A year of living...

I hate trying to find titles for my blog posts. It's a pain if one doesn't readily jump to mind. I once thought of titling my blog "The Year of Living Stupidly" just because it would make me laugh. Hmmm...I might do that or change the name to something - anything! - else because I'm not fond of the name, but that's a worry for another day. And not at all what this post is supposed to be about.

Last year I declared the time between my 44^th and 45^th birthdays to be the “Year of Yes”. Last week I decided that perhaps the time between 45 and 46 should be the “Year of No”, but hadn’t fully defined that. I still haven’t, but the more I think about it, the more I think I’m on the right track with that idea.

Reflecting back on the past year, I re-read the blog post I wrote and the last lines caught my attention: "... but hey, it's the Year of Yes. Anything can happen, right? Maybe just about anything at all if I'm willing to take a chance and say yes." Honestly, that really seems to sum up the last year. Anything can happen if you are willing to take a chance and say yes. 

Forty-four was a lot of fun. I’ve tried to chronicle what happened – both good and bad – so that I could feel like I had a tangible list of what I accomplished, but I’m not sure I could remember everything even if I tried. I know I had some fun. I know I had some UN-fun. Life isn’t perfect and neither was my year, but it was right. It was the way it’s supposed to be. Good or bad, right or wrong, this is how it was supposed to be.

At times I found myself straying from the idea of saying yes to things and had to pull myself back around, but for the most part I did what I wanted to do and I think I challenged myself at times which was great. I needed that. Heck, I still need that!! I’m not giving up the “Year of Yes”, even if I’m morphing it into a little something different this time around. It’ll just be the “Life of Yes”, which sounds like a lot more fun to me!

I’ve thought about what “no” means to me and right now, I think having a “Year of No” will be about saying no to the things that are hurting me. The negativity. The excesses (have I mentioned that I like cake?). Saying no to self-doubt and self-blame. Saying no to beating myself up all the time when things don’t immediately go the way I want them to go. Being aware of the negative ways I treat myself or allow myself to be treated. There are really so many things that “no” involves and they don’t have to be negative things! Tell yourself “no” sometimes is the best, most positive thing you can do.

So I’m off to embrace the “Year of No” and muddle along as I figure out what that ultimately entails. I realized the other day that God is testing my patience with several things lately and I am failing miserably. It's time now to try to do better. 

Oh, to hell with that! It’s time to DO better. Period. Because not only do I know that I can, I want to and that matters a whole hell of a lot.

After the “Year of Yes”, maybe it’s time for the “Year of No”

I’m going through a particularly negative phase right now, building up frustration because my physical therapy seems to be regressing. It was going pretty kick ass a few weeks ago and suddenly it became harder and more painful once again. I have no idea why that is happening – we haven’t changed any of the PT protocols – but the physical therapist and the mental health counselor and I are trying to work on it. My PT isn’t sure what is going on and my counselor thinks that my body is conditioned to have sex be painful, so that’s its default. When I do the therapy, my mind thinks, “Oh. Ok. Something’s in there, so it’s going to hurt. That’s what happens. We put something in the vagina and…ouch. Ok. I get it.” Unfortunately, the frustration I feel just circles around and around and then spills over into the rest of my life. I’m working to fight the negativity, but it’s a challenge. 

I suppose it’s meant to be challenging, but I hate that this one part of my life seems to be defining me now. I realize it’s all in my head (once again, I know that’s a big part of the whole problem), but I get tired of feeling that I’m allowing myself to be defined by what is happening with my vagina. Because let’s be real here, no one but me really cares what is going on with my vagina. (Once again, this is also probably a big part of the problem. Ha! I make myself laugh. I'm totally turning this into a stand-up routine when PT is done.). I don’t think other people are defining me by that body part…and it would be creepy if they are, so keep that one to yourself please. I guess I’m frustrated by my frustration. Good grief but I’m a real piece of work!

Stewing so much over my lack of PT progress has taken my focus off of being happy, which has been my general state for the past year. Good things have happened, less-than-good things have happened, but it’s all been a learning experience and while I’m a little down right now, I don’t really want to be complaining. I want to pull my head out of my heinie and see the brighter side of life again.

