Life begins when you think it's ending.....

Oh, I am in a FOUL mood. There are days when I just don't like people....period. I don't even like myself right now. I'm staring, no GLARING, at the world today thru furrowed brow (shoulda' slathered on a little more anti-wrinkle something this morning). It has to look ugly from the outside, but y'all should see it from in HERE. I think it can safely be said that I might have some "issues". But anyway....

I've been so out of touch with the world the last year or so. Been anti-myspace and yahoo....no just anti-social, really, for way too long. I was jolted back to reality yesterday by a beautiful poem ( I guess it was a poem) posted on another friend's brand spanking new blog. I realized, quite suddenly, just how fast time flies, how easy it is to lose touch with people in your life that really mean A LOT to you, how insensitive I can become and not even realize it, and just how truly gifted I am at putting walls, thick walls, around myself and becoming quite self absorbed. So, I figured, a blog would be a wonderful way to keep everyone up on my comings and goings and who knows? It just might help me to sort out some of this junk floating around in my head!

Where do you start when this much time has lapsed? Sometime in the last year, I gained another 30 pounds, turned 30, got married to the man of my dreams (nightmares too!), entered back into the working force, started a diet...for REAL this time, and became the mother of a pre-teen daughter. (sorta sounds like I gave birth to a 12 year old, huh? That would explain some of the weight gain! )

My life was pretty calm a year ago. Coulda been cuz I was living inside those 4 self-constructed walls. How bad can things get if you're shut off from the world anyhow? As we all have learned, what goes UP, must come DOWN. In my case, the walls came crashing down and ya' know, false security is, well, FALSE!

We'll start with the weight gain. I have had a weight problem aaalllll my life. I filtered everything about myself and in my life thru the fat I saw. I could find nothing to like about myself. I hated what I saw when I looked in the mirror, refused to look at pictures of myself. I'd joke about it, but it was killing me. But if I didn't look, I could still sort of deny it, or at least not have to deal with it. Until I had to look at pictures taken the day I got married. I couldn't believe the person in the pictures was ME. Had I realized that is how I looked, I'da never gotten married. I broke that day, could deny it no longer. I was disgusted and sickened. I don't ever remember actually loathing myself like I did at that point....

But why did I ever think that one crisis at a time would be enough?

Josh and I began to have all kinds of problems about this time. Funny, we didn't have them before we signed any legal, binding documents....:) My weight was triggering every insecurity I have and I was making mine AND Josh's life a living hell... Sometimes, I wonder how he doesn't crack under all the pressure of my issues. Guess that's why God gave him to me, He knew I needed some stability in my life, someone who can deal with all my problems and still love me at the end of the day. Doesn't stop me from convincing myself that he's on his way out the door with the next cute, skinny, SANE thing that walks by. She couldn't be more real if she walked thru my front door. But I ain't goin' down without a fight....

I promptly made appointments with two different diet doctors. My theory was: I could go both places and rack up enough prescribed crank to lose all the jello...and maybe not lose all my teeth in the process....

Dr appt #1 rolled around....only the doc had hired some help so I got the new addition. Ya' ever met someone who just made your skin crawl? Yeah, me too. He lectured me on drinking cases of Mountain Dew, eating donuts by the dozen, and eating one of everything off the dollar menu at Micky D's. Did you know that you will NOT lose weight if you do these things????? He apparently thought I did not....WHAT??!!! He hurt my feelings and made me mad all at the same time! WHY are there people out there who think that just becuz you are FAT you must stuff your face from the comfort of your couch while watching your soaps all day and WHY are they allowed a license to practice medicine? Could he NOT tell I was a woman on the EDGE? Well, I started bawlin' and left his office with a prescription for prozac in one hand and a brown bag of diet pills in the other.

I was in SHOCK! So, I called my rock, my voice of reason, the one who lifts me up when I am down, to hear him tell me he loved me even if I had lost it a little and now needed to be medicated....he LAUGHED. Told me to pop a prozac and go eat a cheeseburger. Sometimes laughter is the best medicine....I couldn't cry for gigglin'. I kept that piece of paper with the Rx for Prozac on it for months so I would remember just how low I can go if I let myself. Don't misunderstand me tho', I will not judge another for how they best see fit to deal with their own life. I obviously use food. It just freaked me out to actually be prescribed something to control my emotions. That freaky little man was a turning point in my life.

I did go to Dr. appt. #2 but have since put the diet pills behind me. I have been on the Medifast program since November and have lost 50 pounds! The scales and I still have a love/hate relationship and I have a long way to go but I AM in process. Instead of my "fattest ever" jeans, I can wear my "bigger than I was @21 but I'll take it" jeans! I like the food plan becuz I'm learning HOW to eat, how to be disciplined, how to deal with my emotions without food. It still sucks most days.... :) but I can deal.

I heard someone say that once you're an addict, you'll always be an addict, whether or not you're using. Some people are addicted to drugs, alcohol, tobacco....my monkeys are food and shopping. I do still struggle with smoking, but that one gets easier every day.

There you have it...a little slice of my life. I promised myself that this year, I was gonna get real. As Beth Moore says, "If I have to go thru the trials of life by fire, then I at least want the fake burned right outta me!!" I'm tired of changing to be who I think I need to be to fit in at the time...it's exhausting! I still struggle with liking myself, but I am learning more about who I really am. I'm THIRTY dangit, I'm ready to put all this emotional roller coaster stuff behind me, tired of the waves of life knocking me down everytime I get on my feet! The waves are never gonna stop but I wanna be strong enough and secure enough in who I am to stand!

Thank goodness Tim McGraw saw fit to write me a theme song for "my next thirty years".....