I just read a touching story of a woman in San Francisco who escaped a violent relationship with her three month old infant and two young children. She basically left with the clothes on her back. While she has gone through the “proper” channels, has a social worker and is trying to get shelter and aid for her family, resources are in short supply. She has had to beg in order to pay for the hotel and food for herself and her family.
It takes a great deal of courage to leave an abusive relationship. Especially when still nursing an infant and having nowhere else to go.
I found out about this from my friend who sent me the link via her blog. You can read about K’s story here at tangobaby. I encourage everyone to read K’s story and follow her progress as she pulls herself together, gets a job and regains her life.
I used to feel that I was worthless and unlovable if I was not a perfect size 9. I’m not one who easily can maintain a thin frame. I’m meant to be a healthy gal. =) As I have become in my 40′s my weight has gone up and I do tend to use food as comfort when I am depressed. It makes me feel better. I’ve accepted myself on one hand that I am big yet on the other hand there is that part of me who despises and can’t stand to look at photographs because I can’t stand to see this fat lady.
In order to be happy I have had to let go of the illusion of what true beauty is.
An example that comes to mind for me is the show, Real Housewives of Orange County. There is this one dumb blond named Gretchen who, by her bleached blond hair and her great spray tanned body would seem to be the most beautiful one of the group but in my point of view after getting to see the true character of the women on the show, Jeana, is by far the most beautiful of all the women. Jeana struggles with her weight and she is not thin. But she really has a good soul. I would expect hell to open up and swallow Gretchen, that’s how shallow and fake and empty she is. Yet Jeana is someone who is warm and loving even when people aren’t that way to her.
I hope that I have a good soul.
There was a time in my life when I sought to be perfect on the outside. When I couldn’t control my life, when I couldn’t control my eating, I could control my weight. I felt more in control when I could limit the food I ate. Even better and more in control when I could keep my food intake to 5 fingers. If I could always by the end of the day, count on one hand what I had eaten that day, it was a good day. I started each day on the scale and the measuring tape was in my make-up drawer used daily to measure my waist. I never went beyond 28 inches in the waist or 38 inches in the hips. I could tell you my thigh and calf measurements back then as well. I wrote them down everyday. I vowed that I would NEVER be fat again…
When I started to crave food and realized that food was winning. I ate even more. I started to buy two bags of cookies and hid one so that when I ate the entire bag I could replace it with the one I finished, and I would eat some of that too so that it didn’t look like a new bag. I did this with just about anything. Chips, ice cream… I would stop and eat at Dairy Queen sometimes on the way home and eat the dinner that was cooked when I got home. Always these things were finished off when I would go take a hot bath. That was my way of getting off to myself to throw up. It was always better to do it immediately so that is wasn’t as gross. GROSS????? My God, it was always gross. I was just kidding myself. I remember my son knocking on the door asking, “Mommy are you okay?” All while I was shoving a spoon down my throat. I look back on that and I cringe. Was that me?
I did end up going into the hospital and my eating disorders were addressed. Even there it felt good to have to have someone go with me through the food line and make sure that I didn’t disappear after eating meals. I don’t know why it felt good but it did. Kind of like something I didn’t think was real was in fact very real. Does that make sense?
So today I am fat but I am not binging and/or purging. I accept me for me and that’s all I can do. I still hate to see pictures of myself though. I hope that those who know me can find some beauty in me on the inside as I will probably never be that vavavoom perfect size 9 unless I really starve and abuse myself to get there.
I was inspired to write about my experience with bulimia and anorexia because of a video that I saw today. I will post it below. It was pretty raw and sad. I’m lucky. I don’t know if people in my life know that I ever struggled or how crazy it got.
Here is the music video by Emily Rose, it’s titled, Full.
Special thank you goes out to Shelby’s mom, Kathy, for making this video possible.
We spent Thanksgiving with friends in Oregon this year. It was a relaxing 4 days in Oregon away from the city life. The ladies had a spa day with massages while the men went off to ride go-carts. We had smoked turkey that was the best I’ve ever had. We played pinball, pool, sat in the hot tub, sang karaoke, played cards, laughed, and talked. It was so nice.
The office, the club, family, friends. Any organization has politics.
You can’t escape it.
There’s always a pecking order. It’s nice to be at the top but we all experience different levels. Often finding ourselves knocked on our ass.
I asked a friend of mine the other day how she deals with the politics of an organization we both belong to. Helen (not her real name) is always confident and carries on with her volunteer work unscathed by anything that’s going on with the political powers that be.
I am a *Life Member and have been with this organization for years. Some years we have officers who are wonderful, intelligent, thoughtful and gracious human beings who bring value and some years we have officers who are small minded people who do nothing but turn the place upside down. These are the times when I just want to throw my hands up in the air and say, “I quit!” “Who voted for these people?!!!!!”
It feels like they are working against me instead of with me.
Why?
Because if you do something and you do it well, there are always going to be some folks who want to see you fail. They’ll help you do it too!
I get fed up with that mentality sometimes and it eats away at me.
You may have noticed that I have to work REALLY HARD to stay positive. It doesn’t come naturally. It’s easier to be lazy and let the negative stuff occupy my head than to make an effort to think about the good things, to ground myself and force the negative stuff to leave my mind.
So I asked Helen how she does it. She told me that if she allowed what people say about her to affect her, she’d go crazy. LOL! She keeps in mind the people who need our services and why we do this. Our work is important outside of ourselves. She says to hell with the rest. She does what she does.
Good advice.
Well obviously, I’m allowing it to affect me and I’m going crazy. =) I think I go through this cycle every few years with this organization. I am the editor of their quarterly newsletter and the web site administrator so I am very much involved and I do my job well. There is a very small handful of people who are not happy about it and do not wish me success but if I worry about what they think then it’s making me hate what I do and I LOVE what I do. I should do what I do and to hell with the rest. Right?
