I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday evening. Nearly every part of my body hurts. I just finished soaking in very hot water for 15 minutes and I still hurt. My knees, my hips, my feet, pretty much everything from the waist down is stiff, sore, and doesn't want to move. Yes, the 11 mile training session today went just incredibly well! I think the best that can be said, and I'm pretty pleased with it, frankly, is that I finished and I'm still alive.
OK, my mom just called and told me that I have to go to a really bad neighborhood so that I can buy Lotto tickets, so I need to get out there before it gets dark. (Note for those outside California: Many, many of the winners of our state's lottery seem to buy their tickets in truly frightening parts of town. Not sure why that is, but Mom's convinced that you have to go somewhere scary if you're going to get a winning ticket. She's crazy, yes, but if someone from San Diego wins tonight and I go to my happy, friendly 7-11 to buy tickets, I won't be able to lie to her.)
Weeks until LA Marathon: 21 Weeks until Christmas: 10 Exercise yesterday: 60 minutes/3.3 miles hill training Exercise today: 3 hours, 13 minutes/11 miles walking
Friday afternoon (barely). I made an important decision this morning while driving to work. (Note that sometimes I have to discount and discard decisions made on the way to work because my brain was not involved in the decision; this particular decision has been re examined and is a valid one, so I'm moving forward with implementation.) It is unlikely that anyone from my so called "real" life is going to find this site and, even if they do, I have my picture on the site so it's not as though I'll remain anonymous for long. Given that, I've decided that any adults that I write about from now on will be identified by their proper first names. One exception will be if there's someone I'm really mad at and don't want to risk alienating. Those folks will be given witty nick names instead. All children will get nick names (like The Scamp) because you cannot be too careful. With that...
Chris (the man formerly known as "C") just called. He put an application in at a different plant before work and now he's starting his shift. I really hope he gets another job because the place that he's at is making him so very unhappy. It is tough being so far away under the best circumstances and when he's depressed or angry, it just makes it worse. Ultimately, he needs to go back to college, get a degree or certificate, and move into something computer related (according to me) or law enforcement related (according to him).
You know how sometimes, once you've made a decision or come to some kind of epiphany, everything just sort of meshes? The cacophony of conflicting emotions, thoughts, and feelings stops and you can suddenly hear birds chirping? That's how I feel now, having gotten my anger and frustration over my health out in the open. I don't know how long it will last, so I'm enjoying it for all I'm worth!
So said Denise on 12:32 PM # | 0 comments
Friday morning. In the interest of full disclosure, what did I do with the rest of my day after posting the previous message? I ate horribly. Why did I do that? Well, I knew I had a lunch out at a place that doesn't do healthy food so, rather than waste a DietToGo lunch, I decided to have the whole day off of plan. What was I thinking??? Actually, I know that I flat out wasn't thinking, and that was the problem. What to do differently next time? Waste the $5 lunch, Denise. To make a bad situation worse, I forgot my workout bag at home and got home too late to do a walk, so no exercise, either. I just took my blood sugar and it's nearly 200 this morning. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. This is just stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!!! I have this stinking disease under control if only I eat properly and get a little bit of exercise. Why? Why? Why? Do I want to lose my feet? Do I want to be blind, so that I can't see my beloved C and my cats? Do I want to die a slow, lingering death from heart disease? At the age of 50, if I'm lucky?
No, I don't.
OK, I'm back (had to get a little sobbing out of my system). I'm afraid that the commitment of this marathon training is getting under my skin where the subconscious thing that keeps me from eating properly lives. It's the place that pushes back every time I try to get out of this place that my body lives. I know this won't make sense to anyone else but I just have to get it out, in hopes that by writing it out loud I can figure it out, unmask it, and take away its power over me. I want to be healthy. I want to be fit. I want to be able to run, not just walk. I want to live! Whatever that subconscious thing is, it just needs to understand that I am stronger than it is and I want these things more than it wants to stop me. I can face whatever lies at the end of this road and I will face them strong, healthy, and whole.
Weeks until LA Marathon: 21 Weeks until Christmas: 10 Exercise yesterday: None
Thursday afternoon. I am a very emotional person. I'll lay that right on the table, up front. That said, the past few weeks have been filled with so many emotional highs and lows that I feel like I've spent a month at Disneyland.
The lowest moments came as I faced up to the fact that I'd allowed myself to slip, once again, from eating properly and exercising regularly. I had to face myself in the mirror, get over my anger and disappointment, and just pick myself up and move forward. I'm a brooder and a thinker, so doing that wasn't easy for me, but I did do it. Actually, I'm still doing it, to be truthful.
The highs? There have been so many. * I finished a 10 mile training session last week, tired and sore, even after I thought perhaps I'd let it get too far away from me and lost my marathon dream * I found links to my rambling thoughts on not one, but two separate sites (thank you both so much!) * I got to spend a wonderful, sunny, October afternoon with my mother -- healthy and happy * My wonderful team, made up of such disparate individuals who are each dear to me in their own way, came together and took me out to lunch at my favorite restaurant to celebrate my birthday.
