21 days....

Starting June 2, 2010:

Be positive
No talking about the past
Let go
Clear clutter
Journal

It has been a long time since I've made a real decision to put myself first so I can find what exactly makes me feel "joy" as Kathy says. I couldn't tell you the last time I felt that for any length of time. I've had joyful days, even joyful weeks (like when I was on vacation in England), but eventually I come back to reality and get into this rut that drains my energy, my enthusiasm, my desire to do anything remotely productive. I sit in my little hole of an office with no windows dreaming of being somewhere where the water meets the sand and daydream away my life. It's like ground hog day, every day is exactly the same as the day before. I think eating is my way of doing something different, what exciting can I eat today??? What goodie can I eat that makes me feel happy??? But it only works temporarily then I feel bad because I was trying to feel good. And it does feel good, the sweetness and coolness of my ice cream, the sugar thrill from the donut, the crunchy goodness of my cheese crackers, yum, I could eat them all day long if it wouldn't make me sick. But it does make me sick and I hate that it makes me sick because I like feeling the goodness of eating this sick stuff. Does that make me a sick person?? Not really, it makes me a person that needs something she isn't getting, which may be something as simple as time to walk on the beach, quiet to read a good book, doing something that makes me feel like I am fulfilling some purpose on this earth. Having friends, and really wanting to have friends, being sociable and not forcing myself to go to weddings and events (usually skipping them), being a part of life not just existing.

So, today, day one of my 21 day journey with my sister, day one in finding out what makes me feel good about me, day one of putting myself first. It's a journey that won't end in 21 days but hopefully a journey that will begin what is a life of joy.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Letting go.....

I have been watching a show about hoarders lately and it made me wonder what psychological imbalance made people want to collect and hang on to things so much that they couldn't live a normal life. The hoarding kept them from being able physically and emotionally do the things that they really wanted to do but they just couldn't control this behavior. It caused them so much pain to let go of the smallest thing and the anxiety was unbearable for them. What really drives this behavior? It is so disturbing that it made me want to get rid of everything in my house that I had kept for years and haven't used. I imagine I would have the tendency to hoard things if I was left unchecked, I can tell by the clothes I have that are going on 20 years old. I just can't let go of them just in case I may be able to wear them one day. Thing is I never seem to be able to get my weight to the point where I can wear any of these clothes (needless to say they are smaller sizes). I realized after thinking about all of this for a few days that I actually do hoard but in a way so different than I could have imagined and it is the reason why I am not able to lose weight. I am adding pounds to my body that I do not need, I have way too many, much more than I have ever had but I cannot seem to let go of them. I know if I eat less and exercise more they will go away, but I wont do that. If I do lose a few pounds I get anxious and start eating to the point of gaining all the pounds back plus a few for good measure. What is driving that behavior??? What am I afraid of if I lose the excess weight?? I say I want to be thinner or "normal" and I know what I need to do to get there but I can't seem to let go of it, like I need it for something, or will need it for something later. I am not afraid of the things that would have affected me as a child, I know I won't go hungry, I know men can't bother me, I know I am safe.... so what???? Maybe what I know and what I feel aren't the same thing, maybe I don't feel I will never go hungry, maybe I don't feel I am safe, maybe I don't feel men can't bother me, maybe I feel something I can not articulate, maybe I feel fear, feel insecure, feel vulnerable, feel like I have no control over my life and the weight is a symbol of all that I feel. So, how do you let go? How do you let go of all the things that keep you from living the life you want? If I can let go of all the things that hold me back then I can possibly let in all the good things waiting for me.

A Walk on the Beach

I took a walk down the beach yesterday with my sister and mother but it was more than just a walk on the beach, it was a walk down memory lane. It had been years since I stepped foot on this particular beach and I wasn't prepared for the tide of emotions that swelled up in me. I spent many days for many years visiting Jax Beach, it wasn't the coolest beach in Florida but it was our beach. We would throw on our bikinis and a shirt and head out for the day. It was our life, and I didn't realize then what an important part of our life it was. Just feeling that sand beneath my feet and remembering all the times I had walked in that sand made me feel like I had gone a long way from where I thought I would be 40 years later. That isn't totally true, I didn't think about being 40 years older, I thought I would always be young. I would see older people at the beach and feel sorry for them because they had lost their youth. Now it's me, I am the older person, my youth gone forever. In some ways things have turned out much better than I would have imagined and in other ways much worse. Gone is the bikini body, way way gone and that made me sad. Not because I want to be able to wear one I just want to be the best I can possibly be for my age, I always thought I would age well (getting old was for other people). I realize that I am not being my best and I am very disappointed in myself for that. It should be important to me, it is important to me and I realize that more now than I have in a long time. I feel I don't know how to find my best self and that scares me. I felt just a slight glimpse of happiness there at the beach and I know that is what I want to feel all the time. I felt like I left part of myself right there at the beach and that I would be able to find my best self there, walking on the beach, where I had walked so many years ago.

