If Not Now, When?

Without Armour

2011-01-08T02:08:00.000-06:00

At some point I realized why I allowed myself to put on so much weight. I didn't merely allow myself to put it on; I put it there on purpose. It's the ol' get fat so no one can get close to you trick.

I don't want to go too deeply into my past right now, but I'll say this: I've loved and lost a few times. I used to believe fully in the power of love, so I've fought for it more than once. I was left broken, bruised and bloodied each time. After my last serious relationship ended four years ago I just knew I couldn't survive another blow. And so I began to put on my armour of fat.

Gradually I grew to be content with being on my own. Physically, I didn't like the way I felt, but emotionally I was content. No man, no cry. I wasn't ready to shed the fat that was protecting me.

A few months ago an old high school crush reappeared in my life. He reminded me how it felt to be held, and then he reminded me how it felt to hurt. My armour failed me. It didn't protect me at all. I'm ready to take off this shoddy armour. Ninety pounds by the end of the year.

It's coming off.

So Much For Tuesday

2010-03-17T13:59:00.004-06:00

I have a very, very good excuse--er, reason--for not being here in like a month (give or take a day). I’ve been busy. Actually busy. Not procrastinating. I promise.

Lately I’ve been making daily To Do lists and pinning them up on my bedroom wall next to my bed. Seeing it on paper helps me to not put it off. I don’t get everything I want to get done each day, but I’ve been averaging about 80% - 90%, which is pretty darn good considering how much I want to get done every day. Unfortunately for my blog, it’s been falling in that 10% - 20% that doesn’t get done.

I actually used to blog an incredible amount. I was introduced to the wonderful world of blogging ten years ago today, actually. (Happy blogging anniversary to me!) I blogged at Open Diary for about eight years. At first I blogged many times a week, sometimes two or three times a day. I blogged about everything. I wanted to get a shirt that read, “I’m blogging this.” But as time went on I blogged less and less. By the time I finally decided to actually leave Open Diary I was only blogging once every few months. I’d lost most of my readers because no one seems to care about a part-time blogger.

I hope that I can find some readers here who can forgive me for my lack of full-time commitment to blogging. I am about to make a promise that I can keep: When I have the time and energy, and something to write about, I will be here. I also am very interested in the lives of people here, so I will be reading. Promise. When I have time. And energy. Good enough?

Which brings me to one of the things keeping me busy. I’ve been going to the doctor a lot more lately than I ever would have chosen to on my own. I’ve been feeling fatigued like you wouldn’t believe. While the day care kids were here I’d have to wrestle with my eye lids to keep them open, and the minute they’d leave I’d be, “Hello, bed!” But it wasn’t that energetic. It was more like, “Hey, bed… Zzzzz.” My body has also been very sore. My back was perpetually sore for about three weeks, plus I had other pains that came and went. Then, of course, there was the forty-two pound weight gain in a year--most of it in a matter of months. It was Ashleigh who suggested that I see her NP.

I’ve had all sorts of things put in me and taken out of me in the past month. The only thing that has been found so far is that I’m low in B12. Despite the fact that I’ve been eating healthy lately and swallowing a mama-honkin’ multi-vitamin every day, it seems that my body doesn’t absorb the B12 as it should. So the NP has started me on B12 injections. I went for the first on Monday. I generally don’t have a problem with needles. Of course, everything has an exception.

“This is injected directly into your muscle,” the NP said.

I was silent, but I was thinking, “Now you tell me. You didn’t tell me that earlier when I could opt out, did you? This is going to be bad. This is going to be awful. Needles normally go into the fatty tissue, don’t they? Where they just slide in, relatively painless. I have plenty of fatty tissue to choose from. Plenty! A needle into the muscle? No, that’s not good. Not good at all.”

Then she brought out the needle. Not one of those little teeny things that I’m used to. Nope. This one could go clean through my arm. Okay, maybe not. But it was at least the size of my pinky! Really!
Still silent, I thought, “This is going to be awful. This is going to be horrid.”

“You’ll come back for these once a week for a month, and then once a month after that,” she told me.

“I’m going to have to relive the horror over and over again,” I thought to myself.

“Okay, relax,” she said, probably reading the dread on my face. “Are you ready?”

“Mm-hmm,” I said. But as I could feel my heart pounding in my chest I was thinking, “There’s no way out. Go to your happy place. Go to your happy place!” I felt it going in. “Not bad yet, but it’s about to get really, really ba--” Suddenly I felt cotton on my arm. I turned my head and looked at the cotton ball she was holding on my arm.

