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 morning. Guess what I did yesterday afternoon? I went to the gym and walked. It hurt like a big dog, in my hips and lower back, and I did it anyway. Forty minutes, which wasn't the 60 I was shooting for and is a whole lot more than I've done in months. No lingering pain today, so I'm going to try it again this afternoon. Oh, yeah, and today will make day 4 of staying on plan with my food, so YEAH for me!
Dr. Karen mentioned that meditation would be helpful for me in fighting the depression, and I think I'll give that a try today, too. I've done it in the past and it really does feel wonderful and help keep me focused on the present rather than obsessing about the past or the future. I've got lots of meditative CDs, so it's just a matter of choosing which one to use. Pleasant task for after I get back from my walk.
Weeks until Rock and Roll Marathon: 19 Exercise yesterday: 40 minutes walking Days on plan: 3 Goals / Rewards: * Finish Rock and Roll Marathon in 7:45 or less / Buy Boden coat * Lose 11 pounds by March 9 / Get a massage at the Flamingo Hilton
Friday afternoon. Does anyone remember when this journal used to be about my efforts at losing weight and creating a healthy life? No? Not surprising, really, given that it's been months since I did anything more than pay lip service to the idea of focusing on my health. Oh, I've done plenty of moaning about "why can't I seem to do this?" and "I think I've got it this time!", but no real action has resulted. Happily, that situation seems to have, rather miraculously, resolved itself.
The way that it all came about is rather interesting. Chris and I were talking on the phone, as we do every morning, when it came to me, all at once, that the reason I'd been restless, unable to concentrate, feeling so lethargic that just putting my dishes in the sink was too much (much less washing them or putting them in the dishwasher), and eating everything in sight wasn't that I was a flake or didn't have willpower or anything like that, it was because I was depressed. Not in the "gosh, I don't feel like doing anything today" kind of way, but in the "if I didn't have to go to work, I'd never get out of bed because there's just no reason to bother" kind of way. I'm amazed, really, that it took me almost three months to make the connection, because I've been here before. After my divorce, I sank into a depression so bad that I re-gained 110 pounds I'd carefully lost, dropped contact with all of my friends, nearly lost my job because I couldn't focus on anything at work, and didn't even acknowledge my mom on Mother's Day. It was 18 months of sheer torture, and I pulled myself out by sheer force of will. I didn't know the name for what I had at the time, but I've figured it out since, and I recognize enough of the signs to know that's where I'm headed if I don't make major changes.
It was amazing, once I realized that it wasn't laziness that was keeping me from eating properly and getting the exercise I need, how easy it was to get back on track. It's as though I couldn't get past the guilt I was feeling over my inability to do these things until I realized there was something real stopping me. Just that knowledge has (so far!) made all the difference. As soon as I got off of the phone with Chris, I put out my DietToGo lunch to take to work and it has been right on track since then. I also called Dr. Karen, my therapist, and made my first appointment since last September, just to check with her and make sure that I was on the right track again. The appointment went well and she says she'd like to see me in three weeks or so, just to make sure I'm still doing OK. The funny thing is that I suspect I will be.
The other realization that I had was that it was my car being broken into and my training gear being stolen that started this depression episode. Dr Karen says that she thinks the trauma associated with that event triggered a remembrance of something traumatic from my childhood, something strong enough that it actually pushed me right out of the happy, confident place I was in before it happened and into the scared, hopeless, angry place I've lived in since then.
I can't describe adequately the deep sense of relief I feel now. I am on day three of eating properly and am planning to hit the gym for a walk tonight after work. Even my boss remarked this morning that I looked "ready to kick some butt", and it's true. I've got such energy and lightness of spirit that I feel as though I've been reborn. I know that there will be huge challenges for me along the path to the place I want to be, and I'm ready for them.
I'm going to make some changes around here in the next few days to make it easier for me to keep track of my progress, health wise, so pardon any dust or leftover building materials you may stumble across.
Weeks until Rock and Roll Marathon: 19 Exercise yesterday: None Goals / Rewards: * Finish Rock and Roll Marathon in 7:45 or less / Buy this coat! * Lose 11 pounds by March 9 / A massage at the Flamingo Hilton, where I'll be for a business trip that week!
A new source to feed my avaricious need for new clothes!
I have found a new obsession. Boden USA is a UK retailer of women's, men's, and children's clothing -- adorable clothing -- at very reasonable prices. I want this coat, this dress, this skirt, this cardigan, and this bag, just for starters. I can't wait until I get to size 18 so that I can spend a couple hundred bucks and look absolutely adorable.
