The Kick

First off, YOU GUYS. That's all I have to say. (Ok, obviously not, since I wrote a whole paragraph here....) Your comments on my last post were amazing, the kind of furry, cuddly things that dreams are made of. I savored them all. I realized in the process that feeling the immense shame of opening that candy bar is part of the draw of it, strangely enough, the kind of "Look what a bad thing I am doing!" nonsense. And as I thought about all of your words, I wondered..."If we all do this, if we all feel this pain, this draw, this strangeness, is it really all that strange?" Yeah, it's probably not. And that's a helpful thing to remember the next time I'm at the convenience store, looking to be happy.

So yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And I'll just come out and say that I didn't eat much of anything really, except for a single Lindt truffle and half a chicken breast. (Also: vodka). I was too busy having panic attacks and dealing with explosive stomach maladies.

(Sorry.)

At any rate, I survived. I think it is important to say that. Because at times yesterday, I didn't think I would. And it wasn't in that hyperbolic way either, the way you said you wouldn't survive running the mile in 8th grade gym or ONEMORESECOND if Derek from first period didn't call. If you deal with anxiety, I'm sure you can commiserate. I found myself at points closing my eyes and trying to will myself into a coma. Anything felt preferable to the reality of life at that moment. Anything.

But here I sit at work today, lip glossed and dressed. I didn't want to get up this morning, didn't want to have to slog through the day and deal with the uncomfortable realities of life (and let me just say here that no, I did not face any kind of crisis yesterday--there was a financial oversight and mistake--nothing that we all don't have to deal with once in a while). But I am here. The panic attack I had in my shower this morning told me I would not be. It snarled at me, and told me that I was on a hopeless road, full of drama and shame and more of the same. Basically, my panic attacks are all an embodiment of Nirvana songs.

And in that moment, with shampoo in my hair, I told it to fuck off. I didn't even wish it politely adieu, which was what a good Southern lady truly would have done. I was more like, "Hey you. Fat kid in the flannel. FUCK. OFF."

My life the past year or so has not been fun. I mean, I can't complain, not really. I have a place to sleep at night, beautiful children and food in my belly. I have a job and I get the joy of laughing a lot. But I am in a place that I do not want to be, both physically and mentally. And the thought of this being my future is enough to send me into full on shuddering. Panic attack inducing is the thought of this being the future for my kids. So I've made these half-hearted pronouncements of moving, but without any real plan or really anywhere to go, and real substantive change on the horizon. In fact, Matt and I just kind of shut down talking about it. We started thinking about just moving to a new town in our same general area.

But then yesterday happened. And in the middle of it, we're gnashing it out on the couch and I'm starting to think that absolutely nothing ever will ever just fucking work. And I'm mad, and he's mad, and no one is thinking rationally. And then we went to the grocery store. And I bought us some truffles and we came home and sat out on our porch and decided to move. And while Alice ran around like a crazy person and Sam tried his best to eavesdrop on our conversation, we started hatching out a plan that just might fucking work.

And that was the kick in that pants that I needed--that we needed. And after my momentary freak out in the shower this morning, I feel like I did when I was in college. All shiny and full of hope. I'm no longer deluded enough (as I was in college!) to think that everything will fall into place like magic (LET'S GET IN THE CAR AND DRIVE TO CA WITH NO JOBS AND JUST KIND OF FIND A HOUSE AND STUFF!). But I now have the years of hard work to tell me how to make it happen.

This morning I called my college's alumni association and set up a phone call tomorrow to get info on our alumni job connection services. Matt has already gotten a good lead on a job. I took a deep breath and made out a rudimentary budget for what we will need to do to get started (and this a huge step--budgets make me gag). Will it happen? FO SHO? I don't know. But I'd be willing to bet on myself. And before yesterday, betting on me would have been like betting on a really fat horse with diabeetus.

So what's my point? That I am awesome? No. It's just that hope is really all you need. You think it is love, especially when you are young, but love can die a horrible, nasty death when there is no hope. Hope is the fuel that keeps it all alive. And really, as long as you have that, you can do anything. Even if it is just make it through one truly shitty day.

On Top of Things

Yesterday, when I left work, I had plans to make today a day where I was purely and amazingly on top of things. I had planned my outfit, featuring a pair of J.Crew Minnie's that I just sprung for for a late birthday present. I had printed off healthy Weight Watchers friendly recipes for breakfast and dinner that I could buy the ingredients for and put in the slow cooker. I made big plans to grocery shop, head home, and then spend my evening finishing with the unpacking and laundry, and at some point, finally use the box of hair dye that has been languishing below my sink to make myself a deeper brunette and then cut my bangs.

