it was only recently that i felt like we have FINALLY settled into our 'new' apartment. there are no more visible cardboard boxes signifying our transitory status. there is organization and order in all the rooms. images and art are hung instead of heaped against an out-of-the-way wall waiting to be displayed. it took a little more than a year, but i finally feel completely moved in.
the funny thing is that everything in los angeles still feels so new... or maybe it feels more like impermanence?? yes, that's it. there exists this pervasive temporary feeling that still nags the back of my mind, even after a year. at first i thought the feeling stemmed from knowledge of an impending home purchase in the near future. there are no firm plans right this moment, but buying a house and getting out of apartment life is one of those big goals on the horizon. but this ephemeral sense is rooted deeper: my guy and i don't plan stay in los angeles forever. but when we left the comfort of chicago, we didn't think further than 'hey! let's move to l.a.!'
...and then what?
this seems to be the question that keeps me calling my apartment new, that allows me to consider myself as having 'just' moved here, that makes me feel nonplussed about this town and its inhabitants. signing the lease for another year is probably a good indication that i should probably drop the 'new'.
i've been thinking about how i live with 'temporary', how it feels to view my life as 'temporary', how it feels to know that my current job isn't permanent, that my apartment is not truly my space, that this town does not engender a sense of belonging within me. temporary does not feel like mine.
when i think of my home in chicago, i am overwhelmed with nostalgia, with a fondness for a city rich with culture, intellect, savvy. i think of the beauty of the seasons: bitter and unforgiving in the winter, delicate and innocent in the spring. i think of the home i owned for a decade, the modifications and renovations that i did with my own hands. i think of my truly amazing girlfriends, who inspire me, who challenge me, who accept me as i am. i think of my dysfunctional, lovable family. my heart swells with pride when i think about 'home'.
pride.
i recently read that the body usually fluctuates between three and five pounds from its normal weight. what an unexpected, harsh slap in my face this bit of trivia was. three to five pounds is what i have been dancing around with for the past three months, fooling myself that "it's" working! i am down 2 lbs! up 1:( down 1.5lbs!! up 4lbs.
what the fuck am i doing?? i'm not committed to dieting. i'm not sticking to the plan. i've been foo-fahing around with weight watchers online, dancing around a nice, neat structured system and telling myself, genuinely SELLING myself on the idea that i'm doing this! i'm really in it to win it!! i'm full of shit. i'm starting to think that a smart slap is exactly what i need to help me snap out of it.
as i examine the myriad of excuses, of broken systems that i live by, as i poke around my inner workings, i am drawn to this idea of permanence and sense of pride. i realize that right now, right this very moment, my relationship with my body feels temporary. one day my body and mind are buddy-ole-pals and the next day, my mind is leaving my body in the dust. for a week or two, i feel centered, whole. i am conscious of how my body feels, if it's hungry, if it wants exercise and i lovingly attend to its needs. in one afternoon, this groovy symbiosis is dashed on the jagged rocks of too many drinks and late nite greasy food. my relationship with my body feels temporary. my body does not feel like mine and therefore, i am excused from taking care of it.
i need this to change. i need to feel like my mind and body are engaged in a permanent and exclusive relationship. i need to know with every fiber of my being that my body is my temple. i need to know that regardless of the impermanent state of external forces in my life, my relationship with my body is constant. i need to feel proud of my body. i need to feel like i belong to my body, like it's my beloved home.
so here's what i've come up with so far:
change is good
change is necessary
my constant, my permanent lies within me
my body is permanent
my relationship with my body is permanent
i can endure change because i can always rely on my body
...and then what?
i'm not really sure. i don't know what comes next.
hard work? ok. but what does that work look like?
self love? yeah. that sounds great. how do i do it?
awareness? mindfulness? self respect? yes. yes. and yes. sign me up!
what? no instruction manual?!?
Body, i guess it's you and me, kid. we're gonna have to figure this out together. are you in this with me? are we in this to win this?
yes.
i got home from work a short while ago. i was staaaaaarvvvving (not literally, but quite dramatically). i felt that psycho must-eat-something-NOW-tornado start to spin inside me as soon as i walked in the door. i hurried through the right-when-you-get-home routine of feeding and walking pets but as soon as i returned from the potty walk, i nose-dived into the kitchen. awareness was shot and the cloud of numbness was surging in. the fastest thing to prepare was an english muffin and while it was cooking, i spied pringles (even faster). when i saw the pringles, i had a physical, pavlovian reaction - i felt my eyes get bigger at the recognition of the unopened tube of potato crisps and i started salivating. this story has a happy ending, though...
