Working it out

All this working out and just flat working gets me thinking too ... I think of the epistolary injunction to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." But wait, didn't that kinda get taken care of before we showed up here, before I ever had any of the million billion fears that beset us all? So why am I "working it out"?

Perhaps ... perhaps we must know down to our sinew and bone what it is to lose, to fail, to be capable of no more - lest we take lightly the next breath we have, the next movement we freely make, the next word we blithely speak into existence. None of it is quite so easy, light and meaningless as we may be led to believe. It matters.

But am I talking about eating? About fitness? About work? Or about the stuff of everyday life? Well, yes. All of it. I forgot how much these choices and daily decisions mean, what difference they make in the trajectory of one's hours, day, week, year, life ... in forgetting, I lost that inner authority. Now I have to work it back in. *sigh* or maybe this is just what I get for having read too much Kierkegaard and Camus all these years :-D!

Circling back

So it's time i opened up a vein here again. As long as i don't bleed out on here we're good, right?

So from spring 2011 to summer 2013 i worked my a** off literally, lost 80 pounds the hard right way, ran a bunch of races including a half marathon, felt good about myself and attracted ridiculous amounts of attention. And got stupid because of it ... and lost that new hard-won confidence and identity while gaining back about 50 pounds. Ever carry a 45 pound barbell plate around? Not fun. I missed my gym-going, bold runner-chick self. And i emotionally ate myself into this damn hole day after day, while telling myself it was ok because the person i was with said he loved me no matter what size or weight ... until he obviously didn't anymore.

i've been told over the past few months that i am a "spoiled selfish bratty b***h." maybe. yeah, hitting the cookie bar at Fresh Market or Whole Foods, binging on that and calling it lunch, qualifies i guess. so does agitating about paychecks that would do me more good as wallpaper than they did at the damn bank, wanting a little grownup time with my partner without interruptions of little children or others in the house, taking it upon myself to do household tasks that weren't getting done (i was tired of hearing the griping and complaints from his family that my partner was lazy thank you) ... and likewise it's selfish of me to want that body, that self i had worked so hard for, back.

So now i've moved cross country to start finding that Bad A** woman in here again. At this point, you WANT me to be kinda selfish. THAT is where the "drive" i seem to be missing comes from. And it's damn hard right now for me to muster that kind of selfish. As much as i miss that BAW i was starting to like seeing in the mirror, i am scared to bring her back. Scared. The attention she gets isn't safe for my spirit and soul. Yet i still want attention ... i want to know somebody feels better about their day, their life, with me being around. i want to hear that i am a "good girl," that i matter ... maybe that's bratty and selfish too. i've got just enough faith left to believe that God Fate the Universe or Whatever would say all those kinds of things to/about me, but dammit i need someone with skin on and an audible voice. i may have to record that shit if i get to hear it again.

A little entertainment

Now inhabiting this space: a little proof of all the time I'm spending sweatin' it out instead of blogging :D ...

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter

oh, yeah. self-care. right.

So, on the good side I finally got settled in with a gyn in Baton Rouge who seems pretty good and on top of her stuff, and will be having a first visit with a doc who will probably be my primary on Monday. Finally getting back to a spot where I can try to take responsibility for my own health and well-being and all that jazz.

On the bad side ... said gyn, after hearing me describe a couple weird things I'd noticed myself dealing with lately plus family history, sent me to get a more serious blood glucose test. According to the results of that, which just came in this morning, apparently I am diabetic.

Ok. Yes, I know it's manageable (much more easily manageable now than it has been in the past). Yes, my numbers are not hugely dramatically out of range so far. And yes, I am SOOO glad that I know about it now, that I didn't have to get totally dehydrated, lose consciousness, become horribly ill, and otherwise get to the point of having to be admitted to the hospital to find out about this. But ...

I'm still mad as hell ... two things. For one, here I am, having for the past several months been doing all the "right things" - getting more careful about what and how much I eat, becoming much more physically active than I remember ever being before. I started doing those things, hoping to stave off this problem that I've known about being at higher risk than average for since years ago. Logically, I know it's just my purpose in doing these things has to shift a little bit now - from "prevention" to "management." But part of me still does want to complain that it's been wasted effort, too little too late.