All of those things made me smile, but the most wonderful thing that's happened to me recently snuck up on me without any warning.
After I sent out a letter to everyone I know about my fundraising efforts for the marathon, I got some fantastic responses from people. Some offered encouragement and donations (thank you all, too), which was fabulous. And then there was an email from the lady who does payroll here at VLSCI. I've known her forever and she's just this quiet, unassuming lady, a little overweight but with a great smile. Yesterday, she sent me an email in response to a generic message about my diabetes and the marathon that I'd posted to the corporate classifieds bulletin board, and it very nearly broke my heart. She told me that she was newly diagnosed with diabetes, was terribly scared, terribly depressed, and felt very alone...until she read my message. She said that my story inspired her. Shocked, I am just shocked. And so incredibly flattered. And then, guilty. Guilty because I'm not always perfect, not even close, and now I have someone who looks up to me, as dorky as that sounds. She even asked if I would be her diabetic buddy, and I nearly wept. I have, possibly, made a difference in someone's life. Wow. That is just not a feeling I'm used to and I like it. Lots.
Wednesday afternoon. This article made me so sad. It's a baseball game, folks! I don't care how long it's been since your team went to the World Series, that does not justify intimidating someone to the point that they have to be escorted from the stands by guards and are too afraid to show up to work. I'm sure a Cubs fan would just say that is because I'm a namby pamby southern California baseball fan, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
Let me say that I am a huge baseball fan. I didn't leave after they went on strike, I didn't leave after one of my teams (the Padres) went from first in the NL to worst in a single year, and I never stopped hoping for something great from my other team (the Angels) even after all of their many disappointments.
It was on my 19th birthday, in 1986, that I experienced the greatest pain (and learned the greatest lesson) of all, though: One strike away from putting the Angels in the World Series for the first time in the history of the club, Donnie Moore allowed a Dave Henderson home run in Game Five of the 1986 ALCS. Henderson's game-winning sacrifice fly off Moore then turned the series in favor of victorious Boston. And it all happened on my birthday. Plans for World Series celebrations to come turned to bitter tears and the end of my naive belief in the benevolence of the baseball gods. Did we turn on Donnie Moore? Did we chase him down and add our scorn to the misery he was already feeling? Heck, no! As a matter of fact, when I heard that he'd committed suicide a few years later, I was shocked and stricken. I said then what I'd like to say to Cubs fans everywhere now: It's a game. A wonderful, fabulous, magnificent game, to be sure, but, still and all, a game. No one will die if the Cubs don't make it to the Series this year. The sun will come up tomorrow morning and sparkle on the lake and the skyscrapers along Michigan Avenue and you will still live in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. Best of all, when February rolls around, pitchers and catchers will report to Spring Training, and everyone gets another chance to live their dreams, prove their worth, and break "the Curse".
Of course, it's a whole lot easier for me to be philosophical now that my Angels broke their own little mini curselet by winning the 2002 World Series, but that's beside the point!
Tuesday evening. Today has been another of those terribly blah sort of days. Not bad, not good, just another day. It's hot outside, which doesn't help my ennui because I'm ready and waiting for the cool, more winter like weather to come. Now, for those not acquainted with southern California, let me just say, right up front, that I know we don't have "real" winters here...it's all in what you're used to. I've lived in southern California for 31 of my 36 years and also for the last 25 straight years, so winter for me is when it doesn't get into the 80s and I can wear sweaters and long pants to work. A little rain every once in a great while is nice, too, but beggars can't be choosers and we sometimes do go years at a time without significant rainfall, so I don't let myself get attached to precipitation as a wintertime feature. What was I talking about before I started to digress? Oh yes, so my mood has been dampened a bit by the hot weather. I think I'll be a lot happier once it cools off about 10 degrees.
Fat phobia study reveals weighty attitudes is a great article, from my point of view, because I know that I'm one of the fat people the article talks about, who judge fat people more harshly than even the general population does. I'm terrible about this and it all starts with my own low self esteem. I look at myself in the mirror with such loathing and disgust that it's bound to encompass others that look like me. Funny thing is, this doesn't change with my weight. I can remember being 120, at 5'3", in high school and thinking I was fat. Actually, I was told that I was fat all the time, which probably didn't help things much, either. I am one of the harshest critics of what is beautiful and what is not, I mean, Joan and Melissa have nothing on me, and that's so completely hypocritical. I mean, I'm not beautiful, so why am I being so snide in my head about others? Who knows, and the article doesn't offer any hypotheses, either. Perhaps I should apply for a hefty government grant to study this topic? I could take a leave of absence from my job and do a lot of swanning about, gathering and analyzing data, and then issue an insightful paper that encapsulates everything I've learned. Sounds heavenly!