And, if you thought the topic of my last post was scary...
The article that Dan talks about here just infuriates me. Why is it so important to some people to put value judgments on others? Why does being married have to be "better" than being single? The article even says that "normal people get married" before they're 30. What a load of cr@*! Is it better to rush headlong into marriage just to avoid being single? Heck, no! I've been through divorce, albeit a very amiable one, and it took me years to recover emotionally from what I perceived as a huge failure on my part.
Is marriage a wonderful institution? Absolutely! I heartily recommend it to every couple that is truly and deeply committed to one another and a future together, and in love. You'll notice that I put the "in love" part last, which was intentional. Too many people have this lovely, gauzy view of marriage and think that once they're in love, that's all they need. Nothing could be further from the truth. You need to be able to look years and years and years into the future and know, with absolute certainty, that this is the person you want to be with for life (even when they're sick, cranky, being irrational, and just generally being human). I know that divorce is rampant, both in this country and others, but that doesn't mean that you should rush into marriage, looking at divorce as an escape hatch "if things don't work out". Take it from one who's been there, much better to wait a few years, continue dating, and make sure that this really is the person that you can't imagine not spending the rest of your life with.
Friday morning. This is sad, folks. Not only are teenagers battling obesity, but now toddlers, too. Too much TV and overuse of cars seem to be the primary reasons cited by the researchers, and I can see the truth in that. Of course, those are two of the primary reasons for the obesity problem among adults, too. Coincidence? The good news would seem to be that, if, as adults, we start getting out and doing more walking or biking for errand running, not only will we benefit, but our children will, too. Food (excuse the pun) for thought.
Wednesday morning. Sheila talks about the Shuttle tragedy and includes the entire transcript of President Reagan's speech memorializing the group that became known as "The Challenger Seven". I cannot believe that it's really been 18 years.
Eighteen years ago this morning, I was, as usual, in my thrice weekly 8am Spanish grammar class. (Yes, I really had a class at 8am three times a week. How many days a week I was there is an entirely different topic.) I don't remember anything out of the ordinary on my way home. When I walked through the sliding glass door to my on campus apartment, one of my three roomies was sitting, transfixed, in front of the TV. I don't remember what, exactly, she said, but I know that she told me that the shuttle had crashed. The thought immediately flashed through my brain, "was that today?" When did I stop watching every shuttle launch? I don't remember. Some time between the very first one, which they brought every student in my junior high into the library to watch on TV, and that chilly (even in La Jolla, California) January morning in 1986. They had become so routine, you see, nothing special at all. The only reason I even knew that the shuttle was scheduled to be launched around that time was because of the huge amount of publicity surrounding the inclusion of the first civilian astronaut, Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher from New England. (We didn't have cable or daily newspaper delivery on campus, so it was all network news for us. It's a wonder, really, that we knew anything at all about what was going on beyond the safe borders of campus.) I joined Sue (my room mate), and we sat in front of that TV all day, skipping the rest of the day's classes.
I remember that our primary thought processes ran something like this: this can't be happening, things like this don't happen to us, we're the most powerful nation on Earth and this just can't be happening. I suppose that you could say that this was the first time that our nation's vulnerability was thrust directly into our young, idealistic faces. We were the children who came of age with Ronald Reagan and knew, with absolute certainty, that nothing terrible could ever happen while he was in charge. We knew that our country could do fantastic things, that our future was limitless, and that there was no wrong in the world that the U.S. military, backed by the energetic and optimistic residents of this country, could not put right.
As I write it now, of course, I see the incredible naiveté and insularity of our worlds, but that was just the way things were for upper middle class 18 year olds in 1986. Challenger changed everything and it was just the beginning. Iran Contra, Chernobyl, the Iraqi missile attack on the U.S. frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf which killed 37 sailors, the Black Monday stock market crash, and the explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland of a Pan Am flight carrying 259 people (many of them college students) all came in rapid succession, each of them stripping away another layer of our innocence, each pushing us inexorably toward adulthood. For me, this event clearly marks the end of the happy, carefree years of my childhood. Part of me wishes I could put the genie back in the bottle so that I could have that innocent time back, but then I remember everything I've come through since then, and I'm glad to be right where I am.
Don't they have anything better to do with their time?
