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. It's a "good news/bad news" kind of day for me.
I took my car in to get smogged and have an oil change and, while the car passed (just barely), the O2 sensor was not functioning, so that was $220, and my rear tires had some "cupping" (don't ask me!) so they had to be rotated and balanced. The total bill was $360 - thank goodness for my IRS refund!
While they were working on my car, I decided to walk to Target, which is about 1/2 mile away from the dealership. I got there, started my shopping (two Vintage switchplates, three Vintage outlet covers, two Shabby Chic dishtowels, and a Shabby Chic oven mitt), and spent about 40 minutes dinking around Target. When I got outside the store, I found that it was now absolutely teeming with rain and the wind was blowing half a gale. I was wearing a tshirt and shorts. It was 70 degrees (F) and sunny when I went in! What the heck? In any case, I walked back to the dealership with my two bags tightly fastened, wearing the new track jacket I'd bought at Target over my tshirt. I was absolutely soaked to the skin by the time I got back to the dealership. I dripped all the way across the floor when I went inside, so I ended up sitting outside in the wind and rain so that I wouldn't destroy one of the nice chairs inside. The good news, other than the fact that my car passed its smog test, is that the consultant told me not to be disheartened because they looked really carefully at everything to make sure nothing else was ready to go and couldn't find anything, which is encouraging. I'd really like to keep this car another couple of years so that I can save up for a massive downpayment on a new car. Let's all keep our fingers crossed, shall we?
I really want to thank everyone that responded to my post from yesterday. I really believe that all of this has to come out of me before I can start to heal what needs to be healed. I have terrible self esteem issues (Denise, this is not news to anyone!) and I know that they are at least partially to blame for my weight problems. This is a pretty tall order to take care of, frankly. For as long as I can remember, there have always been three things that I've wished for: 1. a completely and absolutely flat stomach, 2a. to be "normal", accepted and even (GASP) desired by society OR 2b. to be as unobtrusive as possible, attracting no attention, making no trouble for anyone. Because I am unable to achieve numbers 1 and 2a, I pour all of my energies into number 2b and have become quite skilled in that area. Take today. The service consultant told me to call if it was raining and I needed a ride from Target, but I didn't do it because I didn't want to have to interact with the shuttle driver and worry that they were judging me because of my weight or whatever other external flaws caught their notice. Yes, I genuinely think that way. I was at a meeting this morning, very casual, but with lots of people I didn't know. The speaker asked me to come up and be acknowledged by the group and I was absolutely paralyzed with fear. I couldn't move, felt my heart racing, and just kept shaking my head and looking at the floor in front of me. I just knew that, no matter how well meaning and kind these people were, they would be looking at my huge stomach and thinking, "Why doesn't she do something about that? How can she live like that?" I came home and ate a huge fast food meal, loathing myself as I ate but not knowing any other way to handle my need to disappear, even if just for the time I was eating.
I've heard so many times that "it's always darkest just before the dawn". Dear God, I hope that's true because it's getting really dark around here and I can't seem to find a light switch.
Friday afternoon. I'm fed up. I'm tired of being fat, I'm tired of being tired of being fat, and I'm tired of talking about being tired of being fat.
I've been thinking a lot lately, which is always dangerous, frankly, and I've come to a few conclusions:
1. Sometimes, my eating is controlled by my emotions. When I don't or can't binge when I want to, I get this anxious, nervous feeling, like a caged animal. I'm not sure if that's me being scared of never getting to eat again or of the possibility that I might have to feel uncomfortable feelings instead of just eating them away.
2. I do not believe that I have the power to control my eating when emotions flare up. I know that I can, and have, stood up against food cravings in the past, but I always go back at some point to my friend, The Binge. (You know what's scary? I actually took an emotional inventory of myself right at the beginning of a binge the night before last and I found that the primary emotion I was feeling was relief. I was relieved because I could eat this huge pile of food. Why does that bring relief???)
