"Been Thinkin' About Forgiveness..." DH

So forgiveness is something that has come easily to me. I am lucky that way. I don't hold onto grudges for very long. If you dissed me or we fought ten years ago or ten days ago, chances are I am no longer holding it against you. If you did something to someone I love, I may hold a grudge a bit longer depending on how hurt said loved one was by what you did.

I see so many people holding onto anger these days. I see people seething over something that happened years ago but they are still as angry as the first day it occurred. This makes me a little sad. And, yes, I am about to tell you why.

I met a girl (OK, woman. But back then I didn't think of anyone my age as "woman". Still don't.) at my place of employment.

For some reason, we hit it off. After we spoke about business, she told me about herself. She had a disease that would probably cause her death way sooner than anyone could imagine. She told me about the disease and asked if I knew anyone who had had it. I only knew of one person and she died while we were still kids. I only met her once but she was a very sweet girl with a very positive outlook on a, most likely, very short life.

This woman and I became fast friends and we saw each other quite often through the years as the nature of my business dictates.

Once we got business matters out of the way, we began to talk about personal stuff. We were probably in our late twenties at the time. She had  been married for a short while to the love of her life. I was still single at the time. She desperately wanted to have a baby  but that would most likely shave some years off her life. But she wanted to experience being a mother and she wanted to leave behind a legacy.

This was a woman very strong in her Catholic faith. I envied that in her. She visited the Vatican and Medregoria, and Lourdes. She had an audience with Pope John Paul II. If something was going on in my life she always said she'd pray for me and I knew she would. Her faith was unshakable. Even in the midst of a disease that most people don't even survive into their twenties. Extraordinary.

Through the years she did end up having a child. Every year at the holidays she gave me a card with the baby's photo. A cherubic, curly-top brunette who had her mother's eyes.

Through the years her health declined and she was often in the hospital for months at a time or home with a nurse and IV antibiotic treatments. She was always in pain.

Over the past couple of years, we lost touch. She moved on for numerous reasons. I am sure she may have eventually returned but the illness made it difficult for her to get around. I believe for the past year or so, she got out of the house very infrequently.

Once in awhile, I would see her daughter or some other family member and I would always ask about her. They would always say that she often thought of me. We never had any kind of falling out. We just lost touch. It happens.

I saw her daughter last week and found out that they were moving her into hospice care and it was just a matter of time. But she clung on fiercely from what I heard from family members.  She loved life and she loved her little girl and I don't blame her for hanging on like that. But in the end, she is at peace.

I hope that she was embraced by her Savior and her saints and her angels that she prayed to her whole, short life.

At her wake, I was struck by the fact that, knowing her as I did, all her family members came together to bid her farewell. No one would have known if there was any tension between them. (There was, unfortunately. A lot.) They spoke to each other with kindness and all the hatchets were buried for the day.

The funeral home was jammed with people whose lives she touched and flowers and photos and displays showing how much she was loved. It was so touching to see her young daughter trying to put on a brave face. Still, my heart ached for her loss.

When someone dies, we always reflect upon ourselves; our own mortality or that of our loved ones.

I was so fortunate to be touched by this woman's generous spirit and by her unfathomable faith in God.

Watching her family come together in that way, despite their myriad of differences and their own pain or anger toward each other, was a real eye-opener for me.

It was a testimony for forgiveness.

Try as we might, we, as human beings, are by nature, unforgiving. It takes the death of loved one or some other earth-shattering experience for us to put our differences aside and embrace the one who has, in our own mind, wronged us.

I hope that the lesson I came away with the other day is one I will keep in my heart and when the opportunity presents itself for me to be forgiving, I can do so without reservation.


R.I.P. NCP

I Have Seen the Enemy and the Enemy is Taco Bell

The first step is admitting you have a problem. Hello. My name is Cindy. I am a compulsive idiot.

I make these plans in my head to really hunker down and prepare for a life-altering eating program. Time to exercise and take back control of my fat ass!

I have this conversation with myself several times a day. I use tools such as visualisation and I channel all my positive energy.(I picture John Belushi as Bluto saying "LET'S DO IIIIIIIIIIITTT!!) But it never sees the light of day.

It stays in my head. Once in awhile I'll air it out while commiserating with the not-so-fat world about how "our" eating is out of control. (They usually say something like "I can't believe I at a whole half of a double cheeseburger!")

If they only knew.

If they could see me hulking over my coffee table with some kind of take-out or fast food or peanut-butter and Fluff sandwiches, they'd most likely be appalled and a little grossed out. I know I am!