“Hold this,” she said. I took the cotton and lifted it a little so I could see what was beneath it. A tiny dab of blood. It was done.

“Hmm,” I thought. “I’m just an incredible wuss.”

I Hate This Picture of Pauly Shore and Me

2010-02-16T23:59:00.003-06:00

I probably watched Encino Man about forty-seven times when I was fourteen. My best friend, Ashleigh, and I watched every movie that Pauly Shore was in over the next four years. He had his very own goofy style of humor that we both loved. Then he just sort of disappeared after Bio-Dome in 1996.

When we found out that Pauly Shore was coming to Regina to do a live show, we were all about that. We got seats in the first row of the balcony. How exciting it was for us to get to see someone live that we’d both been fans of throughout our teenage years. The live show was definitely more vulgar than in the movies, but still very Pauly.

At the end of the show he said that he’d be signing autographs in the lobby. Ashleigh is always very indifferent about stuff like that, but I get very giddy and star struck. As he was signing my Pauly Shore glossy photo I kept looking at him with a big goofy smile. Then he looked at me and suddenly shot that Pauly Shore smile at me. (If you’ve seen Pauly Shore movies, you know the one.) When I asked if I could get a photo with him, he was very gracious and Ashleigh snapped the picture.

I just couldn’t wait until I got home to see the photo, so in the car I turned the camera on and took a gander at it. “Gah!”

“Ashleigh! You’re supposed to let a person know if they look horrid before you snap a picture. This is the only photo I have of me with Pauly Shore, and I can’t post it on Facebook. You can tell how old I am by counting my chins!”

I was upset about the picture, but not so much at Ashleigh for snapping it without telling me that it was an unflattering angle as at myself for being at a weight that it was even possible to look like that in a picture.

I decided that it would make a great Before photo. Which means that once I’ve reached my goal weight I need to hunt Pauly Shore down so I can get another photo taken with him. If he’s in the Before photo, he should be in the After photo. Naturally.

I Listened to People Who Scared Me to Death and from My Heart

2010-02-09T23:59:00.008-06:00

I think that everyone should have a job that they like (and if they love their job, even better). A person’s job takes up such a significant part of a person’s life that they really should be able to enjoy it. How a person feels about how they make a living really affects the life that person is living. I have yet to find that job which really fulfills me. And I know that I am really the only one to blame for that.

I knew from the time I was seven-years-old what I would be happiest doing. That is when I sat down in front of my Mom’s typewriter and hunted and pecked out a stage play on multi-coloured paper. I don’t remember the name of the play or what it was about; just that I loved the process of creating characters and situations in my mind and letting them escape out onto the paper. In the years that followed, I filled boxes with books and books with poetry and stories in many forms. There was nothing I could ever really see myself doing other than writing. All through my childhood and teen years I dreamed of a future of being a published writer. It’s the only thing I was ever really good at and the only thing I ever really loved to do.

There were always people in my life who showed interest in reading my writing and who told me I had talent. But there was never a person in my life who knew how to support me in realizing my dream. As I got older I began listening to the people who told me that there was no future in writing. A part of me began to believe that I couldn’t make a living with writing. I was scared of wasting my time doing something that would make me poor. When I was twenty I became a single mother. I needed to support my daughter and myself. I needed to do something "realistic".

I’ve had many different jobs, but I always found myself looking at myself in the mirror in the ladies room thinking, “This is a temporary job--just until I find the one that suits me.”

Two years ago I had the opportunity to go to school to be educated for a "realistic" career. It was a Quick Start program, which meant that they crammed a whole lot of information into our heads in a small amount of time, so that we could quickly get out into the work force.

Early Childhood Education is an area that I feel is important, so I knew that I was sure to love it. To begin with, I did. I did very well in school, and I adored every minute of my job placement in a preschool class. But when I was done school, I couldn’t find a job. I applied everywhere in my city, but everyone was hiring people with more experience. Really? How exactly does one get experience then?

I decided instead to open a home day care. I was somewhat hesitant, but the pros seemed to outweigh the cons. I kept hearing that there was a huge demand for child care. I’d be my own boss. I like children. I’d be doing something worthwhile.

