Time Flies

The past week has been quite the emotional roller coaster here.  My husband has been violently ill, to the point of scaring me, and it's looking more and more like the reason for it is stress.  I'm afraid of how much of the stress he's feeling is my own doing, but am also afraid not to intervene and try as hard as I can to pressure him to let up at work and let things start really breaking.  I mean for real, break til they can't legally enforce any more.

I want to beg him to take a leave of absence, knowing that might cause him more stress than not doing it, and I want to beg him to put this house up for sale and start looking at trailer park solutions.  I know we can't keep going the way we're both going forever.

Which brings me to my own work.  It's making my eyes twitch and giving me a chronic migraine.  Yep.  I've inherited quite the crap storm and I'm left trying to sort it out, streamline it, fix it just so I can figure out a way to co-exist with it...all before I lose my own marbles, and need another crazy sabbatical of my own.

Add to this that last week I registered my baby girl for junior kindergarten and I'm left emotionally drained as a dried up grape.  Only the raisin that's left is pretty bitter.  She is sooo very excited to be going to big kid school, she even started doing her letters and numbers in high gear.  She's already told me she wants to wear a dress on her first day of school, and daily she checks out their progress on her new school.  You see her school is being built right at the end of our street, and that means she can watch as construction progresses...many days she can't understand why it's just not done already.

I on the other hand, as excited as I am to see her happy and diving in with both feet, am emotionally devastated at the thought that my last chances to be a stay at home mom have come and gone.  Literally, there's no way, unless I was choosing to home school her, that I will have that "opportunity" to be the kind of mom I always wanted to be.  I used to dream that I'd stay home with my kids til they were in school full time.  Then I'd go back to work.  And that was when full time school didn't start til kids were 6 years old.  She's  just going to turn 4 in June and will be going to school full time in September.  Unless I win millions so that I can take the summer with her, this is never going to happen for me at all.  It makes me all the happier that I was able to take the full maternity leave.  It was worth chewing up 6 years of my retirement to take that year.  Thank GOD I did that much.  She still snuggles with me, and holds my face in her tiny hands and tells me that I'm a good mommy.  And that fills me.  And her stellar behaviour, politeness and caring for others shows me every single day that I'm doing right by her.  But my god how I wish that I could have done this for her.  Been a 100% visible, dedicated and fully attentive mommy.

Every kid deserves that.  And every mom deserves to be able to do that for their kids without pushing themselves to the brink of death trying to be super mom, breadwinner, housekeeper, and CEO.  Exhaustion kills...My husband and I, and our grey skin tones are virtual proof of this.  I guess at least if we keel over tomorrow, our child will remember snippets of awesomeness, and will hear the stories of how we killed ourselves trying to give her the best we could.  That's reassuring for kids, right?

In the meantime, my little monkey has become a butterfly ready to leap off the leaves and float through the sky.  She's buoyant and light, and graceful, and sweet.  This world is changing because she smiled at it.  And she's about to be let loose, to get her footing and show the world what she's capable of.  I'm infinitely proud of her.  Of the person she is and the woman she will become.  I'm so terribly sad I've not been able to soak up 1000% of her moments the last 2 years.  And so thoroughly grateful for the hundreds of moments I've been given in place of them.

Where the buck stops

The last couple months of high stress and low self esteem have taken it's toll.  I'm now back off my meds which is awesome.  I think that transition is going quite well in fact, but the vacation my brain took, has left me back to where I was weight wise, the day I had my surgery.

At least it's not a full 40 lbs I have to take back off, but still.  The level of disappointment I have in myself for slipping can barely be described.

This morning however, I'm 100% back on track...and I'm looking forward to 2 more years of cottage cheese, fish and salad greenery if that is what it will take to put this battle behind me.

No matter which tool I have chosen to use to help me moderate the volumes of food for the intake, it is my choice full stop, what those will be volumes of.

I've enjoyed every single bite, and I'm very lucky I enjoy every single bite of the good foods too.