I was always a bit of a compulsive eater and sometimes a binger. But lately, I find myself coming home and feeling sorry for myself and coming face to face with my nemesis: FOOD. (cue the creepy music)

A person needs to eat. A person can't just stop eating like someone can just stop smoking. It's all about choices, right?

I make choices every day about what I am going to put into my body that day. I would never snort cocaine. I wouldn't smoke cigarettes. I would never choose to eat rat poison. (Having a "Skinny-and -Sweet", 9-5 flashback!)

And yet last night I ate Taco Bell. I told myself I was ordering enough so that when Hubby (not a fan of the Bell) came home he could have what was left. A quesedilla and a burrito.

When hubby came home, all traces of "Fourth Meal" (and fifth, sixth and seventh!) had been discarded. Except for one lone packet of Salsa Verde that must have fallen out of the bag when I was burying it in the trash.

Of course I was forced to come clean. And I usually do come clean. I tell my sister or Hubby or a friend about how "bad" I was last night and "What's wrong with me?" But I don't think I really ever make a full confession of how out of control I am and how scared that makes me!

So, in the light of day, I try to hide my shame (difficult to do when the results of your addiction are physical!) and make amends and do a little damage control by having a salad or, better still, nothing.

Then I come home and the whole cycle starts again.

I am a hamster on a wheel.

I am Astro and George on that treadmill! I don't know how to stop it.

And yet everything I just wrote is such BS.

I am poisoning myself! And I do know what to do to stop it. Just STOP!

It's so simple!!

I only wish I had thought of it before I gained all this weight! Duh. (She says smacking her forehead!)

I mentioned the physical affects of this weight gain. It makes everything, in a life that is already quite difficult, a lot harder.

Buying clothes in larger sizes costs a ton more money than it does for "normal" people. Chairs are uncomfortable if they have arms. Concerts are horrible because you're practically sitting on the person next to you! Cleaning, grooming, bathing, shoelace tying, sock wearing...all become very tough tasks. Breathing becomes labored when you're walking even the shortest distances. And stairs? Stairs are the enemy. As are booths in a diner. (more creepy music) 

In a life that's already quite a struggle why do we-well-why do I continue to add to the load?

Good question. I'll have to get back to you with an answer to that one. As soon as I have my dessert.

Fit, Fit, Fit.

So, I am on the fence as to whether or not this would be a blog about weight loss or a blog about being overweight. Both, perhaps.

Don't know if there are many of you out there reading this, but let me start by speaking to all the skinny folks or physically fit or anorexic or bulimic or those of you who just can't understand how or why someone chooses to be fat.

I should start by saying that it is not really a choice. Well, not a conscious choice anyway.

I have had this struggle for all of my adult life. As I've mentioned before, I have been thin and fat and somewhere in between. I have lost more than 50 pounds on four separate occasions in various times of my life.

My best and biggest success was in the late eighties and early nineties. I began a weight loss program that I sort of made up in my head after reading about several different methods in different magazines and books and using what I knew from being on Weight Watchers, Think Thin, one OA meeting (at which all the women were thin!) and Atkins.

I lost a total of 98 pounds in one year and went on to lose 10 more after that for a total of 108! What an accomplishment, right? My closest friends were encouraging me. My family was even on board. One day, when I was going out, my father (who was forever calling me Chubby and saying I should do push-aways instead of push-ups {push away from the table}) said to me, "Don't get too  skinny!"

That, and the fact that I was able to go into any store for clothes, told me that I was finally getting control of my weight loss destiny!

My motivation for that particular weight loss was, if I'm being honest with myself, weddings. Many of my friends were engaged or getting married and I was asked to be in two weddings which were very close together. I walked into the bridal salon needing a size 20 dress and I had already lost about 30 pounds. I said give me size 16 and had to sign my life away. There was a difference in price if you were over a size 18 so I wanted to be smaller than the "plus" size.

Now, any of you who have ever been in a wedding know that bridesmaid's gowns are not very "true" to size.

When I went for my first fitting (several months after we ordered the gown) I was pleased to find that it was too big. (Except for the boobs!)

So they nipped and tucked and hemmed and $75 later I had a gown that fit like a glove! (Silly expression, isn't it?) When I brought it home to show my mother and did a little fashion show, we realized that they never altered the little jacket that came with it. It was the night before the wedding. I went to my friend who sews and she put shoulder pads in and moved some snaps and it was passable. Who would've thought that I'd buy something that was too small and would end up needing it taken in? Not me! At one point during the reception, I even took the jacket off (unheard of for me to show my arms like that!).

