Hey Hey Hey

You gotta live for the ones that you love you know
You gotta love for the life that you live you know

Just a reminder.

Bring on the effing secret

I deserve every second chance I get -- including this one.  And every third chance, fourth chance, fifth chance,...,every ith chance (where i = infinity).

For a way towards the light, go here:

http://www.hivehealthmedia.com/10-reasons-not-losing-weight/

Werewolf night

And I went for a walk after midnight underneath a werewolf moon.  I would howl if I could, but I feel too full.  Full stomach, full head, full heart.  It has been 5 days since my last post (confession) and many days since I treated myself well.  So much worry, tension, angst, mistrust, knotted up in my insides.  Need ways to release it.  Fresh lone air under a half-moon was peace-making -- I need to make peace with the world and peace with myself.  I need to stop feeling so raw all the time; it causes me to seek buffers.  Sugar.  Yelling.  Procrastination.  I've effing said these things SO many times before.  What will make the difference this time -- the second time around??

Funnily enough it has been 10 years since I turned my life around -- holy crap, 10 years! And lately I've been on a slip slide:  sideways, backwards.  Time for, at the very least, two steps forward one step back.  To begin, release release release, by myself.  Running, howling, pacing under night skies and in early dawns.  Breathe, move, let thoughts tumble behind in my wake.  I will start with my strengths and work on my weaknesses -- I am an efficient mover, so I've been told; waiting, being still, these make up an achilles heel.  I must move. 

Moving will be my antidote to stalled ambition, overeating, worry and stress.  Anger too.  I will take it out on the night.  It has all embracing arms, dimly lit side streets that unravel as far down neighbourhoods as I care to walk, past storybook houses with spires and black trees clawing celestrial halos to shreds.  It is good to be a spectre amongst spectres sometimes: to feel lighter than air, blacker than night, colder than frozen pavement.    

Suggestions please

For the best alternative activity to put-off a desire to sugar binge for 20 minutes -- preferably public-friendly.  I'll start us off:

1)  masturbation (may require privacy)

My mind is so in the gutter, and I suppose I'm going to make sure it stays there for life.  There are many benefits to exercise ;)

Effing bootcamp practice at midnight

In the company of the online tabata clock I found with the British male voice programmed in.

3, 2, 1 GO!!!!   I might use it to stop procrastination fueled by feelings of inadequacy as well.

Fuck you

The classic phrase.  We say it when we mean it and we say it when we don't.  The question is, how should the user define the circumstances that warrant either.  A bigger question is if western society can take anything constructive out of the pre-meditated use of the word. 

For instance, I just told my mate "Fuck you!".  I felt it was perfectly justified and that it should have enlightened him about what we were arguing about.  He took the Western road and thought otherwise; his passive aggressiveness is appropriate and my blasphemy is, well, blasphemy. 

Funnily enough, he just came down and gave me a peck.  Perhaps this is evidence that my targeted epiphany worked...

Discipline is

"Discipline is remembering what you want" -- no simple task.

I thought blogging would help me to do this but 5 days later she came out of her sugar haze to find nothing had changed...

How did it happen?  I forgot to remember that I was remembering what I want.  And what I want is this:  peace of mind and body, although it will likely not occur in that order.  How do we help ourselves to remember, when it is apparently so difficult?  Do it everyday.  There is no way around it.  I did not worship the hill in the last 5 days -- I met deadlines (at the last minute), I hostessed family, I considered my life while shoving down any flour-sugar combo I could dig out of my cupboards and glowered at my mate -- AND I forgot what I wanted... 

When does saying "I am the only one responsible for how I feel" and living it coincide?  It coincides when you do what is right almost every second.  And since some estimate we have about a thought per second, that means making 86,400 right decisions per 24 hours.

For me, I will start by waking up each day and writing to you, oh ethernet.  Not in the hopes of making an impression on an audience, but on myself.  Everyone I have ever met or learned of has made a larger impression on me than I have on myself.  It's time to impress myself.

Directions to impress myself :
Begin at foot of hill, go up, turn and repeat.

My very next action will be to go up a hill, first the one out my door, followed by the one in my heart.  I will pound pavement and when I return, I will decide which action I am most dreading and I will devote 15 minutes to doing that very thing.  Then I will promise myself that I can and will make 86,400 additional responsible decisions that day.  correction: 86,400 extraordinary decisions that day!

Time for a page on extraordinary decisions...feel free to tell me yours.  With thousands to choose from, this is a breeze...