A journey of a thousand miles...

...begins with a single step. Taking that first step seems monumental when the journey feels so long. I need to lose 60, 70, 80 pounds and that seems like a mountain way too hard to climb. Getting here was pretty easy, well upon thinking of it, it wasn't that easy. I started many diets, followed them for weeks or months, then fell off the wagon, lost some weight and gained some more back. It's crazy but it was a lot of hard work getting fat. Seems like it would have been a matter of pigging out all the time without any thought of what I was eating, sitting around being lazy, just not giving a damn what I was doing. But it really wasn't that simple at all. I thought about it every single day, EVERY DAY, for years. I worried about every single thing I put in my mouth, I gave in to things I shouldn't eat but I did worry about it. It was not a matter of just being lazy, not one bit. It took an extreme amount of effort, worry, studying, stressing, to get here. So, to take the journey to "normal" I need to take the first step, a single step, but in what direction? I have tried Weight Watchers many times, Jenny Craig, Nutri System, Herbalife, Slim Fast, grapefruit, no "whites", Atkins, diet pills... the list doesn't end, I have tried it all and each time I have had limited success and instant extra pounds. I have dieted myself fat so I don't believe dieting is the answer, but what is??? I feel so guilty when I eat, even if it is "good" foods, it's like I don't deserve to eat because I am so fat and I must have been a pig to get here. I must be defective in some kind of way and I don't know why. It's like I am being punished for something but I don't know what. Being a normal weight should not be this hard, it should not be the something I think about every single day, it should just "be". I just want to be normal, be able to buy clothes that actually fit, to feel like I can go anywhere and not be self-conscious. I was hoping there was an answer in my blood work as to why this is happening and it was all pretty much normal. No thyroid to blame it on, no cortisol, no estrogen dominance, NOTHING! It is just me, all my fault, did it to myself. I am so ashamed, I really am. I do not know how to take that first step because I am afraid to fail once again, I can normally do anything I set my mind to do but not this. I need an answer, I need help, I need to make it happen. Where to I go, what do I do??? I look in the mirror for answers and all I can see is a long, long journey ahead for me. I am afraid, afraid I will never succeed. I do not want to stay this way, I really want to shed these extra pounds for good. If I am being punished for something I feel my sentence has been paid, I have suffered with this long enough. Step one....try to take step two.

Here a blog, there a blog, everywhere a blog blog

Blog, blog, blog. Why do I want to blog??? Well, I have thought about blogging for a while because I think a lot. I have random thoughts about random things, a lot. I thought about writing in a book about things I think about but it seems like someone is always around when I want to write and it makes me self-conscious about writing and leaving my thoughts laying around. This is, in a way, anonymous (except for you sister) so I can write away without editing what I am thinking, for the most part anyway. I like typing because I can rant away then go back and edit what I wrote. It's out there without being out there, make sense?? It's a little harder with a pen and a book to erase what you have written. The other great thing is when you finish writing you can hit "publish post" and it goes out into the universe. Wow, it's like the Secret, sending things out into the universe. I used to take pages of things I wrote and have a burning ceremony to do that (when I was alone-which is rare), I felt like that sent the thoughts out there to disappear in the universe. I feel the same way with the blog, poof it's gone. Another great thing is you don't really know where your thoughts will take you, you just get an idea for a topic and type away and sometimes things fly off the keyboard that you didn't even know you were thinking, awesome! Sometimes insightful things, those little "oh, I never thought about it that way" kind of moments. So, that's why I am doing it, looking for the keys to that little Mimo side of me, if I keep writing about my thoughts and send them out into the universe maybe I will get there. Seems like a plan and I don't make many plans! It's good to have a plan sometimes.