The hesitation came from my severe case of Youngest Child Syndrome. They will probably write “Don’t TOUCH that! It‘s MINE!” on my grave stone. I’m not greedy by any means, but my stuff is my stuff and keep your grubby hands off of it. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you put my Spider-Man DVD back in the wrong spot? Gosh, people. Youngest Child Syndrome stems from us getting all the crap handed down to us from our older siblings and never really having anything of our own. So the thought of a bunch of kids coming into my house and grabbing at all of my stuff caused me some anxiety. I love kids. I just don’t love the idea of their mitts all over my stuff.

When Patience was little I looked forward to the time when I no longer had to keep everything out of her reach and I could decorate my home the way that I wanted to. Now that she is older, I didn’t want to have to put everything up high again to have a day care in my home. I don’t have a finished basement, which would have made a world of difference. If I did, I could have put aside that section of the house for the day care. Then there’d be a day care in my house, but if I had to child proof my living area then I’d be living in a day care. I don’t want to live in a day care. I found a way around it. I’d only accept older children. Preschool and up; children who are old enough to understand that the toys are for them and all of the other things are not for them. The problem is that most people need care for toddlers.

At the end of this month I will have been doing the home day care for a full year. I work eleven hours most days and I am not even making enough money to survive. I am tired all of the time and I am convinced that my sore back is a physical manifestation of stress. The kids are great; it’s the adults that are hard to deal with. Recently I had a few calls for people needing care for toddlers and I said I would meet with them. I started picturing myself pulling out my hair as adorable tiny people invaded my shelves, but I needed the money. I struggled with this, because I always said that people should never ever work with children simply for the money. However, neither of the people that I spoke to showed up when they said that they would, and I haven’t heard from either of them in almost two weeks now. I took that as a resounding sign. It really is time for me to move on. I’d rather be unhappy in a job in which I make more money and only have to work eight hours a day.

For the past few days I’ve been looking at job postings and trying to figure out what I’m going to do. What can I do that I’ll enjoy? What am I good at? What will fulfill me? I know with every ounce of my being that there is only one answer. There only ever has been one answer for me, and that is writing.

I realize that I need to do something while I’m working toward my goal. If it’s flipping burgers at McDonald’s, so be it, as long as it pays the bills and I still have something of myself left to give at the end of the day. But I have lost so much time to fear. I was so afraid of failing with my writing that I never even tried. I’m filled with great regret because of that. Not trying was my biggest failure of all.

In November I participated in NaNoWriMo (writers challenge themselves to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days). I put my all into it. I lost my sanity at times, and I never felt so good in my life. The experience of watching the characters and story evolve before my eyes was amazing. It showed me that I could do something that I wasn’t sure of for so long. And if I could do that, what else can I do? What else is just sitting there inside of me, waiting to be done?

I have said before that I was going to work toward being a writer and then I changed my mind. But I know things now that I didn’t know then. I know how it feels to write every day and create a great chunk of a novel. I also know that nothing else will ever make me as happy as writing. So I am going to work toward being a writer. Full-time. And if I fail, at least I’ll fail trying.

Here I Am

2010-02-05T22:41:00.004-06:00

I had some very good reasons for not blogging for most of December. There were Christmas concerts, Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, Christmas baking and the a-few-days-before Christmas car accident which totaled off my car. No one was seriously injured in the latter, but it meant having to deal with the insurance company, trying to get what the car was actually worth and eventually simply asking, “How far would you like me to bend over?”

But December becomes January and good reasons fade into lame excuses; busy schedules are replaced by procrastination. I think often about blogging, but there’s always something less important to do. Weeks slip away without a word being blogged. Suddenly it’s been almost two months since I wrote last and I have to make a decision; either I consider my whole blog idea a failure and silently slink away, not having to admit to anyone my lack of self-discipline, or I come back, face that I effed up and decide how to do better.

I originally started this blog to hold myself accountable for procrastination. To do something each day to work toward reaching my goals and write about it at least once a week. Giving up on the blog I’m afraid would be the first step to giving up on those goals. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. So here I am.

I want to say thank you to my followers, especially for continuing to follow me when there was nothing here to follow for such a long time. You guys truly rock. I also have to say that my heart honestly dances a little every time I read your notes. Thank you so much.

I have decided that I can get rid of the I can do it tomorrows which so easily morph into weeks without blogging by giving myself a mandatory blogging day. Tuesday seems like a great day for a mandatory blog. So, see you next Wednesday. Ha, I’m kidding. I will be here on Tuesday.

