Oil can?

I'm sorry to have disappeared for so long, but I've been too paralyzed to write.

Not paralyzed physically, although my mobility is certainly limited by the various afflictions of lower leg and knee that have lately befallen me, but mentally. The kind of paralysis that strikes when there are too many options, too many possibilities, too many roads-less-traveled and not enough maps. The kind of paralysis that strikes at a fancy buffet when you're standing at the center of the room, plate in hand, and unable to decide where to start or what to have, because everything looks good but you know you can't have it all.

I know why I am paralyzed. This used to happen to me during winter and spring breaks when I was a student. This is why I used to work multiple jobs over the summer.

I am the kind of person who needs routine.  I need routine and I need a map. I need a plan and a goal. And when that routine gets shot to shit, as mine has as of late, I become paralyzed.

Part of the reason why I struggled so much in grad school was because the social aspects of the program--ie the unpredictable late night adventures, the post-theatre "why-don't-we's", the late night rehearsals that dragged on past dark--all impinged on the strictures of my daily up-at-5am-gym-shower-class-study routine. Part of why I have gained my "freshman 15" in the 10 months that I've been working retail is the lack of routine that my random schedule affords.

Even so, I've tried my best combat my unpredictable hours by sticking to my 5 am gym check-ins (hooray for Facebook keeping me honest...), to my eat-every-2.5/3-hours schedule, to my 9:30 pm bedtime (except on the nights I close). But now...

Now? I can't go to the gym. I'm afraid to eat as many calories as I usually do. I have nowhere to be and nothing to do. And I'm paralyzed.

I'm paralyzed by my life in general too. While my friends are out working amazing jobs, getting engaged and getting married, having children, traveling the world, or partying so hard every night that they can only remember the fun they've had by reading their friends' instagram hashtags the next morning, I am stuck standing in the same spot in my kitchen for half an hour because I can't decide whether I should have an omelet or oatmeal for breakfast.

I want to start working out again, but I can't. My ankle is still messed up, so it starts to ache after weight-bearing for more than a few minutes, which means I can't even do something as simple as the elliptical at the gym. My knee is still swollen (although much less so than it was) and I have to take flexion or extension slow or else it hurts--so that means no cycling. The swelling is right over my patella, and kneeling is excruciating, so I can't even do yoga.

At work, I'm stuck answering phones, because I can't be out on the floor, standing and walking around for hours at a time. And that's when I'm at work. My paycheck was pitiful last week because I had to miss several shifts. I am already freaking out about finances, and this certainly isn't helping.

I am so beyond frustrated at this point, I can't even begin to explain it. I want so badly to be doing something, but I don't even know what I'm capable of doing. And while, in the short term, I mean this about my fitness and nutrition, I've had enough time to sit on the couch staring into space during the last few weeks to realize that the preceding sentence applies to my life. I've started over so many damn times, and I always do something to paralyze myself, just when things seem to be going well and I seem to be making progress.

At this point, I don't just need a map, I need a damn road to begin with.

Someone move me, please?