The second thing is ... I've been at that higher than average risk, mostly because of family history. Particularly my dad. He hasn't lost any limbs or appendages (though there have been close calls), and he still has his vision ... but he really does not do that well with taking care of himself, or making those healthier choices about what he eats, or exercising. For a long time, his unhealthy choices also spilled over to affect me. Yet for years, he's been pointing the finger at me and telling me about how I do "this, this, and this" that HE says is bad, and the end of those speeches has ALWAYS been one of two things: "And you wonder why your zits are so bad!" or "You're going to be a bad diabetic before age ___." Well, I finally outgrew the damn zits that his genes also contributed to. But now I grew into this other shit?!? I don't want to even talk to him about this right now and probably won't for quite a while - because I do not want to hear ONE WORD of his "I told you so." NOT ONE WORD of it!

Anyhow ... so, going to see this new possible primary care doctor Monday and hopefully will get more of the "lay of the land" then, get my strategy and plan of action ... and I am going to get after this stuff, do my self-care as best I can, and we will just see how that goes. But yeah - today I'm hoppin' mad.

ahh, inconsistency...

It would be downright funny if it weren't so puzzling, how inconsistent I am about blogging ... I mean really? I'm constantly running off at the mouth about some thing or other, always gotta have something to say about whatever, yet here's this mouthpiece where I can absolutely let loose - and do I actually use it? Of course not :D ... oh well.

However, at least I'm currently mostly consistent about working out. It's effing exhausting :D but I'm doing it ... and getting some payoff! My legs are a little more shapely, some clothes I couldn't wear for a year or so are fitting again ... aaaaand, lots of different people seem to be noticing that - rather, noticing me - which leads to me getting odd text messages, notes passed to me, and people telling me "oh, (so-and-so) says you're hot/looking good" ... whaaa?? I still haven't the foggiest notion how to handle that, what to do with it or how to respond. Ok yeah, of course, I can simply say, "thank you," but then what?

Not that I don't want to be "seen" as "pretty" or "attractive," but then again I never got that in high school or college either. It was a HUGE deal to me when the one guy I dated close to my own age, almost six years ago, used to tell me, "you're not (just) cute - you're beautiful." I'd never been told that before, and never have since. In that case, at least he (at the time) knew me and (again, at the time) seemed to genuinely feel that way about me as an individual, inside and out. But that was practically another lifetime ago. Where is someone who can be that close - and stay that close! - and say something like that, or be the one sending me those mischievous notes and text messages? Do I still merit that? Or have I just screwed up too many times and missed out on whatever other opportunities I might have had for that?

And yeah, I know (in my head) that the answers are, 1) somewhere, 2) well yeah, and 3) no and quit catastrophizing ... but dagnabbit ... anyway.

Joke's on me...this lonesome day

"I stood stone-like at midnight
suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was just right
and commanded the night brigade
I was open to pain and crossed by the rain
and I walked on a crooked crutch
I strolled all alone through a fallout zone
came out with my soul untouched
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd
when they said "Sit down" I stood up-ooh, growin' up...
I took month-long vacations in the stratosphere
and you know it's really hard to hold your breath?
I swear I lost everything I ever loved or feared,
I was the cosmic kid in full costume dress
Well, my feet they finally took root in the earth
but I got me a nice little place in the stars
And I swear I found the key to the universe
in the engine of an old parked car..." - Bruce Springsteen

Back from a great little visit to Austin, Texas - with a side trip to San Antonio ... so, love love LOVE that place and had a great trip. Plus I got to share the road for a few moments with a Bondmobile :D (yep, an Aston Martin)! But, once I got out of Houston, towards Beaumont, and headed toward home ... got to all kinda heavy thinking.

Bad/Sad part first. At least for today, I am so frakking DONE with trying and trying - time for someone else to "man up" and make the effort to be with me. Reason for that Cliff's notes version of the rant? Ok. So here's the thing ... I have long approached life, love, and faith in much the same way as one another - whichever way, I consider it a daily decision. I wake up every morning and, whether consciously or not, I make the choice - will I live as best I can a life that speaks for itself today? Will I love ________ (insert individual's name here) today? (Whether I am capable of so doing is hardly ever a matter of question for me) Will I choose to move forward in the path before me as best as I can recognize it, trusting that it is a path G-d is leading me along for my good, for the good of those around me, etc - today?

Well, I keep making that faith and life decision every day, and it keeps frakking up. For today, while I still affirm that life decision (if for no other reason than that I refuse to abide in denial of it) ... Today that faith decision is just, flat-out, NOT happening. Can't, or won't, believe it today. Every step I've tried to make to move forward in that frakking "path" or whatever, for YEARS, I get knocked back on my butt and I am sick of it. Sick of trying, of losing, of where I end up - feeling abandoned and forgotten even by the people I once could believe had been brought into my life for a reason. I don't like the feeling that I've been fighting with today that I just regret having involved several people at various times, for whom I've felt a great deal of warmth and respect, in what still - for today - feels like a wasted, failed life.