Here's to onward and upward...one more time.  And when I need a shove, a kick or a fire lit, I'll circle back here to remember just how deflating it was this time, stepping on the scale and realizing I really had checked out for far too long.

:)  All the best, and here's a cheers to you for listening.

The Good Stuff

So, I realized I'm keeping a score.  A record of my weight loss only in numbers.  I'm not recognizing the changes that are already demonstrating how much better my life is getting.

That's probably because I'm so focused on the scale to avoid the stuff that scares the bejeebers out of me.  You know, the stuff I'm afraid will come back...either watching the number on the scale creep back up, OR, having to face whatever demons my weight has been shielding me from all this time.

So let's start with awesome stuff.  After all, this is a blog titled Making Lemonade, is it not?

It's stuff that hits you out of the blue, but it seems so ridiculously small, you forget how huge it is.

I crossed both my legs the other day to put my socks on.  Seems ludicrous to call out here, but if I told you I hadn't been able to do that in 3 years, you would see just how big a life change that actually is.  Crazy isn't it?  My right knee has been so inflamed and arthritic that in order to put my socks on every single day, I had to put my knee up on the bed and bend the leg so that I could reach my foot.  The other day, I crossed them without even thinking...It wasn't until I had finished putting on the sock that I realized I wasn't even moving my body the same way and caught on to the change.

I walked downstairs this morning without the assistance of the handrail or leaning against the wall.  Again, it might seem like this is silly to be mentioning, but when you hurt as much as I have for the last three years, walking down a flight of stairs first thing in the morning without assistance was unheard of.  Every muscle in my body ached from the strain of carrying around the extra padding.  My body was swollen so much that I feared the smallest prick of my skin might result in a flood.  Walking down the stairs without wincing at every step and holding onto the railing for dear life is HUGE.

I picked up my 27 lb child and carried her from her bed, down the hall and to the bathroom, without even breathing heavy...this is because I've finally lost more than she weighs, and that means I'm not carrying twice her weight.  Let me tell you how monumental this is.  For two years after she was born I dealt with crippling, debilitating back pain that was a side effect of the spinal block I got to have my c-section.  Combined with my weight issues, there were days when I could barely walk, stand up, sit up...and it took the power of Christ to move my body in the ways I needed to move to look after my toddler.  Stifling back the tears was a daily challenge and forced me to use whatever I could to skirt by the easiest ways possible.  I used an ottoman in front of the sofa to change her diapers rather than get on a floor or take her up to her change table.  We put a double bed in her room so that I could stop rocking her to sleep and instead snuggle her in bed because lifting her up out of the rocking chair and transferring her to her toddler bed was too painful for me.  I think this is the first time I have lifted her and carried her any distance without feeling pain, in her entire life.  This is the hugest possible improvement I could have imagined.

My family has been generally healthy (not hit with plague after plague) for 4 weeks.  This is a first in over a year.

In total (though a few of these are still due to the flu), I've lost 32 lbs.

So here's what I'm deathly afraid of.  I don't really know why I'm so fat in the first place.  I know I'm an emotional eater, but the only traumatic situations I can link any of it to, is the loss of my father at 21, and random pressures and comments people made while I was growing up that they thought would help me manage a healthy weight, but which actually created new stressors.  And I'm afraid that when I lose this extra shield I've been building, that I will discover there was something more to it.  I eat when I am stressed or fearful of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person.  I eat when I'm happy and want to celebrate.  I use food to reward myself, and I can already feel the pangs of wanting to reward my 32 lb loss with some Easter chocolate.  I worry that I won't know how to cope without food or cigarettes (used to be part of the coping mechanism before I quit in 2007).  I worry that my brain has blocked out something from my memory that would cause me to use weight as my protector.  I worry that when I find out who lies beneath all this padding that I'll want something different out of my life, that I won't be simply satisfied with what I have.  I worry.  Full stop.

