Sink or Swim
Had a major breakdown yesterday, started by having to individualize and address half the letters for the Great Necklace Project (GNP), several of which involved telling people the bad news. Somehow, signing, folding, and stuffing the letters was just . . . horrible. Then my husband called, we had a miscommunication, and that ended up in a really nasty fight that was his fault for saying what he meant but not watching how he said it, and my fault for not taking it how he meant it.
This all sucks. And I'm getting sick of it bothering me as much as it does. I need to hurry up and feel better, because it's obviously annoying the piss out of everyone around me. At the same time, I'm not going to try to suck it up. You can't make a broken leg heal any faster. If I try to do too much right now, I'll just make things worse. So I'm torn between trying to act tough and telling anyone who tells me I should be tough to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
My confidence is at low ebb . . . I handed the letters over to my husband to mail this morning and now I feel supremely angsty about it - afraid I put the wrong letter in the wrong envelope, said something inappropriate, etc. I'm getting that nagging voice in the back of my head that says it was a stupid idea, that nobody will help, and that even if I do it, it will either strike Mom as hopelessly trite and sentimental, or it will be so overwhelmingly poignant and maudlin that she will drop dead from heartbreak on the spot.
This morning, I feel tired and empty. I can't tell. I think the worst of the storm may be over, and I'm just riding the swells of my grief. Here I am, clinging to the flotsam of my creative and spiritual life, and wondering if this is a lull or the actual end of the downpour. I feel like it's time to start paddling for shore, but I don't know which way to go.
In short, I feel helpless. I don't have the energy, the heart, to do housework or care for my pets. And I feel guilty about that like you wouldn't believe. I am creatively dry, though I hear papery little rustles that indicate rodents might be fussing industriously in the blank pages of my mind. Probably tearing them up to make nests for their squirming, squalid, eraser-like young. My relationship is strained - this is all very hard on my husband because I've been leaning on him a lot. And I'm utterly helpless to prevent my mother's decline and demise. She's managing what care she needs right now by herself. I can't really help, except to offer her my support, and listen to her if she wants to talk.
My life is a shipwreck, and I have no control.
What happens when I feel like I have no control over my physical life and creative flow? I buckle down on the one thing I absolutely can control.
Yeah, I start obsessing about food. And exercise. Only now that I've been off that train for a while, I hate it. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I don't want to care what I eat, I don't want to punish my body. But I'm fretting myself into stitches over the fact that I've been stuck where I am for months, and have in fact lost some ground recently. And I know I shouldn't care, that it's stupid.
On the one hand, it's okay for me to judge myself, to be hard on myself, but on the other hand, were anyone else to say anything to me about how I look, they would very quickly find themselves staring down 140 pounds of pissed-off bellydancer. This is not the most intimidating thing in the world, I know, but those who anger me are advised to remember two things: I have out arm-wrestled my husband, and I have long fingernails that I like to sharpen on yielding surfaces . . . like human face.
And anyway, it's not about how other people feel about how I look -- I know I look great. I do. But I promised myself I would lose all this weight - not just 75% of it -- and I haven't done that yet. And I've been working my ass off exercising every day, and eating just right. Do you honestly know anyone who exercises six days a week and does not occasionally skip a day? Now you do. I have not missed a day in over a year. And it's not working. I've plateaued. My normal response to this is to find something even more brutal than what I am currently doing to myself and switch to that until I get the results I need. This time, I cannot stand to step back into that vicious spiral. I feel . . . hunted . . . at the very thought of it.
But fear not! I have come up with a middle ground. I have an appointment, I am going to a personal trainer next week! This chick is really neat, and was the one responsible for taking my sister from a size 14 to a size 4. I trust she can do as much with me.
I will give her a ruthlessly accurate account of my eating and exercise habits, and see if she has any light to shed on the subject. And I will let someone who knows what they are doing guide me rather than just punish myself until I give out.
She told me on the phone that these last 20 pounds WILL come off if I can just stick to an effective plan. I couldn't help it. I laughed. She does not yet know she is dealing with the most stubborn person she will ever meet. If I can stick like glue to a routine that is not working, no force in this world or the next can make me deviate from one that is working.