Now before anybody flips out and hits the panic button, please don't. As the Springsteen song this post's title came from puts it, "This too shall pass, I'm gonna pray - Right now all I got's this lonesome day - it's all right, it's all right, it's all right ... let kingdom come, I'm gonna find my way." This is part of what differentiates me from the average chick with a certain personality disorder - I can, and hereby do, acknowledge that all this is a feeling. No more, no less. I will feel different, perhaps not tonight, perhaps not first thing tomorrow morning, maybe not till Monday - but I will feel different, and I've felt differently recently enough to remember what it was like. Ya homegirl can hang tight till then.

But - all that said, back to that third "decision" - love. For quite some time now, whether there has been anyone specifically to make that decision to love, as best as I am able, or not, I have seen myself as capable of affirming that decision in principle every day. That too, has bitten me on the butt way too damn many times. For today, then - no. Time for someone ELSE to make that decision about me, someone else to decide that in their almighty frakking opinion ya homegirl here is worthy of that daily decision, and of the sort of words, actions, behaviors that flesh out that decision. If that sounds selfish? Oh well. Nobody can honestly say that I made the decision not to love in their case until and unless sorely provoked - until *their* words, actions, and behaviors for a LONG time made it clear that my decision was meaningless to them. So I can put this out there to "God, fate, time, the universe, or whatever" (Quantum Leap shout-out there) - if somebody "mans up," makes that decision to love me, speaks, behaves, and acts accordingly, that will not go unnoticed or unrewarded. But until then? Forget it. "God, fate, time, the universe, or whatever" - for today - has something to prove to me. Again, tomorrow or the next day or the day after that I may feel differently and get this burr out from under my saddle - but yeah. Just sayin'.

However, on the good side ... I have joined the ranks of the so-called "cycling culture" - notice I did not say bicycling :D ... Got a recumbent tricycle, rode it around Town Lake in Austin a little tiny bit, and planning to ride around home and/or work as the opportunity presents itself. The interesting thing about this, to me, is that I'm already noticing a barely perceptible shift in my thinking because of it. Ok yeah some of this is probably because this daggone trike cost a boatload :D! But - I catch myself suddenly thinking a lot more carefully about where I choose to go, what my reasons are for going there, what I will or won't spend money on ... It used to be almost a matter of course that if I was passing anywhere near Houston, I was *going* to spend an hour - or two or three - wandering around the Galleria, daring myself to find something I could rationalize paying some crazy price for. But today, on my way back from Austin? Didn't even pass myself by the Galleria. Went down the road to the Houston outpost of Central Market for a last hurrah with my new favorite grocery though ... and was fairly picky there too. No dash to the candy aisle - instead, stuck to a very few items that I know I can't get at home, healthy sorts of things that I want to put to use proving to myself that healthy food can be tasty as all get-out. Same sort of principle kept being the background of my thinking in the past couple days - more practical, more interested in not just that little frisson of the pleasure of acquisition, but rather the potential for longer-term improvement of my life.

Then again, I've talked off my a** long enough here, right? But yeah ... interesting bit of different ways of thinking.

late night musings

So. I have a job, to be starting on November 1st. The place at which this will be makes me pause, sit up and take notice on several levels. One of those levels is that, although I will not be working with the same program, I will be working on the grounds of the Hansen's Disease Center in Carville, Louisiana - where Dr. Paul Brand once worked, where he continued his work and experiences that led to some really powerful books (Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, The Gift of Pain, In His Image) where he connected his faith (having grown up as a missionary kid) and medicine. There's "incarnational tradition" in religion, and then there's incarnational faith that is felt in gut and bone and sinew. The latter would definitely be Paul Brand's.

I've been hand-stitching a shorter hem into a new pair of dress pants - nice active way of preparing myself for this new job :) - but having finished one leg, took a break and browsed around online a little about Dr. Brand ... found this gem in the Hansen's Disease Center newsletter, The STAR, in his 2003 obituary.

"Dr. Paul Brand was a servant of God, called to serve the less fortunate, the sick and the disenfranchised, which he faithfully did with all his heart, mind and spirit."

We can but hope to be given the grace to do likewise. The heart of a servant and the mind of a healer, taken together, are strong medicine indeed.

The work I will be doing is with the Youth Challenge Program - so I am not called upon to heal the body, as Dr. Brand did ... but who knows what pain, what vulnerability, the young people attending this program may carry with them. And they are there but a few months. No do-overs, just that "dangerous opportunity" of Chinese character fame.

You may call me an idealist ... I'm just out to meet the grace of this new experience with authenticity, and with a grace that I cannot conjure.