I had a dream

I had a dream when I was a young girl, I dreamed of being Miss America and having a beautiful wedding in the biggest, laciest, whitest, wedding dress imaginable. I dreamed of walking down the isle in this big dress with this long veil to marry Prince Charming and we would live happily ever after. My first disappointment came when I realized I was not Miss America material. I had crooked teeth, a hump in my nose, no talent, and didn't have the money for the formal wear! And I certainly wouldn't have known how to answer all those questions. Actually it was Dad that informed me of this lack of Miss America material. I had no idea that I wasn't qualified, no way. I dreamed of being crowned and waving to the adoring crowd, I was Miss America, the most beautiful girl in the USA! Ha, I liked that dream. Wasn't to be though.

So after that disappointment I still had the dream of the big wedding I might be able to pull off, I could do THAT! Well, once I realized we were poor I started worrying about the type of boys I could date because of the wedding issue. I realized that the parents of the girls always paid for the wedding and I knew my parents didn't have any money so I knew I couldn't marry a rich boy. Dating Michael really made me worry about that prospect. I really liked him at the time and thought maybe we would get married one day even though I am sure his family worked hard on him to let him know that it wouldn't be a good idea to marry a poor girl. I thought if they liked me for me then it would be ok but they never did warm up to me, not at least back then. I did worry though that if he were to ask anyway that my parents wouldn't be able to afford a wedding, especially not the kind of wedding that his family would think worthy of their son (not to mention my dream wedding). It was stressful. Thankfully that didn't work out, so I guess it was a blessing(one I am grateful for). I didn't set my sights so high the next time around and I got what I wished for. I did find someone who's economic status was pretty similar to mine but he wasn't right for me. In the beginning I thought he was perfect but it didn't take long to realize he wasn't, I knew it but didn't listen to myself. I was getting older and you just didn't go past 21 and not get married (at least that is what I thought at the time). I absolutely figured my time was running out and no one would ever want to marry me so if he ever asked I was going to say yes! I always dreamed of that wedding and being married to my Prince and time was running out for me. How times have changed. He eventually did ask, not before lots of disappointment, and I said yes because I needed to be married and anyone was better than no-one. So we got married but I still didn't get the big wedding I wanted. I have to laugh because being married in a trailer park was a long way from the wedding of my dreams. I sold a ring another boy gave me to pay for my flowers and cake and Mom paid for my dress. Dad, he stayed out of it. So I had a wedding fitting for a poor girl, I married a frog in a trailer park! I knew right away it wasn't going to work but that is a whole other story. I had a dream.......it didn't come true.

I was born a poor black child...

Well, it seems that way! We were poor I suppose but not really black. My dad used to kid me when I got very tan in the summer and say I was a black child so in a way I was a poor black child but I didn't really know we were poor. I didn't know what poor actually was. I knew that my parents fussed about money some times but that was only a concept I didn't understand, we had some hard times but mom tried her best not to let us know just how hard. Food was slim sometimes but we always had something to eat. So, poor as we were, we kids didn't actually know we were poor until.... high school. I was totally oblivious to being poor until then and I think that was the beginning of the poor self esteem issue for me. I had never been judged on where I lived, what I wore, or how much food was in the refrigerator until then. I did not know other people lived differently than we did. My parents didn't prepare us for that bit of news. I thought everyone was the same, I really did. I am not sure exactly when I started to figure it out, maybe when I went to my friend Chris's house when I was 15, that is probably the first time I was aware people lived in big houses! I still remember driving up the street and seeing this HUGE mansion at the end of the road and saying something like OMG that house is huge, then they told me it was their house. What a shock! I got to go there!!! But, these people were very nice to me, they didn't make me feel like I didn't belong and so I still didn't get it. The first time I got it was when Michaels parents took me out on their boat and that evening Michael wanted them to take me to the Country Club for dinner and his mother said (right in front of me) that I wasn't dressed appropriately to go there. Now this was the first time I had even heard of a Country Club and being country I didn't see the big deal! Dumb me! That was the beginning of my realization that I was different, I was not good enough to be in this particular environment, this Country Club club. That is the first time I had to look at myself and wonder what was wrong with me, I didn't know I wasn't ok, and I certainly didn't know how to fix it. That was the beginning of my self image being chipped away. While they started it, Larry Bring fueled the fire, nicely I might add. It wasn't my childhood so much as it was the beginning of my adulthood that made me doubt myself and form my "not good enough" mentality. Now I have to say that dad did some work on it too, but what he started they finished. So, I have come to realize that it's my self-image I need to work on. That person in the mirror I can't quite get in touch with, at least I know where to start. I am good enough!