Yes to mother-effing boot camp

Starting this tomorrow after I get home and see the kids:  will do 2 sets of all exercises for recommended times (warm up: 15 sec/exercise; conditioning: 20 sec/exercise)...going for a walk now to dream about it...

Climbing a hill in the dark

it is 4:12am and i've been up all night.  i am supposed to be outlining my thesis proposal.  it's a very interesting project, and yet, in the last days, i've been making little progress and spending too much time daydreaming about other things.  what is this chronic lack of focus?  i've worked almost non-stop since january 2006 to create an opportunity for myself -- and here it is. now i can't seem to feel worthy of it.  i'm afraid.  so, No.1, i will keep going no matter what.  i may be crawling today, but, like j.k., i'm a tryer.  and, No.2, i'm gonna get out on that dark hill, so conveniently near my house, an work it out.  with every breath i will think: i deserve success, "it is already right here in my head".  it may be cheesy, but it's what this mind/body/soul trapped in her 6 year old self needs to think and feel.  i need to hold myself right now, like i hold my own kids, until i grow out of judging myself. 

now, personally, i eschew all manner of vague self-help talk, but sometimes you just have to walk the walk -- and follow it with some kick-ass push-ups at four in the morning.  i am training for triumph.

Morning after the orgy

nighttime often brings with it profound and passionate epiphanies about the nature of my relationship with my significant other -- this often leads to me epiphanying all over his head.  not with physical blows mind you, but with explosions of pent up frustration that increase the number of chasms between us.  it is almost always a secret attack, and he is left wordless and confused. 

my questions is this: how do i feel now on the morning after?  do i feel satisfied, victorious, bereft?  i am not certain i feel any of these extremes today.  i think i still feel frustrated, only with less intensity because the light of day is shining in upon me, and i have planned activities for the next 12 plus hours.  it's not yet time for me to shudder at the thought of looming hours of vulnerable REM sleep, in which i relive all the stresses of my life in half-sane exaggerated detail.  sleep is no refuge for me. 

and what of his interpretation of these nighttime scourges -- they cause him to oversleep the next day.  he has a talent for dreams.  i don't think we share epiphanies, we share habits and old wishes for a future we moulted a long time ago.

in my safe, waking hours, i dream of a new collective skin: my epiphanies knit with his dreams.  the comingling of our anonymous thought.

The Who

Who:

ask yourself "Who?".  who am i hearing in my head right now?  who am i reacting to in my head at this moment?  often, it is not me -- it is the internalized version of my man, kid, boss, parent, sibling, friend.  then i go on to behave in response to these inner tyrants.  i have relationships with them unbeknownst to the actual owners of these phantasms.  not to say that these illusory kin don't maintain a certain exaggerated likeness of the real thing -- but exaggerated is the key point.  they are larger than life and stuck in my tiny head, and to manage the cacophony i drink copious amounts of tea, eat sugar, stay up later than i should, growl at people, waste time, tense up, yell, run away, etc. etc. 

yesterday i had a glorious moment in which i recognized that i was reacting to the phantasm while the real thing was right in front of me.  i thought, what if i only respond to you and not YOU, there, lurking in my brain incorporating yourself subtly into every thought and feeling i have until i don't know who is me and who is you anymore!  unfortunately, the yelling and cursing and chasing of YOU inside my head (at that moment) came out as some nasty snarling noises; however, i think you will agree that it was worth it.  the result is that i feel that i can now respond to you with a gentle honesty that was not accessible before.  my inner workings were so clogged up with the pulsing, irritated, weeping and infected version of you-me before, that i wasn't able to listen to what you say, or watch what you do without commenting from a twisted place.  now i can and what i have to say is this:

"i love you, i care about you, you still intrigue and seduce me; but, the life choices you make are very stressful for me, and i feel that you have forced me to live with them for a long time now and that i can no longer cope with these circumstances.  so, if you want to be with me and be close to me you must quit smoking, get off your computer, and make time to be at home without making us feel that we are constantly on borrowed time."

and to YOU, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.................. 

I am my own terrorist

i observe that, a few moments ago, i had a cataclysm of stressful thoughts combined with some body fatigue (from today's hill workouts) and the result was eating 4 handfuls of chocolate chips.  i am so used to the feeling of these thought knots that i instinctively shoved them down with yummy, loving sugar.  interestingly, my mind was instantly soothed, but my stomach feels like furtive terrorists set off a pipe bomb (note that in this scenario i am my own terrorist).  "it all happened so fast officer!"  from this moment on i will love, cherish and obey...no, sorry, got sidetracked.  from this moment on i will keep a lookout for terrorizing thought knots, fucking write them down to get them out of my system, and not fucking shove un-needed shit in my mouth. 

there, i said it.     

