A listy blog

As evidenced by lack of blogging, I've been reluctant to blog lately.  If I'd blogged, I'd have had to write things like "That was delicious! And so was the next and the next!"  Or "My back hurts from lack of exercise."


Because I've been


Too Busy to write


Too Busy to exercise.


Too Busy to plan meals


Too Busy to take care of me


Too Busy to be a loving member of my family.


I've been very busy doing Important Things: helping at three schools, attending my children's performances, sneaking food and shopping via the 'net.


Fortunately I have things like


* the guilt of not writing this blog (people notice)


* the frustration of falling into bad habits (do people notice?)


* an appointment I'd have been embarrassed to cancel (she'd have noticed)


to remind me that I've got to schedule time for me, too. 


Yesterday on my way to Someplace Important I stopped for a moment.  In the course of the last month or so I'd lost the little note pad I keep in my purse.  I like to have note pads with me so that I can write


* the titles & artists of songs I hear


* titles of books I want to read


* ideas that arise from nowhere.


So I stopped and bought 2 note pads.


And I remembered that I really enjoy exercise, and that 8 times out of 10 I really enjoy cooking healthy, tasty dinners (even if certain People I Love turn their little noses up).


And I was shocked to realize I enjoy jogging around that track.


And I remembered how good I feel when I lift weights.


And I accepted that I want to be in shape to jog some 5Ks next summer.


And I put My Self back on the top of my list.

My deadly portkey

If you've read J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, you're familiar with portkeys.  For the uninitiated, a portkey is an ordinary object, like a boot, which transports anyone touching it to a specific place.



My portkey is food.



Take chocolate or Christmas cookies for example.  All it takes is one bite and suddenly I'm no longer alone and insecure.  For as long as it takes to chew and swallow, I'm surrounded by acquaintances who accept me.  Who wouldn't like that feeling? 



Lately when I've reached for my portkey, zombie-like, a voice in my head has sung to me a line from A Chorus Line's "At the Ballet".

Up a steep and very narrow stairway,

to the voice like a metronome.

In mid-dose I asked myself why I was doing this to myself when I knew it wasn't fixing anything.  And then I'd take the dose anyway.

Yesterday I reached out to my counselor, who offered that perhaps a need was not being met.

And that's all it took.  Suddenly, literally like the illumination from a bolt of lightning or a camera's flash, I saw in my mind's eye that every time I put a treat in my mouth, I was experiencing the sensation of being in a Christmas party.

I realized how lonely I am, and I realized that goodies are my portkey.

I need to find a way to be comfortable in my loneliness.  The few friends I have are busy with their families' lives.  My own family members are busy being who they need to be.  The one who was always there for me, who had no obligations such as employment or school or errands, who spoke no judgment, and who offered unconditional there-ness, died on the beach just over two weeks ago.  He took with him a place I hid from my loneliness.

I'm reminded of a song which struck a cord with me as a child, and has stuck with me ever since.  It's "Just When I Really Needed You" from Fame.  I remember singing it over and over, preparing myself in case a loved one would die.

Now I'm lonely 'cause I could only count on you

When my troubles got the best of me,

You found something in the rest of me.

You pushed me just as far as I could go.

I'm alone now

On my own

It's like standing in the shadows

Watching as the play goes on

And from the musical Chess:  "No one in your life is with you constantly, no one is completely on your side, and though I moved my world to be with [them], still the gap between us is too wide."



Loneliness, for me, is death.  Like a dog, I need my pack.  Loneliness reminds me that each of us is born and dies alone.  Religion teaches a host of thoughts to comfort away the awfulness of one's lifeless body decaying and rotting.  Pictures I've seen of ghosts offer me hope that my sprit will not die with my body, but will my spirit find its way to those of my most dearly beloved?



There's no one in the world who can guarantee that mine will not be a lonely eternity. 


It's up to me though, as it is up to all the living, to not let fear of death, of loneliness, blot out the joy of life.  It's up to me to stop killing myself with my portkey.

Labels

Just when I think I've got myself all figured out -- labeled, packaged, and ready to go -- my counselor comes along and peels off the label, causing me to reexamine the package of me.  Ever since the day I was blaming myself for something and she observed that blame is an avoidance tool, I've been thinking about that along with other avoidance tools.  Like labels.

Labels help us to understand things which cannot speak for themselves, like a jar of pasta sauce or a running shoe.  When applied to people, labels replace relationships with prejudice.  And when I apply a label to myself, I turn myself into a finished product with no opportunity for growth or change. 

I ate a cookie because it was the last one in the package and I told myself  that I was Obsessive.  No doctor ever diagnosed me, but I found those labels which would give me an excuse for everything I didn't like about myself.  I hid behind them, falsely safe.