"whoa. hold up there, little mama. i've only got 13 points left for the day," i thought with the last shred of sanity. so i took 10 pringles out (mind you, i have NEVER counted out pringles before - this is huge for me), put the canister back and waited patiently for the muffin to finish toasting. i grabbed a bottle of water and my muffin and retreated to the office to check in with the blogs and try to calm the category 5 winds that started a churnin' in me just moments earlier.
this moment, as i type, the crazy need to feed feeling has abated and i am calm enough and sane enough to go back to the kitchen and make a healthy dinner. i didn't die from starvation. and i didn't succumb to "the nothing."
could it be? is this... success?!
...because after a FOUR pound weight gain this morning, i realize that somethin' ain't quite right here.
seriously. what the hell? four pounds, really? four?? FOUR???!!
i know what the hell... it was eating half a tray of chicken wings and a downing a couple of beers at 11pm last night. i knew that kind of splurging at that hour of the night could only mean doom and gloom on the scale this morning, yet i did it anyway! the four pound gain was disturbing but not unexpected... what was unexpected was the horrible stomach ache i woke up with, the all day bloat factor, and my jeans fitting SUUUUPER tight when i got home. the backlash from such a gluttonous evening was unbelievable.
and yet, i'm actually pleased that i didn't freak out this morning, enacting some crazy godzilla scene where my scale gets shattered under a crushing deathblow-stomp and the peaceful morning is pierced with my shrieking roars.
disappointed? yes - absolutely. but freaky? no.
i have a sneaking suspicion that i know exactly what's going on here. for weeks i've been working on the internal piece of my weight loss journey. i've been mired in my own thoughts, coming to terms with what's going on in my head and in my heart. but when it comes to my body? that's an entirely different story... and therein lies the problem. it's high time i quit frakking around with the weight watcher's plan and start following it the way it's supposed to be followed. it's time for me to get serious about consistent exercise. it's time for my body and mind to work together for the greater good.
i have a plan for myself: i'm going to pick one goal i aim for per week, something i can do for myself every day for one whole week. if i can succeed (or even if i can't) i'll select a new goal for myself the following week and just keep building on my previous weeks' successes. i realize that i work well within the architecture of routine so i will build structure for myself, a sturdy foundation built on weekly accomplishments, a system in which i can thrive. i will be careful not to overwhelm myself with grandiose, complicated goals, too, because i don't want to sabotage my plan. i know myself well enough to know that i'm not good with change, so i'll take this slow - not as slow as i have been taking it, but slow enough to allow change into my life in a steady, accumulating way.
the goal for this week: get back to writing down EVERY SINGLE THING I EAT. and if i can stay within my daily points, that would be great, too... but for this week, the primary goal is going to be maintaining my food journal. by doing this, i envision myself planning meals again, grocery shopping for healthy choices in anticipation of being hungry during the day or at night, making time for exercise and making exercise a priority. if these things manifest as a result of me maintaining my food log, great! wonderful! but if not, that's ok, too.
i gotta admit, i'm scared. i'm scared of creating a plan because that means i am accountable to something. i'm scared i'll succumb to failure. but equally intimidating is the prospect of success...
so where does this kind of fear leave me? right where i am: nowhere. and this is not the right place for me. so i'm going to trust my mind to lead my body and my body to support my mind... strong heart. strong mind. strong body.
wooooooo doggie! i am one messed up menstrual mutha right now. today the hormonal fog was so very thick. work was nearly unbearable. fortunately, there's a lot of activity going on outside of the office this week, so for the few of us who were in today, it was relatively mellow with minimal interaction. thank god. because the few interactions i did have with others were challenging. i was struggling to string coherent thoughts together much less speak whole sentences.
i do, however, possess enough clarity of mind to know that i'm making bad food decisions. and silly me, i'm trying to blame my bad decisions on the fact that "i'm menstrual. i don't know what i'm doing. i can't control anything right now."
yesterday i got an email from a girlfriend who was feeling extremely guilty after hunting down chocolate cake at work and devouring a very large piece, especially since she had been eating really healthy all day. after tapping off a cheerleadery reply of reassurance, i started thinking, (cue homer simpson drooley noise) "mmmmmm. chocolate caaaaaaake." and dammit if i didn't wander down to the vending machines and purchase one of those horrifying little dense bricks of diabetes-inducing mini chocolate cakes.
who's driving here??