Last year, a few days after my 44^th birthday, I declared it the “Year of Yes”. I know, I know. No one really cares anymore. I’ve talked about this much too much. Not that it will stop me this time, mind you. The basic premise of the “Year of Yes” was to start saying yes more than I say no. To open myself up to the possibility of new experiences and opportunities. To give the universe the chance to throw more things my way or, as I prefer to think of it, to be open to the things that God brings into my life.

It’s actually gone quite well, in spite of a bumpy ride at times. Sometimes I have to push myself to say yes when I’d rather say no, but I can’t recall much of anything not working out for the better once I stepped outside of my comfort zone. Those bumps just wake you up sometimes and keep you paying attention.

For some reason I feel like I need to put an end to the “Year of Yes” and I got to thinking this week that maybe up next should be the “Year of No”. That doesn’t mean doing a sudden 180 by saying no to everything all the time though. I think it’s more about saying “no” to all the negativity I tend to wrap myself up in. Saying “no” to the things that will do more harm than good. Saying “no” to things like excessive spending or excessive eating. And by saying no, finding that perhaps I’ll be kinder to myself and right now I could use some kindness. 

I’m still formulating the parameters of this new year, but much like me in a yoga or Pilates class, they will be fluid and flexible. Being so damned uptight all the time is what got me into some of my current predicament. It’s time to say “no” to that, too.

I'm scared to death, but not scared to admit it

Earlier today I wrote about dealing with my inner monster, the one that can't seem to stop eating or thinking about food. While driving home this evening I realized that I had left out a key part of all of that which is WHY The Monster stays on my mind. It's simple really. I'm afraid. Terrified, even.

I'm scared to death that I'll regain all of the weight that I've lost. Or any of it, really. I've recently regained 6 pounds and I'm scared that it's the beginning of the end.

If I regain that weight, I really don't know what I'll do. I'll be so disappointed in myself and kind of heartbroken, but more than that I think I'll feel very, very defeated. I worked hard and I did something I never thought I would be able to do. Losing weight was something I always desperately wanted, deep down inside, but I would never put the effort into it to make the dream a reality.

Am I skinny? No. I might have been once, back in high school, but I'm never going to be "skinny" again or even thin and that's ok. I don't have to be skinny. I just have to be better. Better than I used to be and that's what I am today. I like the person who I am now. I always said I liked myself in the past and perhaps I did. I certainly didn't hate myself. Or did I? I know that I used weight to hide behind because it was so much easier than to stop hiding. Easier to feed the fear and insecurity with another cookie than face those fears and try to change. I didn't take care of my body or my spirit and that's certainly not someone who loves or likes themselves. So maybe while claiming to like myself, I was lying to everyone. Something to think about.

The Monster scares me a great deal, because I see what it can steal from me. This newfound sense of accomplishment. The newfound self-confidence (if you thought I had it in the past, well, it was just a defense mechanism and it wasn't real, trust me). I've always thought that I knew who I was, but the past 20 months have made me question that. Am I who I always thought I was? And if I'm not, just who am I?

I can't really answer all those questions - or don't want to right now because I'm jonesing to go take a hot shower - but whoever I am, I'm not the same person that started out in February 2015 with a determination to finally, FINALLY lose the weight. I don't ever want to be that person again and I'm afraid that The Monster can take it all away from me if I let it. I am happier now. I'm more active now. I'm definitely a snappier dresser. haha I think I'm more fun now or at least willing to step out of my comfort zone and do things that I wouldn't have considered in the past. I can say with total honesty that I like myself now. The way that I am today (possibly exactly today because I have on a cute blue dress and I'm seriously obsessed with the blue dresses for some reason). I'm proud of myself...but I'm still scared. I want to keep moving forward and not be dragged back to the person I used to be.

Building the Perfect Beast

I realized a few weeks ago that I have become one of “those people”. By “those people” I mean someone who constantly counts calories and thinks about what they are eating. Or what they are going to eat. What they want to eat. My mind is overtaken entirely too much with food. Not that it wasn’t a lot like that before, but it feels worse now. 