It will feel good to stop treading water and actually get somewhere.
Now if I could just get back to writing, things wouldn't seem so bad.
link
This all sucks. And I'm getting sick of it bothering me as much as it does. I need to hurry up and feel better, because it's obviously annoying the piss out of everyone around me. At the same time, I'm not going to try to suck it up. You can't make a broken leg heal any faster. If I try to do too much right now, I'll just make things worse. So I'm torn between trying to act tough and telling anyone who tells me I should be tough to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
My confidence is at low ebb . . . I handed the letters over to my husband to mail this morning and now I feel supremely angsty about it - afraid I put the wrong letter in the wrong envelope, said something inappropriate, etc. I'm getting that nagging voice in the back of my head that says it was a stupid idea, that nobody will help, and that even if I do it, it will either strike Mom as hopelessly trite and sentimental, or it will be so overwhelmingly poignant and maudlin that she will drop dead from heartbreak on the spot.
This morning, I feel tired and empty. I can't tell. I think the worst of the storm may be over, and I'm just riding the swells of my grief. Here I am, clinging to the flotsam of my creative and spiritual life, and wondering if this is a lull or the actual end of the downpour. I feel like it's time to start paddling for shore, but I don't know which way to go.
In short, I feel helpless. I don't have the energy, the heart, to do housework or care for my pets. And I feel guilty about that like you wouldn't believe. I am creatively dry, though I hear papery little rustles that indicate rodents might be fussing industriously in the blank pages of my mind. Probably tearing them up to make nests for their squirming, squalid, eraser-like young. My relationship is strained - this is all very hard on my husband because I've been leaning on him a lot. And I'm utterly helpless to prevent my mother's decline and demise. She's managing what care she needs right now by herself. I can't really help, except to offer her my support, and listen to her if she wants to talk.
My life is a shipwreck, and I have no control.
What happens when I feel like I have no control over my physical life and creative flow? I buckle down on the one thing I absolutely can control.
Yeah, I start obsessing about food. And exercise. Only now that I've been off that train for a while, I hate it. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I don't want to care what I eat, I don't want to punish my body. But I'm fretting myself into stitches over the fact that I've been stuck where I am for months, and have in fact lost some ground recently. And I know I shouldn't care, that it's stupid.
On the one hand, it's okay for me to judge myself, to be hard on myself, but on the other hand, were anyone else to say anything to me about how I look, they would very quickly find themselves staring down 140 pounds of pissed-off bellydancer. This is not the most intimidating thing in the world, I know, but those who anger me are advised to remember two things: I have out arm-wrestled my husband, and I have long fingernails that I like to sharpen on yielding surfaces . . . like human face.
And anyway, it's not about how other people feel about how I look -- I know I look great. I do. But I promised myself I would lose all this weight - not just 75% of it -- and I haven't done that yet. And I've been working my ass off exercising every day, and eating just right. Do you honestly know anyone who exercises six days a week and does not occasionally skip a day? Now you do. I have not missed a day in over a year. And it's not working. I've plateaued. My normal response to this is to find something even more brutal than what I am currently doing to myself and switch to that until I get the results I need. This time, I cannot stand to step back into that vicious spiral. I feel . . . hunted . . . at the very thought of it.
But fear not! I have come up with a middle ground. I have an appointment, I am going to a personal trainer next week! This chick is really neat, and was the one responsible for taking my sister from a size 14 to a size 4. I trust she can do as much with me.
I will give her a ruthlessly accurate account of my eating and exercise habits, and see if she has any light to shed on the subject. And I will let someone who knows what they are doing guide me rather than just punish myself until I give out.
She told me on the phone that these last 20 pounds WILL come off if I can just stick to an effective plan. I couldn't help it. I laughed. She does not yet know she is dealing with the most stubborn person she will ever meet. If I can stick like glue to a routine that is not working, no force in this world or the next can make me deviate from one that is working.
It will feel good to stop treading water and actually get somewhere.
Now if I could just get back to writing, things wouldn't seem so bad.
link