And while I would love to say that I succeeded, I probably wouldn't be writing about it if I had. No, it turns out that while I have two slow cookers (one to use overnight for steel-cut oats and the other to fill with bolognese sauce for dinner), one had been languishing on top of our cabinets for God knows how long (because really, who needs two slow cookers?) and was covered with a greasy, icky film that I had neither time nor desire to really attack. So the steel cut oats were put off until tomorrow. I did manage to get the bolognese prepared and put into the slow cooker insert for tonight's dinner, but the mincing of the vegetables took so long that I ended up leaving a few dishes on the counter, dishes that smelled of the vegetable curry from last night and greeted me with a start this morning (this all could have been avoided had I remembered that I have a shiny new food processor just for this kind of thing). During the whole time that I was mincing those veggies, Alice was milling about my legs saying "Mommy, I tire, Mommy, I tire," and I kept saying, "Hold on, Allie, Mommy's making dinner," which really just confused the absolute hell out of her since we had just had dinner. When I finally sat down to get her to sleep, she was well past the point of no return, so she ended up sitting on the couch and eating my Special K crackers and watching Sesame Street while I passed out in bed with my book splayed over the pile of grapes on my chest.

I got up this morning, still with high hopes. But as I slipped into my new pants, I realize that they are just enough too tight to make wearing them for an 8 hour workday a tortuous proposition. The bad thing about where I am right now, weight-wise, is that I am between two sizes. Pants in the next size up are swimming on me by the end of the day, but there is that uncomfortable pinch in the next size down. So as I pulled them back off, I reminded myself that this is what Weight Watchers is for, this is why I ponied up for the service, this is why I intend on making February my TRACK EVERYTHING month. Easy enough, no "I'm too fat to live!" moments. I put on the denim trousers that I love and that I sigh in thinking will be too big by the end of the month if I work the plan the way I should and a cheery tank and a cardigan. Again, yeah, it is a uniform, but it works. And then I cut my bangs quickly and happily, tried some new colors of make-up from the plethora of samples that my Mary Kay consultant gave me, and went on my somewhat-merry way.

I say all this, not to give you an insider's glance at what constitutes a morning in my house (because really, I haven't gotten into the messy tango that is getting my two oldest children ready for school), but really to remind myself, and maybe you too, that perfection isn't possible. You make plans and if they don't get shot all to hell, you find yourself in the tenuous situation of trying to do as much as you can while the quicksand beneath your feet does its best to make sure that doesn't happen. No matter what I plan and what I imagine myself being--a thin-ish girl in black cigarette pants and heels--there is the unknown other that doesn't want that, that would much rather have me eating a bowl full of pasta with butter and salt, watching a Hoarders marathon. And that is my struggle. Perhaps it is yours too.

One way I want to slay this unknown is to really commit myself to Weight Watchers, so starting today, February 1, I am going to try to track everything I eat. I am such a mindless eater--a few of the kid's chips here, a handful of popcorn there, a small candy bar to eat on the way home from the store without even tasting it--and those things never get tracked. So that is my commitment. I also need to drink more water. I also need to plan meals for myself and the family better than I have been doing. Both Monday and Tuesday, I found myself in the grocery section of Wal-Mart at 5:00, talking to my husband on the phone as I walked around pulling stuff off the shelves that we "needed." According to Matt, we needed chips and Ranch dip and that is a perfectly acceptable side dish. When I reminded him about the Weight Watchers, he goes, "And chips and dip are bad? Well, I guess they are...." YOU GUESS? Fried potatoes dipped into sour cream MIGHT be bad. This is when one realizes they are married to Paula Deen, minus the diabetes and with a faster metabolism.

It is so strange to think about creating real, lasting change in one's life. On one hand, you feel that it must be so easy to just finally get your shit together, to create a home worthy of Pinterest pictures, to fashion a healthy lifestyle. But there are reasons why people strive for this and never quite get there--namely, it is hard. All one can do is to keep trying, I suppose, and temper those moments of planned perfection with the slothful moments in a Snuggie. The one victory I see for myself is that I am no longer hit with crazy, wild-eyed depression and anxiety when I find myself unable to measure up to those thoughts of perfection. I roll with the punches more--I go to my denim trousers and my new make-up and fashion myself back into happiness. Perhaps this is the true perfection.

