Reporting for Duty

Hello again fellow gut busters...

Been missing you all, I have. For the record I do post mental blogs every day in my head as I'm prattling about trying to keep my head above the self imposed stress.

Here's the latest: I'm swimming in a sea of panic and self doubt.

I have lost a total of 6.2 pounds in my first two weeks participating in Whale Watchers. And I'm diving in whole hog,figured it couldn't hurt so I got the monthly pass, am tracking every last calorie on line, and am going to the weekly meetings - in just two weeks and three short meetings I already feel compassion and camaraderie to/with my fellow fat sistahs and flaming queens that whale watch right along with me. I've have dropped out of the 220's and now reside at 219.2. And that's good right?

But, oddly,I still feel like a shaky mess ALL of the time. I'm a little paralyzed by the thought that I will either get exactly what I want or I will stick my neck out, try, and then pull up stakes and head for the hills because I can't take it anymore and I discover that I really am a giant pile of shit. This is what's been floating around in my head for the last week or so. Not exactly the reaction I expected from heading in the direction I've envisioned for myself for so long.

What I want to do this year is:

-find a nice part-time job working for someone who is not crazy: check

-get Zeke into a healthy school environment two days a week: check

-find a supportive group to help me on the journey of saying goodbye and good riddance to all the extra weight I've been hauling around for the last ten years: check

-write more and find some good outlets for my creative interests: check and double check.

So what the hell is my problem? If you were to hug me too tight these days, I might just crumble into a puddle of tears. Nope, not menstral pre or post even. And the dog situation may have a resolution. (we are going to try and come up with a cat/dog rotating outdoor schedule) So the big stresses of late are abating. Things are actually WORKING OUT. How utterly disasterous! (I wish they'd invent a font that denoted sarcasm - don't you?)

I'm still, after all these years, waiting for the other shoe to drop...what am I going to do if it never does? I'm wondering what I can do to make this uneasy pit in my stomach GO AWAY. Or is this just a phase you go through before you get used to realizing personal goals? And it's not like I haven't ever realized personal goals - I have a fanfuckingtastic husband and a seriously awesome family that I played a large role (no pun intended) in creating.

But this piece, the losing the weight and finally being conscious of the fact that when I get to where I want to be I won't be fat, and what's more,I never was when I was there in the first place - despite what my family told me.

And there it is. The ah-ha moment.

(I swear every time I contribute to this blog, I not only feel like I must look like a mess of a walking open wound - but I also end up having MAJOR epiphanies and therefore, crying - like now.)

I am actively bucking nearly forty years of a familial opinion of myself that I just adopted readily because I didn't know any different, and the people responsible for guiding me to a positive self image did a pretty crappy job, and it is time to let it all go. Right. With. The. Weight.

Guess that would make anybody a little uneasy. There is comfort in the uncomfortable because it is a known quantity. Easy to say, tough to live - at least for me at the moment, but I'm holding out hope.

Hope that this will pass. Hope that the old adopted opinions of myself won't win, again. Hope that we will ALL get there a little more each day. Hope that one day we can all break bread around my kitchen table while slurping some of my homemade lentil soup - just finished up a fresh batch from the Moosewood cookbook with a few of my own tweaks added in, and damn that shit is good.