I labeled myself as fat, so I wouldn't go to the gym.  I labeled myself as unloveable, so I wouldn't reach out to others.  I labeled myself as awkward, so I wouldn't dance at weddings.  I labeled myself as ugly, so I wouldn't smile.

But labels have an achilles heel: the adhesive.  Sometimes the adhesive wears off and the label starts to peel away.  Sometimes, like a bandage, it starts to itch and I just want to rip it off. 

It's a little scary to not have myself all wrapped and labeled like a gift under the tree, but there is joy in discovering the gift within.

239

Okay, I promise my weight won't be every post's title or topic, but today I just wanted to illustrate what we all know:  our weight can fluctuate based on things like salt and stress. 

The key for me is to make the middle number go down.  I've been living in the 230s for almost this entire year (started in the 240s).  It'll be nice to see that fickle last digit go down, and I'll have my confetti ready for 235, but boy oh boy, just wait till that middle digit starts getting lower!

241*

I was going to call today's post "I lost 3 pounds in the bathroom this morning," but rightly nixed that idea.  So instead, I decided to post my weight.  With an asterisk.

For a couple weeks, I've been flirting with the notion of weighing myself, something I haven't done since surgery.  And then I thought "Why not publish my weight in my blog, like Shauna Reid's The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl (a good book and fun blog)?  And then I thought: "Well Thanksgiving's almost upon me: why not start with my Thanksgiving weight?  Better yet, start with my weight of The Morning After!"

So with Carbapalooza 2011 behind me (literally!), this morning I waddled to the scale and hoisted myself up onto it.  244.  Okay so be it.  But the scale was wobbly (who wouldn't be with me standing on them?), so I moved it from the textured tile to the bath mat (if I'm going to regularly post my weight, I'd like some kind of stability), and suddenly I was down 3 pounds to 241.

241.  There it is.  People who love me will still love me; people who don't give two hoots won't start now.

What matters is that I've given myself a new starting line.  If you've been reading me for any length of time, you know from my weight lifting classes that I like to know how many are left.  Although I don't know how many pounds are left, because I'm a believer of "I'll know my ideal weight when I get there," I know that 241 is not my ideal weight.  Heaven knows it's more than I weighed in that triathlon photo on my desk - the one with me in a swimsuit and bike shorts; the one I want to improve upon - along with my time - next year.

So what does 241 mean?  It means I can give myself a Celebration Goal.  On The Biggest Loser this week, there was much ado about a contestant who never celebrated or appreciated his achievements (like losing 9 pounds in a week).  And then there were Abby's words about celebrating no matter how painful life gets.


   Build on the theme of appreciating & celebrating. 
  
   Build on "Seasons of Love" from Rent:

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear,

525,600 minutes, how do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee,

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In 525,600 minutes, how do you measure, measure a life?

   Build on the Bigges Loser contestant's (I was sleepy by now & don't remember which one) goal to complete 500 miles in half-marathons to raise money for children.

   Build on the Christian notion of the Church Year starting this weekend with the first Sunday of Advent.

Build and build and build and TA-DA!  I've built a little something in my mind: a guideline to get me where I want to go and I've got a Celebration Goal (I will not dishonor it by calling it a mini goal as I was once taught).  My Celebration Goal is 235 pounds.  When my scale on the bathmat reads 235, I'll celebrate with a little happy dance and maybe a handful of confetti.

I've also created some bigger Me-Powered-Goals:

Goal #1: Within these next 525,600 minutes I will complete the equivalent of an Ironman, though not all in one fell swoop: I'm not even cleared for swimming yet.

Goal #2: Within these next 525,600 minutes I will learn from my vegetarian & vegan companions how to expand my cooking repertoire so that I'm not only eating according to my conscience, but in harmony with my body's needs.

Goal #3: Within these next 525,600 minutes I will strive toward achieving my Celebration Goals and accept myself along the way.

One day

Last week my trainer friend reminded me in her blog that 80% of weight loss is food-related and only 20% is exercise-related.  Dagnabbit - that's why I can't eat whatever I want, whenever I want and have all those calories and more just magically melt away in the gym.  I was thinking about that in the gym this morning, wondering whether all the work I was doing would make up for my pre-workout apple.


Thanks to another friend, I came across this article that has some reasonable tips.


I've got two good articles and a headful of knowledge.  So what gives?  Why do I still have legs resembling the trunks of hundred-year-old trees?  You'd think by now I'd at least be down to 10-year-old trees.  But no.  My focus shifts from here to there, as I'm sure yours does.  Thinking about one thing all the time is not only boring, but in real life it's nearly impossible.


The trick for me is to get these healthy habits to stick in my noggin.  So I'm back to the drawing board.  I've printed out a food diary for today ("Only track your food intake on the days you want to lose weight").  I think I'll bribe myself.  If I keep an accurate journal today, I'll....  I'll what? 


