Several months into my second nine week run and I found myself sitting on the sofa, muscles relaxed, my belly full of lentils and rice: it was happy and so was I. That night I'd been to Capoeira and got into the training. Handstands and cartwheels were improving and my Kicks were getting less clumsy. I also wasn't as breathless after having sprinted around the training hall, then racing up and down it on 2s then all 4s forward and yes backward. Certainly got the heart thumping!
I was starting to feel the benefits of the 7 or so sessions I'd been to and I have no doubt in my mind if I were still smoking and drinking regularly it just wouldn't have happened.
I was still training in another martial art and more capable of taking that training more seriously and was also making the odd lazy Sunday trip to the allotment to get some learning of the land going. I was keeping busy and was managing to help out with the cutest god daughter I'd ever seen.
A week before I'd sat with my best friend as she had a long birth, requiring some feckin strong painkillers and surgery - baby was 10lbs - in medical terms that's stonking. As I think about it I walk funny, she was going to be recovering for at least a month and after the ordeal I had to make loads of trips to hospital armed with clothes / food / car seat (you can't leave hospital without one). I wasn't a dad but I was a guardian and you do get thrown in at the deep end. Changing nappies and stopping the little one crying were all brand new challenges that within days were fairly normal and then within weeks was feeling like I'd been doing these chores all my life. Actually seeing the little baby as she entered the world was not the jubilant moment I expected at the time, the ordeal had been stressful and unpleasant I have to admit, but as days then weeks passed it became harder to imagine a world without my little god daughter and the love that was growing for her.
One very important lesson I learnt was it helps to be as healthy as possible for parenting. Sleep does get depleted and your main focus and attention has to be aimed at this new little life. There is little compromise, just good parents and bad parents.
Second to this was my general well-being. The nights I trained were more comfortable and relaxed back in the flat. We should all know how moods affect others and the little one was far more susceptible to any general bad moods clinging to the atmosphere at home. I also couldn't afford to get myself back into smoking and increase those stress levels with the current situation, I was helping to raise a baby that wasn't mine, my own flat effectively taken over by this child and it was not from my own action. I could have allowed the odd negative thought to slip into my head about my predicament but it seems exercise helped keep all this negative attitude well and truly locked away where it needed to stay.
I was in a crap job paying just enough to cover my bills for a recently acquired flat and acting as a step-in dad for a tot that was not mine living with my ex that helped put an dampener on future romances... and yet I didn't feel stressed or resentful. I felt grown-up. Instead of complaining about these issues down the pub I'd keep my chin-up and get on with it. Instead of letting the issues get me down I faced them head on and stuck it out , and I can tell you its been paying off since, but that's for next week to finish off this little window into my world without smoking and drinking.
Fuck cigarettes and alcoholic binge drinking :)
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