My work is important to those who are in need of our services. I know that. (But still need to be reminded) It’s outside of my ego. But I still allowed other peoples’ insecurity to stimulate MY desire to be accepted and appreciated. I’m NOT the important one here, my work IS. I can be such an idiot when I let people get to me.
Helen is right. She’s the person I always go to when I need to whine. She always sets me straight and gets me back on my path. It’s important to have someone like Helen in our lives to pull us back or slap us silly when we begin to blubber. (I don’t mean that literally.) <grin>
I watched Sarah Palin on SNL and was thinking about how I even ranted about her. I gotta hand my respect to that woman for facing up to all of the crap everyone has thrown her way.
Politics are just plain nasty. It doesn’t matter if it’s at home, your workplace, organizations you belong to or your group of friends. It can get ugly and it takes a real strong, confident person to take it all with a grain of salt and let it roll right off their backs. I admire that in a person and I am going to work towards being that kind of person.
I’m still a supporter of Obama for President but I have to admit, I’m likin’ Sarah a lot more as a person. I thought she did well on Saturday Night Live. Yay! Sarah! You go girl!
* Life membership was gifted to me for all of my work for this organization. I am honored to have received this and the last thing I should do is second guess myself, but it happens. =)
I recently joined a group called Freecyle that allows people to recycle their stuff by giving it to someone who can use it. There are Freecycle groups all over the United States. You can find one near you by visiting http://freecycle.org Before you do that, you may want to watch the entertaining and informative video, Story of Stuff.
I want to own a home with lush green gardens. I want to grow my own vegetables (other than my patio tomatoes) and I want to celebrate the family and friends in my life.
I want a satisfying job, with great benefits that include paid time off for rest and relaxation, travel and to afford more than just the basic neccessities. I want to see and experience the beautiful things in this world.
Is that asking too much?
I built my dream board to help me manifest what I want. Seeing is believing after all.
While I was writing my “About Me” page, words flowed and the story that followed was one of hurt and despair. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I felt the painful memories and what’s worse was that I branded myself based on that story. We all have something from our past that haunts us but really is that story of hurt something that needs to identify with who we are today?
Perhaps our stories have had a significant part in forming our reasons for reacting to certain stimuli in our environment, some situations can bring back the inner child in us who had no choice but to succumb to the will of others.
The thing is, today. I am free from those hurts. I no longer have the people in my life who caused the pain, yet in many ways the after effects still linger. I have suffered from depression and anxiety for most of my life. Sinking into a cesspool of self degridation and darkness. I’ve lashed out as well and hurt people as I traveled down my own shitty road. I’ve held on to the pain and it has become a familiar friend.
Letting go of something that has been a major part of me has not been an easy task. When I wrote my “about me” page I was disappointed when I read it. True there are things that are very painful and probably others would identify with me and understand yet, I do not wish to be remembered or thought of as a dark soul. I am not that person anymore. I’ve grown and moved on yet when asked to write “about me” that old story is what naturally came to mind.
How would you feel if you took a particular story that has been a part of you and let it go? What would it be like to say, “I don’t want that story anymore”? Susie nailed it perfectly in her article, What is your story?
To give myself a little credit for not compelety sinking and licking old wounds, I will offer an excerpt from what I wrote on my “About me” page. You won’t see it there because I deleted it. There is only one part of it I saved, here it is:
Once I read a card that said, “Wherever you go, there you are.” I will never forget those words and the impact that they had on my life at that very moment. It really made me think.
I was going to have to live with myself and it didn’t matter with whom or where. I was the only one who had any power over my destiny. It all came from within me. I didn’t need to be approved of by anybody. The courage and strength to raise my head high and know that I do deserve a good life, I do deserve to be treated well, I do deserve to be here. That is something that I can give myself. Nobody can give that to me. And they can only take it away if I give them the power. That power, my life, my soul… belongs to me.
Perhaps when I wrote that I WAS changing my story. I like to think I did. =)
Gazing up at the clouds drifting by the moon last night was mesmirizing. If I could have lain on a bed of smooth grass I might have watched it for hours. Instead, standing on my patio had to do. But still, it was soothing and relaxing. The moon is my must have every evening. I feel its energy radiating deep within my being. Its beauty and light a wonderlust of magic that feeds my inner Moon Goddess.
Moonlight
As a pale phantom with a lamp
Ascends some ruined haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
Mysterious chambers of the air.
Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
And at the windows seen again.
Until at last, serene and proud
In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud.
Supreme as Empress of the Night.
I look, but recognize no more
Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
Is an enchanted avenue.
All things are changed. One mass of shade,
The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonmade
I walk as in a foreign town.
The very ground beneath my feet
Is clothed with deviner air;
White marble paves the silent street
And glimmers in the empty square.
Illusion! Underneath there lies
The comman life of everyday;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober grey.
In vain we look, in vain uplift
Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind;
We see but what we have the gift
Of seeing; what we bring we find.
Sometimes we lose or perspective of who we are when we try to please everyone else and forget to be ourselves. Or I should say, forget who we are. There are so many different facets to each and everyone of us. So many things to embrace and be proud of.
There comes a point in your life when you realize:
Who matters, who never did, who won’t anymore… and who always will.
So, don’t worry about people from your past,
there’s a reason why they didn’t make it to your future.
This is one of my favorite songs. I would like to put together a photo collage with some video and use this recording. That’s one of my projects to complete. Who cares if my singing isn’t perfection? I’m not perfect but I like to have fun.
"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes. I am out of control at times and hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." -- Marilyn Monroe
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." -- John F. Kennedy