How Come You Love Me When I'm Ugly?

2009-12-09T23:52:00.003-06:00

Patience is my eleven-year-old daughter. She is the coolest kid I know. She is incredibly diverse. Her favourite music is Lights, Michael Jackson, Guns N’ Roses, Jonas Brothers, Black Eyed Peas and Owl City. She loves drumming, writing, singing, drama, and clothing design. She lives up to her name. She is patient. She is also generous, loving, kind, optimistic, and forgiving. I feel sorry for the poor girl, having to put up with a mom who for the past week has had her panties all up in a bunch.

I have been a very good girl, food-wise. I have been drinking lots of water every day and eating lots of vegetables. I haven’t brought anything into this house that I shouldn’t eat, and I haven’t craved them. Yet. I know that the beginning is easier when you’re determined and hopeful, but it gets tougher along the way when you see other people eating the things you used to eat. Skinny people. And you start to feel bitter and resentful. And like you just want one bag of chips, dammit. Just one trip to McDonald’s, for crying out loud. Just one helping of tiramisu, for the love of God! I’m not looking forward to that when the time comes, but gosh darnit, I’ll be ready to battle the craving monsters when they attack this time! I’m getting ahead of myself. The past week was good. Food-wise.

I have been so cranky that I’ve wished that I could take a walk to get away from myself. But everywhere I go, there I am! I couldn’t figure out why I was so moody. There’s nothing about my new eating habits that I’m really not enjoying so far. Isn’t eating healthy supposed to make you feel good? Where’s all this crazy coming from?

I was reading SkinnyHollie’s blog and a light bulb went on above my head. I looked up and said, “What the heck is that?” Oh! Detox! "When you cut anything out of your diet that isn’t good for you, your body will go through a detox,” her blog read. My body has been freaking out at me for not giving it all the crap that it’s used to having. Well, suck it up, body. You’re just going to have to get used to it.

I stepped on the Wii Fit board this morning, nervously. I didn’t know what to expect. I know that I’ve been eating well and been more active, but haven’t noticed a difference in the way that I look or feel yet. I pointed the Wiimote at the screen and clicked the ‘A’ button. I stared at the screen. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. “Holy cow,” I finally said. Patience looked up and asked what I was holy cowing about. “I lost six pounds since last week,” I told her.

Six pounds. Six pounds where? What does six pounds look like? What does six pounds feel like? I am not sure where this six pounds has come from, but I’ll take it. Er… leave it? I am sure that most of it is water weight, but six pounds is six pounds. It doesn’t have to be fat loss, as long as I’ve lost six pounds of something that wasn’t supposed to be there. I’ve been looking in the mirror and pressing on different parts of my body trying to figure out where I lost six pounds from. As neat as it would be to lose six pounds from one place at once, I’m thinking it’s probably a little here and a little there. I do feel less pressure just below my ribcage now that I’m paying attention.

So, Patience and I did a little celebration dance in the living room. And for the first time in about seven days I didn’t feel like ripping anyone’s arm off and slapping them with the wet end. This is a good start.

Fear and Loathing on the Wii Fit Board

2009-12-03T18:27:00.012-06:00

Fear was a prominent emotion yesterday. As I stepped on the Wii Fit board (I find it to be more consistent and more entertaining than my bathroom scale), I knew for sure that I’d weigh more than I did the last time I weighed myself a number of months ago, but I wasn’t sure exactly how much more I’d weigh.

I giggled as the Wii Mii looked down at it’s body and watched itself go from scary skinny (as it always begins, no matter what your weight or previous weight) to obese, as though it was saying, “Oh my God! Where did that come from?” Then I whimpered, realizing that I was actually scared to find out how much I weigh. I bravely raised the Wiimote and pressed the A button. Then I let out a gasp.

I had tried to tell myself not to be surprised or upset by the number. After all, I am already very aware of the extra weight. It’s difficult not to be aware when there’s resistance every time I bend over to tie my shoe. Unfortunately I didn’t listen to myself. After my initial reaction to the number on the screen, I tried to act cool. “Well, I’ve lost weight before, I’ll do it again,” I said ever-so-positively. But inside I was filled with dread. I managed to pack on forty-two pounds in the past year. Did I burn even a single calorie of anything I ate since last December?

