February Begins

January was great. I am down 14 pounds.
February has been a huge bust. And no, before we start on the whole stepping off the band wagon, my family has been dealing with the flu TWICE in the last TWO weeks. It's not fair. Not fair!! You know when you're sick and life stops working?  That's my February right there. The end of January was a hit and maybe that's because I was throwing up my guts. Regardless, it's well into February now. And it's a short month. And my stomach is STILL gargling at me as I type this. I'm not ready for life but I'm sooo ready to get my life back!

Oh there just isn't much more to say. I needed to get something down. But I need sleep as I figured out today trying to catch up on laundry and dishes. It's just too much. Zzzz

New Year's Eve!

It's the strangest feeling. I have no idea what everyone is doing for New Years. I'm resisting the urge right now to go login to FB to see all of their posts of joy on this holiday, the turning over the new calendar. 

Our feast was a buffet of crackers and cheeses, fish, mandarins, and little tater tots all wrapped in cheese, bacon, and brown sugar. Little pieces of pound cake and strawberries bathed in Toblerone fondue finished off the night.  I thought about taking a picture. I'd take this picture to share. But I didn't snap a quick 10 photos to post the best one. Important in the moment, captured moments at present, but nothing that I need for later. I was sad in so much that I craved  to connect with others. But I was also collecting it in a tiny box, safe and like a secret treasure connecting with my own family. Even writing this I'm holding back from logging in. It's crazy, but I miss my circles already! I texted a friend, and returned a message from another. These two people happen to be the best of the best, it stands to reason that we'd be in touch after my exit. It didn't effect us anyhow. 

Officially gone are the days of FB, at least for this year. I wonder how long it will be before I stop going to press a button not there. I wonder how long it'll be before and if I start texting all my close-ones for interaction. I wonder how much of my life will become silent. 

For now I go break the spine of my 2nd passion planner, and get into bed well before the midnight hour. Part of my reboot is my health and sleep is a major factor in its success. It baffles me that I won't be seeing happy faces and fireworks before I close my eyes tonight. But then again, I get to keep all of my thoughts to me. I don't hate it. 

Simply Me

My FB and IG mobile apps are history. In the two hours since, I've gone to check my phone twice to scroll, a little shocked, a little, "Oh, right," each time. "Now what?" actually crossed my lips with honest puffs of disconcerting air. 

Now what?

Resolutions: little pieces of life that one resolves to lead. There are 6 sprinklings of refinement this year that are begging for me to address. They all sit anxiously under an umbrella of incredulity, wincing at the thought of taking action. Waiting, longing for so long to dance in the rain, forgetting how to pull up their boots. 

Today I take a step forward. Out of the shelter of fear into the heaviness of a hope long forgotten, I wade in the waters of a tide obliterating the childish stone-wall castles I've built. There comes a time to put the buckets and shovels away, wipe away the sand from in between the toes, and go back home to square one. 

I'm terrified. My safe place is disarray, the bustling chaos of emptiness. The meaningless things around me pushing me to be more, do more, stay busy, stay loud, live devoid of richness and curiosity of what I am made of rather than what the things have made me. 

The theme I've chosen for 2017: simplicity. There is richness and fullness in the quiet spaces of simplicity. Simplicity is basic, one foundation to live on that is anything but basic. It is one earth to be grounded upon, with wide open spaces to truly be all of the things without all of the things. 

1) Lose the weight that's holding me back. Literal body weight. But no more diets, no more crazy workouts, no more musts-in-order-to-succeed. Looking at it from a viewpoint that was so satirically apt in an SNL skit, "Eat less, move more." That's it. Simple. 

2) Cash budget. Buy what we can afford. Grey area emergency credit card for things like flat tires or the roof gets blown away or the basement gets flooded. Fast food is never an emergency. Simple. 

3) Get to know God better. Pray, read 1+ pages of scripture a day, serve in my calling with minimal but spiritually guided prep. 20 minutes a week. Simple. 

4) Organize the house down to the spoon. Konmari is the way, the joy, the way for me. One half hour a day. Simple. 

5) Organize pictures from my computer, and long forgotten emails. 100 emails a day. 100 pictures a day. Should take 10 minutes. Simple. 

6) No more social media--for the most part. A post a month on IG to document my changing body. A blog post when I feel like writing. What a potentially magnificent gift of minutes I'm going to give to myself. #silent17. Simple. 