i will say, though, that i thoroughly enjoyed every single point-loaded bite of that cake... so much so I BOUGHT ANOTHER ONE TODAY!!!!
i say again, WHO IS DRIVING HERE?
your turn at the wheel is up, whatever part of me that navigated my ass down to the vending machines. rational me is cutting through the excuses and the fogginess and taking the reigns. no more chocolate cake. no more vending machines. no more excuses. i know i can do. yes, it is challenging to retain mindful awareness especially since i momentarily have shit for brains. but i can and WILL do this.
i will have faith that my inner lighthouse will guide me through my temporary mental fog. onward to healthy frontiers! to weight loss! to feeling good in my skin! and away from the treacherous vending-machine-lined-shores.
last night i had a strange dream. it felt foreign, as if it didn't belong to me. like someone else was dreaming inside my head. in the dream, i felt unsettled and unhappy about my surroundings...
my guy and i found ourselves in a new apartment, but much to our dismay, it was in complete disrepair. the old tenant was still moving the last of his furniture out while we were there. he noted a particularly large hole in the hardwood floor, damage he took responsibility for. when the old tenant finally vacated, i walked around the new place, horrified that the landlord hadn't cleaned, repainted, repaired in anticipation of our arrival. while surveying the cleaning and repair that needed to be done, i was momentarily able to see beyond the dirt and admire the amount of living space in the apartment, as well as the unique layout. however, my ability to see beyond the immediate needs of the apartment soon dissipated into my horror and discomfort at the current state of the place. so much was my discontent that we ended up in another apartment. this one, although clean and freshly painted, was much smaller and felt equally unsuitable for living. the layout was uninspired, the colors clashed and there was carpet (i HATE carpet - it's like a giant, permanent dirt trap.)
it's rare that i ponder my dreams upon waking. even the dreams that leave me unsettled or scared or feeling wonderful - i might give a moments thought to them, but the memory of them soon disappears into the grind of the day. though there is one type of dream that will give me pause... dreaming of my home, a house, an apartment, any space where i take up residence - these are the dreams that float around my thoughts well into the day...
a few months after i really started getting in to therapy, i had a conversation with my guy in which i intimated to him the details of a particularly powerful dream i had the nite before: i was throwing my mom out of my house (at the time i was doing A LOT of work in therapy around breaking negative patterns learned from my mom). the dream was rife with emotion, emotion that stayed with me well into the day. after patiently listening to my dream recap, my guy gently proposed that the "house" in my dream was actually a metaphor for me, my Self. hmmm. it made sense. i was consumed with identifying and changing negative legacies inherited from my mother and my days were filled with emotion from healing my mother issues. so it would make sense that the subconscious of my dreams would capture the intensity of my daytime consciousness. the dream in which i threw my mom out of my house meant that i was healing. it meant that i was throwing her out of my head, my heart, my Self. i was reclaiming me for Me.
this is why i remember the dreams where my home is a main character. dreams of home are like my internal compass. reflecting on those dreams provides an accurate sense of what's really going on with me. so, after an entire afternoon contemplating the weird dream i had last night, i feel good about the direction my internal compass is pointing. here is the message my True Self gave to me last nite:
You are at a crossroads. You are at the place you have been many times before on Your journey towards a peaceful, loving relationship with Your Body. a familiar part of You, the part of You that has done much damage by abusing food, is moving out, allowing a new part of You to move in. yes, this mentality is foreign, yes it is unsettling, yes there is much work to be done to restore the relationship between Your Body and Mind, but We will do it together. You have the strength to walk this new path. You know what the other path looks and feels like and it has brought You here, to this crossroad. Your Body is sacred. It welcomed the last tenant and bravely endured that part of You. It is scarred and heavy and damaged, but not beyond repair. Your Body is Yours. It is ready to receive love and care and attention.
i've really been struggling with weight watchers this past week. i've found i'm at the place i've been many times before... i managed to eek my weight down a few pounds but, like so many times before, my good intentions and work fall to the wayside and i go back to shitty eating behaviors. the other day i offered up a prayer that i get through the next couple of 'crazy' weeks without blowing my ww plan. i think my dream last night answered my prayer.
and to my Self i say I am ready to give.
it was only recently that i felt like we have FINALLY settled into our 'new' apartment. there are no more visible cardboard boxes signifying our transitory status. there is organization and order in all the rooms. images and art are hung instead of heaped against an out-of-the-way wall waiting to be displayed. it took a little more than a year, but i finally feel completely moved in.