???


Well, I'll have the success of having accomplished what for me is a near impossible feat: overcoming, even for one day, the baggage I carry into food journaling.  I'll have a diary of what I ate.  I'll have hopefully caused myself to eat healthier than I did yesterday.  I'll  have taken a step toward my goal.


So maybe I don't need to bribe myself with a tangible treat.  Maybe I can learn to overcome the need for instant gratification or reward.  Maybe I can learn to stick to it. 

Faithful Departed

It was different with my Max: I was with him in the vet's office when he took his last breath.  My mind is filled with images of him lying next to me in the big comfy chair when I was pregnant, and again when I went through cancer treatment; tearing across the yard in bursts of energy, lap after glorious lap with his tongue lolling out in a big doggy smile; up on his hind legs, paws on my chest, smothering me with kisses.  The last time I saw Max, his soul had departed, his soft body was relaxed, freed from the pain of sickness, his eyes were closed, and the tip of his pink tongue peeked out.  I held onto him while he died.


My Charlie Brown has always been a different story.  From the moment I first laid eyes on him at the pound, Charlie was stoic.  Pell-mell  puppies, crying babies, thunderstorms - nothing got to him.  Like any dog, of course, he wasn't fond of 4th of July fireworks, but he took them in stride.  Charlie didn't play fetch or play with pull toys or even like dog treats.  He was a roll-around-on-the-ground dog who favored helping himself to the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie (we knew it was him and not Max because Charlie had pumpkin pie on his nose).  Whereas Max would pick his pill out of its cheese hiding place, if Charlie needed medicine, cheese was a treat rather than a necessity.  More important was to get my fingers out of his teeth's happy way.  And Charlie didn't give kisses; he snuggled and nuzzled.  At one point he was an almost-70-pound baby who would wiggle his butt with happiness (his tail was docked when the animal warden first found him) and who in his last days would melt his head into my hands while I rubbed his ears.


Because I held Max while he died, I've always had a sense that I saw his soul move on to a safe place, a heaven or a haven.  But my Charlie, ever the capable one, took himself away. 


In the past he's opened our gate, taken himself for little jaunts around the neighborhood, and come back home (causing me to walk the neighborhood with a plastic bag in case he'd left anything along the way).


But in Tuesday night's storm, he didn't come home to us.  We searched and searchd.  Late into the night my husband drove the streets, and walked where he coudn't drive.  Animal control searched.  First thing Wednesday morning I biked to search, and walked where the ground was too rain-soaked for my bike.  I looked in the field, among the trees, and along the beach.  I walked down the stairs he was afraid to descend with me.  Every piece of driftwood and every fallen leaf was the color of my Charlie, but I couldn't find Charlie.


In the afternoon, two neighbors came to share the sad news that Charlie's body was where the water meets the sand, just away from those stairs.


I don't know when Charlie died.  Did he die in the storm during the night?  Did he die in the sunrise?  Was he still alive while I searched the beach -- did he try to find me but I didn't see him?  Did he die when I walked to look somewhere else?


Why did he walk so far from home in a storm when his hips were failing and he was weak?  Did his canine instinct tell him it was time?  Was he exploring?  Was he afraid and confused?


The last time I saw Charlie was as his body was lifted from the trunk of our van.  He was wrapped in a blanket (in life, this big scary-looking dog loved to cuddle stuffed animals, shoes, blankets), paws forward, glazed eyes open.  I gave his sand-covered paws a final squeeze (he used to play bossy paw with us) and stroked his neck.


I feel tremendous guilt that Charlie died alone on the beach.  The thought of my gentle beast dying alone on the shore convulses me.  I pray that the beautiful souls whose memorials overlook that spot came to guide him.  I pray that Max came back for his friend.  I pray that while I slept, a piece of my soul knelt by Charlie.  All I can do is pray for Charlie.   His collar will stay by Max's in a special place in our home. 


Yesterday my arms felt empty without a big warm Charlie to hug, a Charlie to comfort as he aged and weakened.  But I remind myself that I've still got a houseful of loved ones to comfort and keep safe.  In the coming days, we'll grieve: and out of habit we'll make sure the gate is closed and will listen for the scratch at the back door;  we'll remember and we'll look at pictures; we'll cry for our beloved dead; we'll heal and eventually smile at memories.


But for now I hurt.  I hurt and I feel guilty and I want to hold my Charlie.    


This will be the first Thanksgiving that our family doesn't have a dog.  Our pumpkin pies are safe.  This year, there's little chance that presents under the tree will be peed on.  In the new year, we'll search the animal shelters for the next members of our family.  And for the rest of my life, every time I walk the beach I'll think of Charlie Brown.

photo: Karin Ostroske