The next few weddings, one more of which I was in and ordered size 12, were a whirlwind of shopping at "normal" stores and buying fancy pantyhose because my legs didn't chafe anymore.

I was exercising on a rowing machine and walking 3-5 miles just about every day! I was doing sit-ups and stretching and I can truly say that I had never felt so great in all my life. My self-esteem was even up. I felt like a normal person for the first time in my adult life! I could fit anywhere!

That's the word. Fit! You can be fit. I was. You can fit into tight spaces. I did. You can fit in. Period. For the first time in my life, I fit into the normal weight category.

I kept that weight off for almost five years before I got complacent. But I would not let myself go all the way back. When I started finding things were tight on me, I started over. I moved out of my childhood home and into an apartment with my BFF. She could eat anything and never gain an ounce!

I crept back up to size 14 and got scared so I started the walking thing again. Five miles six days a week. And rowing to nowhere. Down to a 12. Stepped it up and started walking and running. Down to size 10!! I stayed there for a year or so. But it was a struggle.

We lived right across the street from a health food store and I started cooking more whole grains and less fat. Lots of pasta with grilled chicken. No cold cuts. No alcohol. No sugar. I joined a gym That didn't last too long. Back up to a 12.

I kept the bulk of the weight off for the entire time we lived in that apartment. For almost three years I struggled to maintain and stay between a size 12 and a size 14.

Then we moved. I didn't want to move. But my BFF did. I trusted her judgement and we moved into a great old house with three other friends. I loved the house but not as much as our first place. It was hard living with that many different personalities. And we didn't live close to the lake for my walks.

The weight crept on. Size 16. My mother started declining in health and my father had a prostate cancer scare. Size 18. Feed a cold. Gorge a crisis. Size 20.

I got a handle on it and started over (several times). I did aerobics and took walks. Size 18s were loose. Then I needed surgery on my hands. Size 18s were tight.

Had surgery on my hands, within three weeks I made a huge Thanksgiving dinner with the help of my friends and my sister. A few days later, my mother had a heart attack. Good thing we had all those leftovers.

I was still out of work due to my surgery when we found out they were transferring my mother to the city because she needed open heart surgery. Triple bypass. By the second week in December, she had a massive stroke. Paralyzed on the left side. She lost the use of her hand on that side and she had previously had and amputation so she could no longer transfer herself from the bed to the wheelchair. Size 22. Size 24.

We moved again to a house not far from where we were living and it was just the two of us again. My BFF was planning her wedding, as was another of my closest friends. Maid of honor in both of them=motivation!

I lost almost 60 pounds for my friend's wedding in March of '96. Size 18. Took a trip to England by myself in May and lost another 15.

My mother's health started failing again. Gained back 20. Stayed there for another 8 or 9 months. In between that time, my mother got sicker, I moved out on my own since BFF was getting married in January, met the man I would end up marrying, threw a bridal shower (along with BFF's sisters and her bridesmaids), lost my mother and got engaged. Size 22.

So I just went back and re-read. From approximately 1988-1997, I lost 108 pounds, gained back 70 pounds, lost 30, gained back 50 pounds and lost 60 again. By the time I got back from my honeymoon I was a holding at size 22.

Two years and 25 pounds later I moved into a basement apartment in my childhood home (yes, back to the land of the crickets) and started and stopped Weight Watchers several times, gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. Stayed at a size 24 until about 2001 when BFF had her first and only child.

I began babysitting BFF's child on Mondays shortly after he was born. We had, by then, moved into a great new place which had nice grounds and we went for walks around the lagoon located in our complex. This time, the motivation seemed to come out of nowhere. I lost 84 pounds in a little over a year. I was fitting in again because I fit and was fit. I had joined a gym and was feeling so great. Got down to a size 14. It feels like I kept it off for about fifteen minutes!

The whole thing began unraveling when I got a bad case of Sciatica (even took myself to the hospital) and I couldn't walk with out dragging my foot. It lasted about three months. Pile marital issues on top of that and the weight piles on too. Maybe I was "normal" for a couple of years fluctuating between size 16 and size 20. The motivational spark was extinguished and I was hard pressed to find it's source again.

In '05 I began infertility treatment and very quickly gained 30 pounds. Two years of that and another 15 pounds came out of nowhere. My last procedure was shortly after my father suffered a heart attack and stroke. He died 8 months later.

One year after that my beautiful BFF began exhibiting some strange behavior. A few months later, we heartbreakingly discovered it was caused by a brain disease which causes a rare form of dementia. I have been gorging that crisis ever since.

