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.
Thursday evening. Wow, I'm really sorry that I haven't been here for a while. I really hope that someone got the license number for the bus that hit me! Work is, as usual, crazed plus I had a Junior League meeting on Tuesday night until 8:30pm, so that didn't help. (Interesting meeting, though...did you know that less than 25% of people working in the science and engineering fields are women? Yikes! There's a not-for-profit working to change that for San Diego as well as expanding children's interest in science and engineering regardless of gender, race, or economic background. Good stuff.)
In any case, so I've been trying to work The Plan and work has been so hectic and emotionally draining that I've deviated in many, many ways. I was a little peeved about that but then I decided that, given how much stress I'm under, it probably wasn't that significant. Then, tonight, I realized that, once I sort of gave myself permission to have little mini binges (seriously, nothing like they used to be) without recrimination or throwing in the towel, I didn't seem to need them as much. Imagine that! I don't feel that manic "I've-got-to-be-perfect-or-else" vs. "what-the-heck-bingeing-feels-better-than-this-does-anyway" swinging going on, either. It's like, I'm going to eat when I'm hungry and, if that's a little more than it should be, that's OK. (Plus, since I've officially stopped dieting, if I eat a carnitas burrito, that's OK, too. Bonuses!)
No idea what my weight will look like when I weigh again on February 1, but here are some of the things I've figured out:
1. I don't like eating little mini meals between real meals. If I'm going to sit down and eat, I want it to be substantial. Not sure how to fix that or if I'll even try.
2. When I drive home (which I need to do on the freeway so that I don't drive past fast food) and I'm exhausted, that probably means that I need to eat something, relax a little, and then go to bed early. Staying up late just makes me feel worse the next day and usually leads to binges around 9:30/10pm. If I'm in bed, I can't binge!
3. Working out in the morning is great, but it makes me late for work. I'm in the middle of an iFit eight-week treadmill walking program and there are these workouts to do each day (with directions about what speed and incline to use plus music and a personal trainer) which are great and I love. Except that my old treadmill makes a lot of noise so I have to wait until my elderly neighbor is awake and upstairs before I start walking so that I don't wake her up. This makes me late if I have to be in by 9am so, on those days that I can't get into the office around 9:30, I'll just have to do them at night. (I have a new treadmill on order, so this shouldn't be a problem after next week.)
I won't have to figure out what to do about my eating over the weekend when I'm with TCB because he's got a Navy buddy staying with him for the next month, so I won't be going up there for a while. It's just too long a drive to stay for the afternoon and then go home on a regular basis although I'm sure I will sometime during the four weeks. (I'll also be seeing him this Monday because he'll be here to do more things around the condo while also supervising the guy that's coming out to fix the rotted out pieces of wood on my deck.) Honestly, if I can get some good habits built up before I deal with weekends with TCB, that's not a bad thing.
OK, off to get changed and do my 25 minutes of treadmilling. Be good!
Monday afternoon. The weather outside is beautiful, as always. Inside, things are considerably different.
There's this thin veneer of calm, and signs of recovery from busy season are starting to appear quietly in the hallways. People have their doors open again, I hear the sound of casual laughter (not the forced, brittle kind), and I see people going outside the building for lunch. And then there's me. I feel like a house of cards, standing tall to the casual observer but ready to crumble inside. There is so much going on - both work-related and otherwise - that I can't talk to anyone about that's just sitting on my heart and weighing on my mind and a wayward tear trickles down my face sometimes just because I can't keep the vise grip on my emotions at all times. Just the act of breathing sometimes relaxes me into thinking and dreaming and that's when the guard comes down.
Over the weekend, while talking to my mom about a friend of the family that had recently died, she revealed that she's got a colonoscopy scheduled for later this month and that she's been having some bowel problems for a while. (For those that may not know, my mother had surgery for colon cancer back in 2002. She had a foot of her colon removed but - thankfully! - did not have to have radiation or chemo, nor did she require a colostomy.) She's now scared that the cancer's back, she's depressed about her friend(s) - this wasn't the first very close friend to die recently, and I think she's started drinking regularly again. I calmed her down, reassured her that it was probably nothing...probably the poor eating over the holidays...probably the stress of her friends' illnesses and deaths...nothing for her to worry about. Inwardly, I'm remembering what it was like last time, my mother behaving more like my child, my dad not communicating (as usual) but worrying himself sick, hours spent in the hospital listening to my mother cry quietly, me crying hysterically in the car on the way home - the only time I was alone. I'm so tired and, God help me, I know it's selfish and I can't help myself but not now. Not ever, of course, but especially not now. I'm such a selfish bitch to be thinking this way.
Then there's my team member who's been working at home for the last week and a half because he's dealing with the cancer of one of his parents. And it's getting worse. Over the weekend, vision started to go, mobility is already severely compromised, and 24 hour hospice care is now needed. He's dealing with all of that and still doing a more than capable job of releasing one of our most critical products, on time and under a very compressed production schedule. I think I can hear the cracking in his voice as we talk in the mornings and it's all that I can do not to break down myself.
I feel like I might just be becoming the person I want to be, a daughter to be proud of, a good neighbor and friend, and happy - deeply happy - for the first time ever. I have this great relationship with my mom now, which I didn't then, but surely this is not it??? Can't she stay with me a little longer while I actually enjoy my life?!!
But I can't do this right now, can't allow myself to think about anything except one foot in front of the other, one decision at a time. No time to cry, no time to talk to someone and tell them how I'm feeling, I just don't have that luxury right now.