Simply 6. Simple reset. Simply me.

What are your simples? Or even not so simple but that your resolve will simply get what you are after? 

A New Year Without Social Media

Oh, social media. You are part of my life. You make my life a part of others' lives. I am connected to my inner and outer circles by the same vehicle. I need you. 

But do I really need you?

You play a part in very present society. My community, my people, my life is being lived and shared through you. 

Through you I am expected to stay connected to my people. The majority of my social engagements be it cyber chit chat or invitations to meet face-to-face revolve around being connected...through you. If I wasn't hanging out with you, would I be hanging out with anybody? Would I become lonely, forgotten, a ghost of a memory on someone's wall? Would I be sought out or viewed rude not to reply to something I didn't know was happened but because of you, I was expected to answer?

Here comes the question if I make some grand announcement to my people that I am leaving you. Or do I walk away and hope that I am neither rude nor left behind? Will my people remember me apart from their lists of people? How much life will I lose? How much life will I gain? I've been with you for so long and I'm having some sort of internal crisis. It's not you, it's me, and something has to change. I think we need some space. 

I love my people. I love being invited to share their joys--new jobs, new loves, new babies, new changes for hope and security and love. I want them to know I'm rooting for them and that I love them. I'm excited for their excitement. I feel sorrow in their sorrows. They won't know that in their moments though, but I do. They're awesome. 

Dear the massive, underlying connection to my world, I need to find me through me. Along with a mountain of other adventures I've set to climb, 2017 is one year that I am both crazy ready to start and crazy scared to step into. But as far as you are concerned, social media, you are my project #silent17. I'm leaving one platform open for 13 posts to document one of my adventures and otherwise I hope the good old fashioned phone calls, texts, and messages will sustain me. 

All the best everything,

#silent17 commences. 

Procrastination and deadlines. ALL me.

I open up this blog on September 5th with great intentions for writing my me, and haven't touched it yet. I kept putting it off, procrastination. Now faced with the overwhelming pressure to write something by this evening, a deadline I which I put on myself, this is what all of the stress amounted to. An excuse for why I haven't done it. This is not something I don't want to do. There's nothing pushing me to make this happen. I've wanted to write me for over a decade and I keep starting then failing. All I can think about tonight is yet another failure. Not a creative moment, but I guess if I'm writing me, this is exactly me. What a rough, rough, unrefined, ROUGH start to something that in my heart feels so important and so special. At least I made an eleventh hour attempt? I'm not completely hopeless? I haven't fully given up on myself? This is me...sigh. At least I haven't lost hope. 

*Edit...I got it in before the deadline, me. It's awful garbage but it's a start. And it truly is me. 

9 Year Orphan

9 years ago I was officially orphaned.

I mean, can you even be considered an orphan when you're an adult? 

Is the impact of a parentless blow softened with age; that a child is only a child in youth and an adult only remains a child on a technicality? 

Is it any less true to be an orphan once you've already left the nest, out on your own anyway?

Does it make it any less true when you're struggling through learning about the world and finding yourself, that you can't just pick up the phone and ask a parent "how-to" everything, when everyone that can just pick up the phone to the answers of the universe on the other line, don't even think twice about that gift?

Does it make it any less true that perhaps you do have that someone, and if you're lucky many someones in your life with to bounce off both brilliant and idiotic ideas; that when they don't call you out on those idiotic ideas to save face, but also don't jump up and down for small sparks of genius, that you might be covered in all aspects of the good times and the bad; as if honest, unconditional truth that only a parent can give is lost when you turn 18?

Does it make it any less true when you've grown and your parents didn't watch your children take their first steps because at least they watched you take yours, that you are the one to celebrate your grown-up accomplishments and grandparents are just there for the ride?

Is it any less true because you "at least" knew them growing up and "at least" you weren't younger and "at least" you didn't need them at a tender age, and "at least" you weren't lowly or poor, bounced back and forth through the system sustained on cabbage water and nightmares?

Is it any less true just because it hardly happens to anyone you know, and it certainly didn't happen to you?

Sometimes I feel like a victim. Sometimes it's not fair. 'And sometimes I feel like I was robbed when my mom died even so many more years before, and as so many years after were lost in hate with the dad that was left to do the best he could manage through whatever diseases plagues his body and mind. 