And we are all caught up with the roller coaster of weight loss!

It's been two years now and I still cannot get a handle on my weight. My schedule of work and helping with her care has made it impossible for me to grasp onto my former motivation. Even now, I sit in her kitchen on a lovely autumn day longing for a glimmer of the BFF I knew so well and even a glimpse of my former, motivated self!

OK. So that was cathartic! I have discovered two things upon writing this post. One is that I love to find excuses for my over-eating. And the second thing is that...the word fit is at the center of my whole existence.

As a child, I had a hard time fitting in due to a lot of emotional problems and a less than perfect family dynamic. As a teenager, I had a hard time fitting in, period. As an adult, I gained so much weight I didn't fit into the spaces that "normal" people occupy. The short periods when I did fit were because I was fit. And, finally, I find that thinking about it all makes me want to have a fit!

Food and Money Are Not Love

If I am going to do this blogging thing, I want to do it right. But my lack of typing ability may render consistency impossible. Bear with me, dear Readers. (All four of you!)

As I sit in my best friend's kitchen on this rainy day, (Wait! The sun is coming out.) As I sit in my best friend's kitchen on this somewhat sunny day, I have been contemplating my relationships. Not with people, mind you, but with money and food.

I have always been a decent worker. I do what is asked of me (usually) and I earn a good living. I've made a decent amount of money in my lifetime. I just have to wonder where it all is?

Jimmy Buffett says "I made enough money to buy Miami but I pissed away so fast. Never meant to last." I think that I have been living that philosophy for the past 20-something years!

In my lifetime, I have always found saving money to be such a difficult task. My mother always said money burned a hole in my pocket. It's true!

But she was the same way. I learned from her! Why didn't I pay attention to my grandmother?? She was the one that got me my very first savings account. I rarely contributed but I loved knowing that there was a little book with my name on it saying that I had thirty one dollars and seventy three cents and I could use it for whatever I wanted. 

I would have chosen to buy something for someone else. Or a Marathon Bar.

Enter food. Was food making up for the fact that my mother had to work? Not sure. 

Most of my young childhood (toddler to ten), I was thin. My uncle called me "Droopy Drawers" and I could hide anywhere. 

Third grade into fourth was when it all seemed to start changing. My mother's health began to decline and my brother and sister were adolescents and we couldn't keep a babysitter so they ended up being in charge of me. They were tyrants!

Shortly thereafter, while I was still in fourth grade, we moved in with my grandmother and my mother went on disability. I think I really didn't want to move there. Food became my best friend.

Wow. I don't think I ever really thought about it before. That's when the wheels came off. My mother's health continued to decline. I was forced out of my bedroom and moved down to the basement (a.k.a. "the land of the crickets") when my mother's friend moved away and her daughter was still in college and she moved in with us (and into my room!). 

Displaced again. My mother made a nice area for me but I was scared of the bugs that lived down there with us. Sometimes my grandmother would find me sleeping in the bath tub upstairs because these huge crickets were scaring the bejeezez out of me!

So if I look back, and I think really hard, I have it all figured out. This blogging-for-insight is very helpful!

When I began to gain weight, it was hard to make friends. Kids are cruel. I had a few friends in the apartment complex I lived in. But they all eventually moved out of the complex. 

When we moved, I was getting downright chubby. That seemed to keep people at a distance. I also started needing a bra in the fifth grade. All the girls wore them but I actually needed them! I wanted to be a late bloomer like Margaret in the Judy Blume book. Not me. I was probably a b cup by sixth grade!

Gaining weight made me feel like it distracted people from the obvious, um, developments. 

Not having friends was no fun so I did go through a phase of trying to "buy" them by treating them to candy at the stationery store or the deli on the way to my after school activities.

I was also prone to making up stories. Stories about my background. Stories about why I was wearing these hand-me-downs. Stories about my mother and father and baby brother. I didn't have a baby brother!

I grew out of the buying phase and the lying phase when I got "caught". I was using my girl scout and lunch money to buy stuff and then my mother had to pay a because I was getting lunches on "credit" at school and my Girl Scout dues were also due at the end of the year. I got in so much trouble for that that I ran away from home. I packed a garbage bag and everything! I also got punished and, most likely, spanked.

But the food thing, well, that has been the gorilla on my back for all this time.

The money thing also comes into play. Buying nice things and new clothes definitely takes the edge off my life a little bit. I'm not a complete compulsive buyer but I can get a little out of control at times. I can over-spend on, say, baby and bridal shower gifts. I like to buy what I want and get creative. I usually don't care what it costs. Christmas can be a very dangerous time financially. I buy gifts. I buy new outfits for various parties. I buy decorations. I buy baking supplies and cookbooks and maybe a new gadget that will make my baking easier. I never cared much about money as an adult because I never had much. Spend what you have because you can't take it with you.