Treat Yo Self

I once read this thing for bloggers that said if you aren't around for a while and then you come back, you shouldn't mention it, that a "Holy shit, I'm sorry I haven't updated in a hot minute--um, six months!" post is purely amateur hour. But yeah, I'm purely amateur hour, so here you have it. I ain't been around. There are reasons for this. Reasons that I'll hopefully explicate in some detail in this post.

Life has really been weird these past....four or five months. No, nothing has really happened. I'm not pregnant, I'm not getting divorced, I haven't grown a tentacle or had my nose run off to join the army. Life has just been blah. Somewhere in the daily battle to curtail the never ending flow of laundry and get to work and try to be a somewhat decent human being, and oh, well try to decide what in the living state of SHIT I am supposed to do with my life, everything got a little lost. Truthfully, I got a little lost. And it is kind of hard to keep up with a blog when you can't think of anything in your life to do except complain. No one wants to read that, and if they do, well, there's Facebook. 24 hour a day complaining about everything from censorship to Starbucks to one's love life. It is truly horrible, but if you're like me, you have your phone glued to your hand all the time, ready to subject yourself to more of it. MASOCHISTS, ya'll.

These past four to five months, I didn't go shopping one time (at least not for myself). I quit reading a lot of my favorite blogs, I quit paying much attention to anything fun or interesting. It all felt a little pointless, I guess, and sad in a way. Empty. I fought with myself about the person I was, the person I saw myself becoming, the person I needed to be. Somehow, wrap dresses and denim trousers and boots didn't seem to fit into that. I started to gain weight, mostly because I've been eating complete and utter crap. We're talking Wendy's for lunch nearly everyday (for reals, ya'll, have you had the asiago ranch chicken sandwich with spicy chicken? OMFG, those things are too freaking good. I will end up with botulism or butt cancer or something because of my love for them over the past little bit, but despite it all, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for them).

And then, one night, I sat watching What Not to Wear whilst eating a chunk of Trader Joe's caramelized onion cheddar and realized that I was turning into the lady on the show, pre-makeover. She complained about not having time, she had circles under her eyes, her clothes were sad. I almost cried. I went to bed feeling defeated.

So now, here I sit. I am now 29 years old. I am not where I want to be, ultimately, but really, I have some plans in the works, and things are starting to solidify. And this past weekend, I went to the outlet malls with my mom handily watching my children, and I got new clothes. And yes, it is sad, but I feel like a different person. I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, wearing new crisp denim trousers and a cardigan (yes, it is a uniform of sorts), and I felt good. I felt like me. Which is an altogether different feeling than what I've been experiencing. Was it the clothes? Yeah, probably. But not just them. They, and a little bit of learning to accept myself and what makes me happy FOR BETTER OR WORSE is what did it.

I can't tell you how to live your life, because, well, if you took advice from me, you'd be stupid. I am, after all, a 29 year old mother of three who lives in a small town she alternately despises and is indifferent to, who does nothing to use her hard-won college degree and sometimes has a hard time differentiating between right and left. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. RUN. But I'll tell you this: be true to yourself, no matter what that means. If you like lipstick and beer, fuck it, that's what you like. Don't overindulge to the point of messing up your life, but you know, enjoy those things. Don't fight it. Don't try to change things that have no business being changed.

And TREAT YO SELF. Life is too short to go through it wearing bad shoes.

I've put a lot of thought into this, and perhaps today is a good day to share this, what with it being my birthday and new beginnings and all of that: from now on, when I post on here, I'm going to be 100% truthful with you about everything that is going on with me (of course, leaving out anything that has to do with poop or health things or other people who might defriend me on FB, or you know, set fire to my house were I to share too much). I have never really lied on this blog, but anyone who uses the internet knows that absolutely no one is completely truthful about this stuff--we all share what would flatter us, what would make others think that we are amazing credits to the world. And I think this is a problem. It is hard to compare your behind the scenes daily issues with the highlight reel everyone else shows. So, I'm just gonna say it. I ain't perfect. My life ain't perfect. And if I can help someone else by admitting as much, hell, I'll be happy to do that.

And ya'll, as of tomorrow (after I eat the luscious dark chocolate raspberry Nigella Lawson creation that I have prepared for myself), I am back on Weight Watchers. And I'm going to talk about that some too, just to keep myself on the wagon. This is especially going to be tough here at the beginning, as I am going to Jamaica next week. More on that later when I have a bit more sarcastic jocularity to share.

So for now, happy birthday to me and thanks for reading this, if in fact anyone is. Treat yo self.