'And sometimes that orphan feels entitled to a medal just for surviving. Sometimes I'm so broken that one piece is here and one piece evaporated; that no matter how much glue mends the fractures in my heart, there isn't enough sunshine to dry a rainy day. 

On the contrary, sometimes I cringe that playing a victim is even a suggestion of my mind. Sometimes the awesomeness that is my self-contrived life prevails, that despite of some whatever circumstances of today, I am whole and that's the only thing that matters; that my oneness is unfading and doesn't need to be saved or helped along, or even comforted with kind gestures or words. Sometimes the awesome is all too stoic and creates a stubborn defense against a sweet innocence that was picked off before it had a chance to ripen. 

'And sometimes there's a middle ground. Sometimes it's simply that I just miss my mom and dad, and sometimes that I just miss my mommy and daddy, but then I get up, and I just am. 

It's both homelessness and liberation; orphaned or not, I'm feeling it ALL today. 

Again...and again, and again.

Honestly. 

I've been hiding out for the last two weeks thinking I would kick it into high gear and come back with an amazing one-week-off-rebound story. That didn't happen. I'm sitting here bloated and ill, back to the old lonely feeling again of why. WHY?

This why this time is not my answer why. It's not my conviction why: why I am changing, why I feel so passionately about being "here," in the zone, ready to move mountains and run marathons. This why is the question. Why do I feel like this again? Why has the cycle repeated itself again? Why am I up. Up. UP? Again? Why am I back to Square One?

My emotions get the best of me. When I'm up, I'm WAY up. When I'm down, I'm dug down deep. I wouldn't call myself depressed currently, however, I would walk the line of calling myself defeated. I'm angry at myself for being here, exactly where I need to be, and flawlessly at that. I'm lonely for not getting myself up and out quicker. Getting to this point, again, is a very isolating feeling. Rock bottom is a stone's throw away. 

This is make it or break it time. 

This is time-to-make-a-decision time. 

So, in going with my theme of stepping out of my comfort zone and in finding the how this is all going to happen, and in witnessing all that I am and how it came to be, let's get really uncomfortable for a moment. 

My weight has equalized back to the number that I started at on May 1st when I started this thing (do I dare point out that was 7+ weeks ago?). At that point in time I made a promise to myself that I would never see over that number ever again. And I'm flirting with it big time now. But in that promise, I promised myself that I would do everything to never go back. And this is where writing it all out has helped.

No matter how embarrassed I feel in this moment, no matter how I feel like I perceive that I am letting others down, no matter how this reflects me upon the world, I'm using the external pressures to change what I need to change internally. And how I feel about me, is all that truly matters. 

What I have learned from this process so far is how my body feels in health and how it feels in illness. 

I feel ill when I'm in a pattern of feeding my body junk, non-nutritive garbage. My knees hurt more. It takes more time to walk up the stairs. I don't think as clearly. I sleep poorly. I get annoyed and agitated at normal life occurrences. I just want to sit and be lazy. I feel bloated. My bowels hurt. I have no will to get up and self motivate to live. When you're my weight, waking up and facing the day is difficult. 

I'm not trying to play victim here. I'm just stating facts for those who have no idea. For those that do, you know this is bad. You know this must change. 

So today I'm at a whopping loss of ZERO pounds, which only 15 pounds less than my highest pregnancy weight, nine months in. Post-pregnancy now over a year and a half later, let's wipe the slate clean, again. 

ZERO. 

Another beginning. 

Friends, this is why I'm 34 and 347 pounds. I haven't found "it" yet. Thanks for bearing with me and supporting me to find it. But if I can give you advise, please be compassionate to those of us killing ourselves physically or emotionally trying to change this. We are working with years of bad habits. Years of bad feelings. Years of toxicity that we're trying to filter through. No matter how pumped we get and seemingly find the way, at times we'll get lost. At times that old person from the past finds their way back to the surface. 

It sucks. But I'm here to say it is what it is. I'm going to do it anyway. Recognition has happened. I'm always reminded that success comes when you take 7 steps back but you take 8 steps forward. I'm on the 7th back step...sorry, I'm on one of eight in this moment!

Thank goodness. Onward! 

Awesome likes her home here. I'm putting her back on and wearing her out, proudly again. I will preserve. Again. And again. And again until again no longer means failure, but when again means success. 

Wherever your struggles fall, pick yourself back up. Again. Brush yourself off. Again. Be awesome. Again.