So, let's be real. This spring has pretty much been shit. I will go ahead and check my privilege here and acknowledge that in the grand scheme of things, I'm very fortunate and nothing has gone catastrophically wrong in my life. But... this is my blog and I'm gonna talk about me.

As some of you may know, I had planned to finish my Masters in Public Administration and graduate this spring. Then I would be free to travel, binge watch Netflix, and do whatever my little heart desired. As you can tell from my opener, this did not happen. Since February, I've been going back and forth with the Institutional Review Board at Iowa State University, trying to gain approval to proceed with the research for my thesis. I won't go into details, but it's been hellish. Just when I think I've done everything they have asked, they come back with more "concerns" and requests for compliance. Due to these setbacks I've had to reschedule my thesis defense twice, and at this point, I don't even have it scheduled because I honestly have no idea when I will be through with this process. All spring my anxiety has been through the roof, feeling like the rug is being pulled out from under me again and again. I've cried, screamed, and honestly considered quitting.

All of this stress was surely a factor in my next issue, my back. I have periodic issues with my lower back that are normally dealt with by a chiropractor. Running normally flares it up, so as the weather gets nicer, I run more, and my back gets touchier. This, combined with extreme stress over school, resulted in me waking up in the middle of the night in April with excruciating back spasms and going to urgent care for muscle relaxers. I am now in physical therapy, where I'm seeing progress, but slowly, and have still had a few setbacks along the way. My back issues forced me to drop out of two races I had signed up for, both on fun teams that I was so disappointed to miss out on. At this point I'm still restricted to gentle activities such as walking, recumbent bike, yoga, etc. It's extremely frustrating, as the week before I was running easy-feeling 5-milers and PR-ing in heavy lifting, which I had been enjoying all winter.

Needless to say, all of these issues have affected my mood and made for a generally rough spring. I have felt pain, anxiety, and frustration for most of the last four months. Lately I've been trying to be more compassionate towards myself, which is hard because as a perfectionist, I am usually my worst critic. I am trying to manage my [usually high] expectations and I'm working to allow myself to go with the flow a little more, as clearly my well laid plans do not always work out. Along with reminding myself that I WILL graduate and my back WILL get better (in time), I am trying to not be so hard on myself in terms of my body and mental state. It's an inevitable conclusion that with stress and reduced physical activity, I will gain weight. That is understandable and as long as I am trying to be fairly healthy, I can cut myself some slack. I can also work on healing my body right now, instead of pushing it through strenuous workouts like long distance running or weight lifting.

In that vein of thought, I declared my birthday (last week) my "treat yo self" birthday, and received fun gifts such as a facial, massage and StitchFix gift card.

I've also decided to get back into yoga, which will be good for both my mental state and my back. I'm trying a YouTube series called 30 Days of Yoga, which I really like so far (all the two days I've done it).

While things aren't great, I know that I will get through this time and be soooooo relieved when it is over - mostly the thesis, and the back will come along. Then I can get on with my life to new, more fun adventures!