3. It's not a lack of understanding about nutrition or health that keeps me from losing weight. It's not because I don't have the right diet or exercise plan available to me. What keeps me from losing weight and being healthy is my refusal to deal with the real reasons that I binge eat and/or eat things that are not good for my body.
4. I could lose 125 pounds and I still wouldn't be happy because I haven't dealt with all of the emotional garbage that clouds my life. It's so easy to blame everything on being fat - not being able to find a date, not being able to go out and socialize with "normal" people - but that's not the root cause. There are self esteem issues that will not go away with the pounds of fat - only serious internal work by me will lay the foundation for a happy life.
I've tried a counselor, I've tried self help books, and I just don't know what else to try. I'm so desperately unhappy with my body and my life, and that's just making my emotional baggage heavier to carry. It's become such a vicious cycle of self hate, turning into a binge, turning into more self hate, and so on and so forth. Where does it stop? I can't make it stop on my own, but there's no one else to do it for me.
I'm sorry to be such a downer on a Friday afternoon, I just had to get that all out of me. It spins and whirls around in my head and I can't make anything make sense unless I write it down. I think it's time to go home and possibly take a nap. I feel very sleepy suddenly and I think I'll go with it instead of fighting it. Everyone have a good Friday night!
Wednesday afternoon (again). Immediately after making the below entry, I went over to JuJu's site and found a really great idea for a writing assignment. Basically, the idea is to picture yourself at the exact moment that you first started feeling badly about yourself and your body and decided that eating was a good way to make you feel better about yourself, then write that child a note to comfort them. Below is my attempt to do just that.
Dear Denise,
I know how hurtful it is when kids at school make fun of you and make you cry. I remember exactly the way that you're feeling right now - how you want to rage, scream, hit something, and, most importantly, do anything at all just to make it stop.
I don't know why some kids feel that it's OK or even fun to be so horrible to someone that just wants to be liked and have friends. Perhaps someone hurt them and their only way of dealing with their pain is to hurt someone else. I'm not sure why, but I know that it happens, and that it hurts, and that it doesn't hurt any less when you're a grown up.
When you come home from school upset because you've been bullied by other kids, I know that your mommy tells you that you should have a piece of cheese or something else in the fridge to make you feel better. I know that you always do what Mommy tells you, because she loves you and she just wants to help you stop feeling sad. Mommy is wonderful at bandaging skinned knees and rubbing your tummy just the right way to make it stop hurting because Mommy is a nurse and she knows about things like that. Unfortunately, you can't put a Band-Aid over it when your heart hurts, and sometimes Mommy doesn't know how to fix what's wrong.
What I've learned as a grown up is that sometimes there isn't a way to fix it - sometimes you just have to let it hurt until it goes away. It's OK to be mad and, if you want to scream or yell or hit something, go ahead and do it. Feeling bad doesn't make you a bad person and it doesn't mean that you'll never be happy again. It's also OK that some people don't like you - it really is their loss, just like Mommy tells you - and it doesn't mean that you're not a good person or a good friend, it just means that everyone's different, including you. Don't let their decision not to like you make you change to try to be more like them. Being different is a good thing - it's a gift - and you are different, and special, too. Feel proud of that, don't hide it under a rock because others are so insecure about themselves that they can't appreciate your individuality.
Remember: Don't ever hide behind food when you feel mad or sad because it's not going to make you feel any better. Only time will heal you
Sometimes when you feel sad, the best thing in the world is to put your head in Mommy's lap and let her hold you until you feel better
Stand up and be proud of who and how you are because you are special and wonderful
I'm here for you, anytime you need me, so you'll never be alone.
Love, Me
I also got a really great thought in the mail from my friend, Shelly. Shell just lost her grandma and her mom is battling cancer, so she's been through Hell lately. She said, "please do all you can to appreciate the ones you love and the strangers you meet. Life is so very fragile, but also so available to us to take by storm." She's right, as usual.
