I believe I am someone else. It feels like a character assassination. And that sounds way more dramatic than it feels. It feels more like, she says a statement about me and my core responds with a deep and resounding NO.
But if its any indication of both of our mental states right now, neither one of us could answer basic colour wheel questions without a visual aid, and we both come from pretty enthusiastic artistic backgrounds…We went clay painting today, and I did a mug with an embossed octopus on it. I hope it turns out well.

I’ve been dealing with really bad restless legs lately, and my only solution to that is going to bed. So, good night.