I am not going on a diet. I’m changing my lifestyle. Incredibly cliché and hokey, I know. I’m sticking with my five pound loss per month goal. It’s going to be a major exercise of patience on my part. If I lose five pounds each month, I won’t reach my happy weight until June 2011. That’s okay (I keep telling myself), because any loss is better than no loss, and definitely better than continuing to gain. It will take a long, long time, but in the end it will be so very worth it (I must keep telling myself).

I will take as many people with me on this journey as want to join me. I have plenty of room! So far, I’m traveling all by myself. Cruising down the cyber highway, talking out loud to myself. I realized yesterday that the blog thing scares me, too. What if I spend the time writing my blog entries and no one ever, ever reads them? I’m always complaining about how days are about twenty-four hours too short. Why would I gamble with my time like that? My time could be better spent on things more definite. I am the least gamblesome (I think I just invented a word!) person I’ve ever met. I hate to gamble with anything. I hate to take chances. But I need to remind myself that sometimes the gamble is better than the definite. The gamble: I could lose time because no one ever, ever reads my blog, or I could take some people on this journey with me and it’ll be fun. The definite: If I don’t write, no one will read.

So, I’ve decided to wad my fear up into a ball and swallow it. Gulp. It doesn’t taste too good, but luckily it doesn’t have any fat or calories.

Today Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

2009-12-01T22:32:00.005-06:00

I wrote 50,000 words of the first draft of a novel in 30 days. I can do anything. Okay, maybe not anything, but fifty thousand words in thirty days is a pretty darn good start. At the beginning of November I set out to reach a goal, and by the end of November I reached that goal. I kind of amazed myself.

I started off slow, which meant in the middle of the month there were some incredibly insane days/nights (they all just sort of melted together there for a while) as I tried to catch up. For a good portion of the month I was living off of caffeine and fast food.

I’d like to be able to say that that’s the sole reason for the need for my next goal. But it’s not. Oh no, it was a slow, lengthy progression, this one. Do you know when you’re watching a movie, and the bad guy is after the good (but just really stupid) person? And the bad guy is really far away, and the good person has so much time to either get away or really wind up and give the bad guy a good beating? But he or she just stands there and stares at the bad guy and lets them catch up, all the while you’re screaming at the TV screen, “Don’t just stand there!!” Yeah. That was me with my weight gain. I really could have kicked it’s butt at any time in the past five years. But I didn’t.

In 2004 I was at a happy weight. By 2005 my favourite pants were getting kind of tight. By 2006 my favourite pair of pants looked real nice hanging in the closet. Still do. I have talked a lot in the past five years about losing the weight. I have even attempted it a few times. I did pretty well for a little while, but then I lost momentum. I did not plateau, though. Nope. I am a lovely little (or not-so-little) yo-yo. I am currently at the heaviest weight I’ve ever been in my life, including just over eleven years ago when I was nine months pregnant with my daughter.

Other than not looking so great, it doesn’t feel so great, either. I can feel where my body is supposed to end. It feels like I am continually floating in a great big bowl of Jell-o. And it’s not even green Jell-o. It’s ucky skin-coloured Jell-o. Who wants to float around in that? Sometimes my butt or my belly will bump into a counter or a door frame, and I’ll just cringe knowing that my butt or belly shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

So I’m starting this blog. Really, it’s about reaching goals in general. Another one of my current goals is to complete the previously mentioned novel, edit it and send it off to publishers. But that’s not what this blog entry is about. This blog entry is about getting myself out of the great big bowl of Jell-o.

I figure that maybe if I do something really scary by telling the world that I’m fat, maybe it’ll give me the ambition to really change that fact. I had thought about starting a blog before, but there was always something stopping me. I didn’t have a good title. I didn’t have a good template. The colours were all wrong. Gosh. How can I start a blog if it doesn’t look just right? And how can I start a weight loss regime (or work toward other goals) without a blog? Heh.

I’m going to try to be realistic with the weight loss goal. As much as I want to lose loads of weight in ten seconds flat, heh, I’m going for five pounds per month. That would bring me down 60 pounds in one year. Tomorrow I’ll weigh and measure myself and determine exactly how much I need to lose to get back to my happy weight, and how long it will take at five pounds per month.

I’m going to be just as realistic with myself on this blog venture. I’m not going to promise to write every day. That would just be setting myself up for failure. Once a week, that I can promise. I’ll likely pop in a little more often than that, though.

Until next time … (I haven’t come up with any clever sign-off line yet, but I’m not going to let that stop me).