Tuesday night. I need a vacation. No, I know you think you know what I mean, but I really need a vacation. I need to get away from work, away from here, away from all of the negative emotional stuff that's pervasive in my current life, and escape somewhere that I can be happy and carefree, if only for a few weeks. I think that my vacation spot must also provide for the possibility of having someone around that I can pay to massage my muscles into submission because, at this very moment, my shoulders are holding my ears and neck hostage and I'm afraid they're serious this time.
I also need to get myself to a game at Petco Park. I love baseball because it encapsulates everything that is right and good about the world. Clean, fresh air (those teams that play under a dome should be banished from the league), happy little kids in their Little League uniforms pressing up against the fence, trying to get their heroes' autographs, and the sweet sound of the flags blowing in the breeze. I missed Spring Training this year, as those who've been reading more than a few weeks will remember. I haven't missed Spring Training in years, and I think it's contributing to my general malaise of late. Baseball is part of my DNA, it flows through my veins, carried along with the other essential elements of life. I need to catch a game, or possibly two, and remember what sheer, unrestrained joy is.
You know, I knew that I didn't have anything important to say when I started this post, and yet I persisted in writing anyway. I should have paid attention to my first instinct. Important lesson learned.
Monday afternoon. First things first. I've changed my commenting system so that one of my favorite readers can actually comment without having to go to the trouble of sending me an email. Let me know if you have any trouble with the new system.
I had this huge, overblown entry ready to unleash on everyone earlier today and then I realized that I was overcomplicating it. Big time. Here's the concise version: Life is hard for everyone. Sometimes it seems as though the entire world is going to Hell in a handbasket at the speed of light. We can't control what goes on around us and we can't save the world. What we can do is take the best possible care of ourselves, treat ourselves kindly, and enjoy every single moment we have here on Earth. We are made to love and be loved, and that love should extend to our bodies and our entire selves. It doesn't matter what a bunch of people I'll never meet think of me, the only important thing is how I feel about myself. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Are you wondering why this is just coming to me now? Me, too.
In a sad note about my earlier posting, the man involved in the shooting just below my house died in the hospital this morning. The media seems to be suggesting that it was some sort of planned ambush, that the shooter was waiting for this poor man, which, in some sense, is even more horrific than thinking it was some random act of violence.
Monday morning. This is the way my morning started.
I was in my bedroom, getting dressed for work, when I heard seven or eight gunshots from a rifle. This is not entirely unusual, as I live on the edge of a canyon where coyotes live and sometimes someone will shoot at the coyotes to get them off of their land. It's not legal, but it happens. In any case, I was a little shaken, but I finished getting ready, grabbed my stuff, and headed off to work. As I made the first turn to get on the main street through our neighborhood, I noticed a SUV parked in front of our local bowling alley, with a homeless man and another man both peering through its windows. It was running and appeared to have red paint splattered on the driver's side, which I thought was odd. I noticed the second man who'd been watching the car take off running for the main road and stop, scanning the main street as though waiting for someone to come by. As I made the turn onto the main street, I saw the first police car come screaming up the road, followed closely by another, then three more. As I pulled to the stop light just before the freeway, a police car came screaming out of the drive through car wash, still soapy, and he headed up the road, too. At this point, I called work and asked one of my team members to check the 'net to see what was going on. All in all, I saw eight police cars and a paramedic unit fly up the hill toward my house.
I'm really pretty shaken. This sort of thing just doesn't happen in my neighborhood. Lots of car break ins, but that's petty stuff and to be expected, frankly, when you live in a large city like San Diego. Our neighborhood is lots of apartments, condos, and one very large senior living complex. It's quiet and there are lots of military - active and retired - throughout the neighborhood, so we don't have gang activity, either. What scares me the most is that this appears to be totally random, just some poor 60 year old man, minding his own business and driving through our canyon on a Monday morning. If that's the case, who's to say that it won't happen again? This isn't some remote part of the county, either, it's no more than 15 miles from downtown and very heavily populated. At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, what is this world coming to?