I've already broken my vow of abstinence from purchasing anything even related to Christmas this year because I went to a craft fair and found a great chubby cardinal for my tree! I couldn't resist. And my feet were hurting and I was all alone and it perked me right up!

The food issue. I am not sure how that works. Our family motto is "Feed a cold. Gorge a crisis." Someone is sick? Bring them chicken soup. Someone just got home from the hospital? Bake something. Someone dies? Make lasagna and order a huge antipasto!

My mother loved to cook. She loved to eat. She instilled that in me. I loved to help her cook. And I loved to eat what we made. A lot of my best memories are in our kitchen. She could be very demanding and critical if you didn't do it exactly the way she said but, I still would not trade a second of that time with her for anything.

But the eating food for comfort, that was a slippery slope. My whole family has slid down that slope. I've climbed back up a few times but this time it's so much harder. I just can't seem to get my footing. I could blame age. Over forty. I could blame genetics. Damn you, fat gene! I could blame certain situations in my life. But I make the choices. I eat the food and spend the money. No one is twisting my arm. 

I wish I could say that writing this has been cathartic. Well, it has been cathartic. I wish I could say that it has motivated me to be thin. It has motivated me to want to be thin. But I don't know how or where or why the motivation kicks in. I know that I've lost weight before and that I, most likely, will again. But I cannot tell you why I was motivated those times. Maybe I'll have to blog about it and it will all come back to me.

For now, I will continue to hope for the motivation and inspiration. I do know I can't force it. I have to let it come on it's own. I'm very patient .

I can wait.

Does My Ass Look Like THAT??

     
      I find myself asking that question. A lot. I see someone walking down the street or in a super market or on line at McDonald's and I wonder if people perceive me that way.
      I never used to compare my butt to someone else's but now I find it necessary so I can keep my sanity. It's as if, so long as someone out there has a bigger butt than I do, I'm not too fat. Right???
    Do only fluffy people do this? Do only women do it? I wish I knew.
      I  also find myself justifying my weight and telling myself "It's ok. You have so much going on in your life." I find people that know and love me also do the same thing.
      I often wonder if they think what I think when I haven't seen someone in a long time and they put on a lot of weight: "Wow! She got fat!"
      To my face they say things like "You are always beautiful to me" or the infamous "I don't see you that way!"
     I also find myself starting a diet or eating program in my head and planning a morning walk. I do that several times a day! But it always just stays in my head.
     I am away from my house seven days a week. (This looks like it will be the excuse portion of this post.) I sometimes have to get up at 3:30 in the morning to be at a sick friend's house where I help out with her care. And I never know my schedule there from day to day. Sometimes I know the night before and sometimes I find out a few hours before I am needed.
     At work, I am on my feet most of the day. No easy task holding all this up all day long! I have tendonitis in one foot, heel spurs in both feet and a sciatic nerve that LOVES acting up! (Did that sound excuse-y?)
     Most of these conditions are caused by the weight. But they also make it difficult to get rid of the weight. (Excuse)
     I tried having food on hand that I can grab on the go but I don't think of it at 4 a.m. Maybe I don't choose to think of it.(And another. Seeing a pattern!)
     I have been down this road before. Packing on excess weight that hobbles me by the time I walk in the door. It helps keep people at a distance.
     I have tried to "find balance" and "make time" but the truth is, there is no balance and there is no time.
     There is just a crappy situation and a crappy schedule and very little that can be done about it.
     But that doesn't mean that there is nothing I can do about it. It's crappy but not impossible.
     I am always motivated when I start my days but, by the time I get home from wherever I was that day, I find myself unable to even bring in the mail!
     I've lost more than two hundred and fifty pounds in my lifetime. Not all at once, of course. Lose weight. Gain weight. Lose weight. Usually in a smart way eating right and exercising (once I lost 40 lbs on a crash diet but I was 16) and I never have a problem losing it when I am really trying. The problem is getting started.
     I started to blog because I love to write and I need an outlet for a lot of issues in my life that are beyond my control. But weight? Weight feels like something I should be able to control. And I have in the past. It also feels like something I should write about.
     So this blog will be about weight. Having it in excess makes me a bit of an expert, don't you think? Sometimes it will be funny and sometimes it will be depressing but maybe putting some of it down here will lighten my physical and mental load.