Investments

I’ve been thinking of the things I invest in, and how it’s possible that I haven’t invested seriously in recovery lately. I used to feel guilty over spending money–not just because it’s my husband who makes the vast majority of our money, but also because I was raised without having money. We didn’t have much growing up, and I made my way through undergrad and graduate school by working many jobs and paying my way.

I have mostly gotten over the guilt of spending money on worthwhile things, but I still feel badly sometimes about investing money in things that seem frivolous. I have made peace with investing in my training sessions–I know I need those workouts to keep my sanity and to keep my health on track. I feel comfortable investing in therapy. But, I still struggle in investing time and money in recovery beyond that.

I wrote yesterday that I have started to write an hour a day into my calendar as “recovery time,” and though I’ve only spent two days in the practice, it does feel good to know that I’m “allowed” to spend an hour midday taking care of myself–so far, I’ve used the time to take a nice sunny walk and actually eat lunch at my desk while watching Netflix.

I’ve also tried investing in a meal service for myself this week. We use a meal box delivery service for our family meals, but I realized that I need to up my own meal game. I tend to play the role of leftover martyr, taking one for the team by gathering up all our Tupperware and forcing myself to eat all the leftovers for lunches. But sometimes, I’m not all that keen on eating four-day-old rotisserie chicken for lunch. And, on those days, I scrounge around my office and make poor food choices, which can trigger a day full of binges and purging. Awhile ago, I started ordering Daily Harvest frozen meals to stock my office freezer, but this week I added a Hungry Root subscription, and I’ve been surprised how freeing it has been. I feel like I have acceptable options for lunch and also a loose plan in place for dinners when my husband isn’t around.

These seem like small things, but in sum, I’m hopeful they will represent an upped investment in my recovery that may have sticking power.

We’ll see! Day 3.