For years I said I didn’t want to count calories, or do a plan like Weight Watchers where you count points, because I didn’t want to have to put that much thought into what I was eating. Then I educated myself – after all those years of admittedly very deliberate denial – and realized I was never going to lose weight if I didn’t pay more attention to what and how much I was eating. My whole life has been a struggle with weight and while my health problems are certainly small in comparison to what many people are juggling, they are still quite real for me and now I realize I’ve created a monster.

Every morning The Monster wakes up. Usually around 10am, but definitely before 11. I can feel it moving around inside me. Slowly at first, but gaining strength as the minutes tick by. tick tock. tick tock “Feed me. Feed me. I’m hungry!!”

I eat breakfast every morning. Every morning. It is confusing when people say they aren’t hungry in the morning and skip breakfast. Those words don’t even register with me. I wake up and while I can’t eat immediately or early in the morning (anything prior to about 7am makes me queasy), I have to eat breakfast by 9am. Between my stomach loudly protesting the lack of food and the genuine craving to break my fast, well, it would get ugly if I didn’t have something to eat.

Meal prep has become my Sunday afternoon routine. If I want to eat during the week, I have to get it prepped or cooked on Sundays and that includes breakfast prep. I’m pretty basic during the work week, eating peanut butter overnight oats with banana sliced on top every day. I never want it on the weekends, but I crave it on weekdays. In the past, it’s been very filling and kept me going until lunchtime. That is, until I realized I had The Monster to deal with.

The Monster starts moving around and telling me it’s time to eat again mid-morning. I try to fight it, believing perhaps it’s all in my head, but after about an hour (ok, sometimes after 5 minutes…I can be pretty weak) I have to give in. Maybe a small handful of almonds. Another piece of fruit. Although some days the only thing that satisfies me is a small bag of chips or a granola bar. Drinking water does nothing to curb my appetite, though I wish it did. I must drink a gallon a day as it is, but I do try calming The Monster down with water sometimes, just in case I’m really thirsty and not hungry.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with a snack now and then, but once I start, it’s painfully hard to stop. If I can even stop at all. I used to mindlessly eat and I’m much better at not doing that now, but some days (most days, lately) I simply cannot stop eating. I try to stop to give my body a chance to feel full, but that doesn’t help and if I don’t get whatever it is I am craving then it gets worse. The Monster starts thrashing around inside me, refusing to settle down.

So I keep fighting against The Monster (maybe I’ll name it Grover, in homage to The Monster at the End of This Book - *spoiler alert* Grover is the monster at the end of the book…). Every day. I’m sure it’s easy for someone to shrug it off and say “Just stop eating so much!” or “You can control your urges!”, but unless you have ever had to fight with your weight, unless you’ve ever been overweight and desperately wanted to lose some of it, then you don’t know what you are talking about. It’s like telling someone you understand what they are feeling due to the loss of a parent, but both of your parents are still alive. You don’t get it, you won’t get it, you simply CAN’T get it. Because you haven’t been there. And let’s be really real here. Everyone’s experience is different, so even if you have lost a parent, you still don’t know how I felt when my mother died and even if you have had to fight to lose weight, you still don’t know how I feel or how I’ve fought to drop some pounds. Our experiences are different.

I’ve gained 6 pounds in the past few months and while I want to blame The Monster, I have to blame me. I created this monster and I continue to quite literally feed it. If I keep doing that, it’ll never leave. Sure, 6 pounds might not seem like a lot, but I fought to lose those 40 and I fight to maintain. Do I eat a lot of cake? Absolutely! I love cake and I’m not giving it up, but I was eating a lot of cake while I was losing those 40 pounds. If I can’t find a way to maintain the loss without giving up the things I enjoy then I have to regroup and figure out a new plan of attack. A life full of celery sticks and baked fish isn’t one I am interested in.

Now I’ll try to make peace with The Monster and think of it more as Grover. I always liked Grover. He was silly and goofy and fun and I like to think I’m at least 2 out of the 3 of those things (the jury is usually out on whether or not I'm fun). Maybe if The Monster and I can make friends we can work together to literally feed my body the nutrients that it needs to function and (hopefully) thrive, but also know when to stop. I’ve never been good at stopping. Maybe that’s the next lesson to work on.