Tuesday morning. This is seriously annoying. The emails started popping up in my inbox at work at about 1pm PST or thereabouts and they just kept coming. I'd guess I deleted about 50 of the annoying little things by the time 4pm came around and I decided to leave and let the Help Desk figure out if my computer was infected and what to do about it. Stuff like this just makes me so angry because it's a huge waste of time for people that are actually trying to be productive at work, not to mention the fact that it's actually slowing down the internet because of all the bogus traffic it's generating. So, don't click on anything you're not expecting and let's hope they come up with a fix for this soon.
Monday afternoon. I attended a funeral this morning for a gentleman that I had the pleasure of working with for several years. Pete was an incredible guy, always smiling, always positive, and I loved talking to him because he always had something to say that would make me smile, or even laugh out loud. He retired a few years ago and I hadn't heard much from him recently, but I knew that he was doing something that he loved (because he always did things that he loved) and that he was bringing his trademark dazzling smile with him, wherever he went.
A little over a week ago, I was meeting with one of my team members and she happened to mention that she was concerned about Pete because she hadn't heard from him in over a month. I suggested that she send him an email, asking how he was doing, to see what was going on. When I came in the next morning, she told me that she'd found out Pete had died the very day we were talking about him. I felt a chill come over me, as though the sun had gone behind a cloud. Such a good man, with a wonderful life, and gone so young. He was only 67, just two years older than my mother.
His funeral was everything you could ever want from a final remembrance of your life, if such a thing can ever be positive. I never knew that Pete had served two tours in Vietnam, that he'd been a career Marine until his retirement in 1983, and that he'd commanded lots of men during this period, many of whom had gone on to become officers themselves. Those that spoke of him, and there were three plus the officiant, spoke of a man beloved by everyone that met him, a man who was a gentle man and a gentleman, a humble man with many accomplishments, a good husband, father, grandfather, friend, and co-worker. His son gave one of the most touching eulogies I've ever heard, breaking down several times before finishing. He spoke of his father's formative years, working on his family's farm in rural Pennsylvania, learning the value of hard work and honesty, values he carried with him throughout his life. He spoke of his determination to fight the cancer that eventually took his life, because he so wanted more time with his family. The priest, who met Pete only six weeks before his death, spoke of his (the priest's) absolute certainty that Pete was in heaven because he embodied all of the best qualities of a Christian man while retaining a stubborn humility that refused to acknowledge how truly remarkable he was in that respect.
Pete, I know that you're in heaven now, as surely as I'm sitting here. As sad as I am right now, and as much as cried at your funeral, you live on inside me and through every person that was ever blessed enough to know you. Say hi to Bev (our mail lady for years, she died in 1997) and Ben (another QA, he died last year) and Arnie (Director of Development, he died a few years ago); you guys can have a little VLSCI reunion up there while those of us left behind remember your smile.
Sunday night. I want this outfit, this one, and this one. I have the money (well, except for the awesome papaya colored jacket), now if only I wasn't twice the size of their largest offering. Sigh.
So said Denise on 6:21 PM # | 0 comments
Sunday morning. There's a new addition to the online journal community. Go and check out The Ongoing Adventures of Naked Girl, written by my eDiets friend, Shannin. Good stuff, well written, great sense of humor. I'll be adding her to my link list, so go and say "hi"!
When I grew up, there were only about five channels to watch on television: CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and, sometimes, an independent station. The majority of my television time was spent on PBS with "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", "Sesame Street", "Electric Company", and "Captain Kangaroo". Mister Rogers died last year and I cried, I cried in 1990 when Jim Henson (genius behind the Muppets) died, too. I'm crying again this morning. I loved Captain Kangaroo for his simple, loving, and intelligent approach to children's entertainment. He never talked down, he was never patronizing, and he taught so many simple lessons about interacting with others. I used to adore Mr Green Jeans, the silly Bunny Rabbit, and, especially, Mr. Moose.
I was just talking with Chris the other day about the importance of restricting what your children watch because of the vast amount of inappropriate viewing material that is being labeled "children's entertainment" these days. I mentioned all three of my favorite childhood shows as examples of what children should be watching and hoped that they'd still be available on DVD or whatever by the time any child we have is old enough to watch TV.
I know it sounds silly, because I certainly never knew any of these men personally, but this morning I truly feel as though I've lost not only a friend, but one of the last links with my childhood. So, goodbye Captain Kangaroo, I'm sure heaven will be wonderful after your long, lingering illness; the many, many children that live there now are sure in for a treat. (Could you also say hi to Mr Rogers and Ernie from "Sesame Street" for me?)