Back to reality for a moment, I seem to be solidly on course for my food and water and I really feel very positively about my exercise, too. Today I took a serious step toward finishing the marathon without even exerting myself -- I emailed nearly everyone I know, telling them of my marathon plans and asking for donations for the Diabetes Association in honor of the walking I'm going to be doing. I even came up with statistics such as the fact that I'll have walked over 800 miles, driven 6,500 miles, and burned through two pairs of $100 running shoes just in the training portion of this odyssey, before the actual race itself starts. So far, I've had a very positive response. I'm shooting for $2,600 (a dollar for every mile in the marathon), which VLSCI will match for a total of $5,200 for diabetes. Not nearly what they need but it really helps me help others while I'm doing something for myself. If anyone else would like to contribute ($26 being my suggested contribution, although any amount will be most gratefully accepted), let me know and I'll send you my contact information.
Back later, after I do an one hour interval session on the treadmill downstairs. WooHoo!
Monday afternoon. My team here at work took me out to Rubio's, Home of the Fish Taco for a belated birthday lunch today and now I'm pleasantly full. Combine that with a cerulean blue, cloudless sky, and you've got a recipe for playing hookie. That being said, however, I'm right here in my office at VLSCI working away while many others have today off. Still, how bad can life be when you've got a tummy full of Healthy Chicken Burrito?
Saturday's 10 mile walk was tough but I finished it. It was definitely not one of my better showings and it definitely scared me into not skipping any more of my training sessions during the week. Bleah! Special thanks goes out to Regina, who grabbed my hand and pulled my recalcitrant behind up the wicked hill between miles two and three. I think I've finally found a really great group of ladies to walk with and a pace I can keep, so I'm back on the positive path to marathon completion!
I don't think I've mentioned for a little while how much I love C. He is a wonderful man, especially because he sounds like a grumbly, rumbly bear when he wakes up and because he gets so concerned when I have one of my PMS induced crying jags. He is this big, strong, strapping man and then he's like a marshmallow that's been toasted on the inside -- soft and sweet. It's funny, but I have the most overwhelming urge sometimes to protect and nurture him from all of the mean, terrible things in the world. Me. Protecting him. It's just that he's been hurt and disillusioned by the darker side of life and I've lived most of my life in the light, happy parts, so I'd like to help him see a little more of that. Only time will tell if I rub off on him at all with my Pollyanna ways, but I'm putting my money on good over bad!
Weeks until LA Marathon: 21 Weeks until Christmas: 11 Exercise yesterday: 15 minute leisurely stroll with Mom
Sunday evening. Thirty six years. It doesn't look terribly scary when you write it out that way, although it is a lot longer than, for instance, ten years. I don't know why, but this year's natal observance has really got me down.
Don't get me wrong, I got the most fabulous present in the world -- spending a lazy Sunday in October, in San Diego, with my mother. Most of you out there are probably asking yourself, "does she have low gift expectations, or what?", but what you don't know is that I very nearly lost my mother in 2002 to colon cancer, and I've come to appreciate that, crazy though she is, my time with my mother on Earth will be finite, and I try never to take a single second together for granted. Yes, she infuriates me at times and embarasses me at others, but she is, still, the only immediate family member that is still part of my life. We spent a great hour or so just talking about her childhood memories -- spending time with her Granny Taylor and Nana Morgan, sitting on her Grandpa Morgan's knee as he asked her if she'd brought any sand with her (they lived at the beach at the time), and putting shillings in the gas meter before she could take a warm bath on Sundays (yes, really!). Those are the things that no one else still alive remembers and things that, if I'm ever blessed with children of my own, I will try my best to pass along intact. Of course, it just isn't the same without my mom doing the narration, so I'll just have to hope that she gets the opportunity to share it all herself.
So, what have I learned in 36 years? * Don't take life so seriously. I know that I don't follow this advice often enough, but that doesn't make it any the less true. * Don't take your family or friends for granted. It's just so easy to be drawn into your own struggles and forget about the blessings that you have, in the form of those that love and support you. I don't always succeed at this, but it's something I'm working on every day. * Don't let your view of yourself be colored by what the world thinks of you. Yes, this is something that I will, no doubt, still be working on when I'm 95, wrinkled, and stooped over. * Do find something that you love more than yourself. It can be people, places, an activity, or whatever takes you outside of yourself and focuses you on the bigger picture. Yes, this, too, I'm still working on. * When a person of the opposite sex tells you that they're not worthy of you, believe them. Seriously. * You can be alone, without a significant other and sometimes without friends, and still be OK. I know because I've done it. * Sometimes, without warning, your "job" becomes your career. If you'd told me in college that I would be a Software Development Project Manager for a large company, I'd have laughed in your face.
In the end, what sticks with me is the passionate desire to spend as much time as possible with the people, and in the places, that I love. Life is fleeting but love is infinite. Everything else is just details.
