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 night. My body hasn't been wracked with sobbing today and I take this as a good sign.
My frustration at work has not diminished and today I had to endure a conversation with my manager about my criticism of a certain new policy, which is not something that happened. I wonder how much longer I can stay in a job where I have to constantly keep up a facade and hide myself. I don't want to have to "watch what I say" and be some automaton of maximum efficiency. This is not who I am and it's not who I want to be, either. How much of all of the junk floating around in my head and the fat on my body is here because of the fact that I'm so unhappy with what I do for a living?
Wait, I just started to cry. So much for progress, eh?
Thursday afternoon. Just a quick post to tell you about the easiest way to lose weight I've ever found: sob hysterically, with your entire body wracked with pain and your voice screaming, for 30 minutes. Yes, friends, I can tell you from real life experience that you can lose up to six pounds just from reaching the lowest point your soul can endure!
Seriously, I weighed myself yesterday morning and again with Gloria after one of the worst crying jags I've ever had, and I'd lost six pounds. When I told Gloria that it had to be the scale, she told me that the sadness and tension I'd been holding back (along with the tears and wailing lamentations) is stored in tissues and actually makes me weigh more. I don't know about you, but I'm going to work crying hysterically into my daily routine from now on!
(I'm kidding about that last part, but it is sort of spooky/interesting, huh? I ate like a horse all day yesterday, so don't think that it could be a legitimate loss. Also, Aunt Flo is nowhere near her monthly visit, so it's not that, either.)
Wednesday evening. I've got about 30 minutes until I leave for my appointment with Gloria. I wish that I could say that things are going swimmingly and that I'm going to aquafit classes as I committed to doing (I'm not) and eating reasonable amounts of at least somewhat healthy foods instead of bingeing (I'm still bingeing and the health factor is almost negligible in my food). I want to be happy and healthy and it just isn't happening.
I don't want to do this any more. I don't want to constantly fight with myself about what I want (health) and what I want, too (food, sloth, laziness). I don't want to diet and exercise at all, so no more worries about my turning on myself and restricting - that's not anywhere on the horizon. I feel overwhelmed and underperforming, all at once.
Work stresses me out because I know there's something else I'm supposed to be doing and yet I'm still here and pretending that this is my life's work. I don't care if I'm good at it...managing other people is ripping my soul out because I'm so flippin' sensitive that I just absorb it all and eventually (like now) I just reek of everyone's problems and foibles. Don't I have enough of my own???
TCB stresses me out because we have so many issues just barely under the surface (some aren't even buried) that we don't acknowledge. We don't communicate, at least not on any meaningful level. I am scared that we're not spending enough time together and also scared that, if we spend more time around each other that we won't last. So many things that we need to talk about: religion/spirituality (I have no idea what he believes), money (we both spend it like it's going out of style), physical affection separate from sex (doesn't happen and it makes me feel completely cold), and where we want to go when we grow up (I won't shack up and he doesn't know if he could ever want to be married again). And if he's reading this, as I suspect he might, I'm hurting a man that I care deeply about. Great.
Junior League stuff has me stressed out because it's all so action-oriented and that's the furthest thing from where I am right now. Getting up, doing laundry, being energetic and committed at work, being everything possible for Alcott...they suck what little I have left out and leave me completely exhausted and empty. And then there's TCB. And my parents. And Tracy, my best friend, who I suspect is going through something really horrible right now but am too much of a waste of space to call and ask about because I'm afraid I'm not going to be enough to absorb what she needs to get out. And this journal, which I'm neglecting terribly because I don't know how to write "I suck and I feel like crap" again in an original way so that I'm not ashamed of my lack of creativity.
I look to all the world like a successful career woman who has a great relationship with her boyfriend, fulfilling volunteer opportunities, and a near-permanent smile on her face. Behind the smile lies ugliness and the daily battle to exist, but that just doesn't make for interesting conversation.
Wednesday afternoon.This makes me so sad. I know it costs money and I know we don't have enough already to do the things that we need to do as a country, but omigosh, we are so going to pay the price as a nation when these kids hit middle age.
We all know (and many have experienced it personally) that being fat as a kid and teenager makes it really tough to maintain a healthy weight as an adult. If you don't learn those good habits when you're young, you get to have the joy of trying to reprogram your brain to enjoy activity and eating healthy as you age. I can say with fervent nodding of head that this process is not fun. It is many things but, for me, fun is not one of them.
The Junior League of San Diego has chosen Children's Health and Nutrition Education as our new focus area, so I've been giving this a lot of thought to find projects that we can found as a League to help the community. Now more than ever, I'm convinced that local, direct action is the answer to this epidemic, and I encourage any of you that has the opportunity to influence kids and teens to help them create healthy habits for a lifetime. No one should set themselves up for diabetes and heart disease before middle age and that's just what these kids are heading for.