Of course there's no point in worrying until there's reason too.  Right now, I'm really quite happy that clothes are fitting me better and starting to feel big.  I'm overjoyed that I'm able to do the things I wrote about first in this post.  I'll take these wins and keep moving forward for now.  Will continue to wait for that other shoe to drop, and will work through it when it does...whatever it takes.

The freak show fat lady will never be me again.

Whew - catching a breath

So, I'm very sorry that I went quiet.  It's been a frenzied few weeks in all aspects of my life, and well, there just wasn't spare time to do a whole lot of posting.

I'm hesitant to complain though.  I've had some ups and big time downs in the last couple of weeks, and I'm exhausted, but when you think of what other people are dealing with right this very moment, I'll take my hits thanks, and keep on trucking.

What's been happening you ask?  Well work has been out of control pressured.  Last week I think I had meetings from the crack of dawn til dusk nearly every single day, and in every spare second I could find, I spent it painting my daughter's room.  It took 3 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint to go from circus side show to somewhat chic (as chic as you can get with paint in a 2 year old's bedroom.  It looked great, and my design vision was feeling totally zen, until I carted all of her toys and books back into her room, and now it looks all junked up again.  I'm trying not to stress out about it, because I know that at least now, I'll be able to change things up as she gets older without having to rearchitect the whole darn thing.

When we're all done, I'll post some photos of our home's transformation.  It's been a lot of work, and there's still plenty to be done in the way of getting artwork and personalizing the spaces...but with the bones now complete and sturdy and neutral enough, it shouldn't be too hard now.

In other news, my mother in law has begun radiation and chemo treatments this week for lung cancer.  While we're not there every day taking care of her, I know it's been weighing on both my husband's mind and mine, and I can tell you that dealing with the emotional strain of not being there is not as easy as one might think.  Both the hubby and I are fixers.  And while I suspect he'd be lost in space up there, I know that I'd be busy as stink taking care of her basic necessities.  Part of me is glad I'm not there to do all that, and the other part of me is ill thinking that it might not be getting done.  This is not where my father in law exceeds expectations either.

My own mother has been ill, and trying hard to recover from heart troubles, and she's not rebounding as easily as she did the first time.  They've put 2 new stints in one of her arteries, and well, her body isn't taking too nicely to having them there.  Because of the heart attack that is induced during the procedure and complications from emphysema  she's not able to walk the length of her driveway without feeling in trouble and in need of a rest.  This is probably weighing heavier on my mind because again, with a toddler and a full time job and responsibilities of my own, I'm not able to pitch in and take care of her the way I would like, and the way I think I should be.  It's another one of those complications that comes from having children late in life.  When I should be worrying less about my kids, or having my kid help more so that I can have more time for elder care, I'm still in new mommy mode, and unable to devote the kind of attention she needs to her, precisely when she needs it.  You know, old people stop caring for anything that happens in the world after 4pm.  And when it happens, it's not like it's gradual.  It just stops.  And nothing you can do to suggest doing something after 4pm will work.  It's like the hard wiring of their synapses changes.  It's completely irreversible.  And what makes it all harder is that I keep listening to her tell me what she's doing to look after my Grandmother.  oh what I wouldn't give to work part time right now, without taking a financial hit.

But what puts all of this into perspective for me is this.  I'm able to complain about such things as not having enough time to devote to more people as though it were a luxury.  I don't know exactly if that's good or bad, but I think, depending on your perspective, it's not all that bad.  These are the people in my life who mean something very dear, and who are in some respects, my best friends.  And I have so much love and so many people who are special priority for me, I'm so very lucky and blessed to have them.  And none of this is about wanting to find any time to be with them, because none is usually spent at all.  It's about finding "more" time to spend with them.  It's about the fact that I recognize the fragility of everything around me, and the idea of not getting 150% of every single opportunity I can get with them is unacceptable, and stressful to me.

So I'm tipping my hat to the "have nots" today.  May you find peace, good health, comfort and unconditional love with someone who is a trusted, true and faithful companion forever.  May you one day find yourself as lucky as I am today.