On being the hub

i am the hub of my little family.  and that leaves me open to depression that i like to fill with sugar.  let me explain:  more than half of my identity is filled with the duty i feel towards them, and the actions that go along with managing everyone and everything, while their identities are free of this -- they grow from my love and caring, and use it to walk out the door in search of their own adventures.  meantime, i feel half of my adventure just left me behind.  it is the case with lover, son and daughter.  don't get me wrong, i am not upset or jealous (most of the time), i revel in their joy.  it's just that i am trying to identify why i feel this loss everytime i am left sitting on my couch by myself.  it would be nice if my identity was full up, and being a mother and partner were the icing.

time to hit the hill.  

Worship the hill

i promise revealing personal melodrama is on its way, but it seems my first blog act will be to worship the hill that lies a few hundred feet from my door.  this past week, i went up the hill in the daylight savings dawn to strengthen my muscles and bones and clear my head.  it works wonders.  i am up a bit later this saturday morning, but i get up at 5:30am weekdays for this ritual.  a ritual that will allow me to slough off inches of insulation i have put between me and the big scary world, between me and my own feelings.  this is the second time i will have used exercise to find myself.  the first time, i only found my physical self -- and because i was very young, it seemed like THE pinnacle was to feel sexy and attractive, wear the clothes i wanted, be a yummy mummy.  time moves on, life changes, stress and challenges arise, and the foundation of the new me crumbled.  i turned to no sleep and sugar to make it through.  old habits, time-tested habits.  and here i am, not quite back where i started, but feeling very similar feelings to the girl i was from inside the woman i have become.

now a change.  based on the solid bedrock of truly knowing myself, giving myself what i need, managing fear by being with myself in fresh early-morning air, not off in over-sugared, hollywood fantasy, if i were only skinny enough to wear le chateau land.  my pinnacle is the top of the hill, not once, but everyday one way or another.  i now know it is a daily journey, not a once or even twice in a lifetime thing -- there is no standing still, only matching dynamic life with dynamic self.

to that end, here are my beginning stats:

5'7"
chest:  38"
waist:  32"
hips:  37.5"
thigh:  24"
i don't do scales, but here i am in my size 8 lucky brand jeans, the best judges of weight in the world -- i'm guessing i'm about a size 10 right now:

keep in mind, i am sucking in -- but i believe i deserve that priviledge given that i am baring it all on the internet.  stay tuned for more bi-monthly webcam wednesdays (next up Wednesday, December 1st).  i know i will.   

Showing up

I showed up, that's what counts.  Anything after that is bonus when you're a single parent in grad school.

Taking back 'work'

i no longer work:  i "actualize, author, beget, bring into being, bring into existence, bring to pass, build, cause to be, compose, conceive, concoct, constitute, construct, contrive, design, devise, discover, dream up, effect, erect, establish, fabricate, fashion, father, forge, form, formulate, found, generate, give birth to, give life to, hatch, imagine, initiate, institute, invent, invest, make, occasion, organize, originate, parent, perform, plan, procreate, produce, rear, set up, shape, sire and spawn".

i think i'll ponder what to spawn now.

Fire Opal

enough insecurity. enough gut-gnawing doubt.  enough excuses.  no shirking responsibility.  no defeat.  time to tap into raw running life blood -- prolific creativity endowed by mum, focused explosive power from dad.  gonna blast my way out of here and ignore the shrapnel.  fuck age, fuck status, fuck requirements.  build the heat, feed the fire that smoldered in the basement while adolescence, motherhood, wifedom and citizenry tacked on floor after floor of flimsy gyprock and cheap fiberglass insulation.  no more bogeymen, no more rabid black dogs to kick dead.  i am donning an invincible cloak, i am walking free.  i live on the mountain; trees are my shelter, the open sky my window on the world:  clean, cold air snaps in and out of my chest, muscles pump, thoughts ravage, up to the top, up, up.  only up from here.  only joy from here.  there is no backwards.  I gain leagues and fathoms.  sometimes i run, sometimes i crawl.  it makes no difference to me.  i am a fire opal refracting life - brilliant blues, yellows, reds from the compressed sediment of a former existence.     

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

where i will examine my pre-midlife self and the influences that shaped her.  in melodramatic fashion, i will let loose ghosts, howls, and humiliations to make room for my very own eu-catastrophe. i invite you to witness one woman's deconvolution and personal re-evolution...