Time...where does it go?

A flash of time...that's what I've experienced...

May, June and most of July.

A year has passed now, since I left My Saboteur. A year of growth and change. A year of tears and joy. A year of fear and adaption. A year of depending on no one but me.

My next grandbaby coming in a month.

A year and a half at goal, and that buzz is starting to wane...finally. Just living now.

I'm dating and falling in love. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I just be satisfied with me? Why do I need...want...someone in my life? Why did I choose such an unattainable man? Why do we consider ourselves friends, lovers, but I am incapable of calling him my Boy friend? Why do I allow him to enter into my thoughts over and over...

Why don't I feel as though I'm enough?

Things that make me rethink my entire life....

My Very Good Friends Mom passed away yesterday morning. Although I did not know her, I still found myself saddened by her passing. He seems to be handling it well, but I am not so much. He is a person I can see myself spending a lot of time with. I find with men, that the relationship they have with their Mothers, speaks volumes about how they treat the women in their lives. And like most relationships there are two sides to every story. I guess I should recognize that dating at my age more often then not will include a man whose mom is gone. And I need to temper every comment made by him about his mom, with a grain of salt.

I don't like it when I get poked about being a sensitive woman. I don't cry at the drop of a hat, but I deffinately feel compassion for those I care about. Decidely empathetic.

And this is a person I could fall in love with.

Eghads...that was a scary thing to write...my heart started pounding...god, I hope it's not too late!
And god, I hope it's not one sided.

I have found myself on that slippery slope of binge eating...I am controlling the portion sizes of the foods I am binging on, but the food choices themselves are so far off my healthy lifestyle choices. I'm not exactly sure what my trigger is in this event. Could it be the 'scary' feelings I've been experiencing?

I finally meet a man who isn't wowed by my physical self and seems to be interested in what I have to say, how I feel, what is important to me, and I'm not sure what to do with it...I have said that I want to be seen for more than what I look like and when it happens, I'm flustered. I have to explain myself and my positions...not just give that 'look'. And in that is also a little fear that maybe my looks are going going going. Eghads...

I'm not over goal, but it's knocking on the door. What I know to be sure is that if I don't get my shit back together I will fall back into old patterns of behavior. That is not a place I want to be in.

I am sure the only reason I am not a two ton tessy is because I still work out like a mad woman...but then a funny thing happened. I bought a size 4 Banana Republic skirt...so I dropped a size but not a pound...

The Easter Bunny Struck

I'm sitting here trying to remember what I did for a work out on Thursday...

OHOHOH I went for a run...a quick 7 km...tossed in a few hills for excitement and variety, but the pace was pretty slow and easy....

Had my group in Westgate and got such a great compliment. The question I queried was, "Why do you come to these meetings?" The usual for motivation, inspiration, ideas, support were answered and then one newer member said, "Because of you." "You listen and seem to care and you are inspirational and motivational." I said, "No, I'm just faciltating the program, you are inspirational and motivational." A half dozen people agreed quickly with her.

I am so lucky and blessed to have people hear my stories and find them helpful.

Then I went to my friends and we had chinese food.

Home and then next morning he came over and we went to my Gym for a weight session, left over chinese for lunch and then to the driving range to bang off 2 big buckets of balls. He made steaks for dinner and then we went to a movie.

Saturday morning we had fruit, rye toast and eggs for brekkie then a 25 km bike ride. First time on a bike in years. An icecream cone and then he took me home.

Sunday I went for a 8km walk...took me 70 minutes...and then I made a Ham dinner.

I found out I can not have cookie dough in my house. I eat it...and not in cookie form.

I found out I can not have bits of chocolate easter bunny in the house . I eat it...and not in bunny form.

Look at that...I found the way out of the rabbit hole.

It's amazing how I support and encourage others who are struggling with weight issues when I beat myself up for exactly the same things... It would be easier to smack myself upside the head rather than go through the mental beratings. Why do I do this? I have this program well in hand. I 'm not over goal even closely, but I'm not where I want to be. What do I have to do to get it through my thick skull? Get it done...or accept it. But nope, I struggle with wanting more.

I see myself in the mirror and think I don't look awful...and then the part about...for a middle aged woman...comes out. I would just like to think I don't look awful. Period. I think, gee, I'm pretty fit...for a middle aged woman...

Enough already.

I'm looking forward to a long weekend. My company is restructuring and I'm stressed out about my job. Will I still have one? I'm not going to think about it...for the next 3 days.

I'm sore from my wo yesterday... 7 x 8 BEAR's in 20 minutes. My quads, glutes, and shoulders are aching. And I'm going for a run in a couple of hours. Stretch them out...

It has been a long while since I was this sore after a work out...

That X-fit rocks...I found out I have muscles!!! I pushed a short program yesterday and get this...I found out that I can do inverted sit ups!!! Hang upside down and reach up and touch your toes...Totally fun!!! I played around on hanging rings a while. I really got to feel like a little kid for a bit. Remember when you were little and swung around on the monkey bars? That was what it was like. Really help with the mobility of my shoulders. The work out really fired up my shoulders, upper and mid back.

Oh, then I did my spin class...

Tonight I have my WW class done by 7 and up to the gym for a run and if my time allows a X-fit program and then to the school for some volleyball. I've decided it's time to really push my fitness levels over the top. Summer is coming and I want to feel good about this body of mine. Shake off these 8 lbs I gained over the winter months.

I spent some time talking with my spin friend PH. I use him as my male perspective friend. He said I read too much into what is said to me and that I need to just accept the words at face value. Stop trying to read between the lines. Sometimes that space is just blank. A lesson I need to learn.

I need to change my weight tracker. I will...eventually...

I was the kid next door's imaginary friend.

*giggle*

What a life I lead. I wish it made sense. I always figured I'd get some kind of notice; in the mail, via e-mail, a giant flash of light, that I was an adult and that I finally had some of this thing called life figured out.

It's been 9 months...since I left my saboteur...9 months since I realized that I deserve to be visible. Well, I realized it long before I actually left, but 9 months ago I announced it to the rest of the world.

Since then, I've been up and I've been down. I've had my phone ringing off the hook and had weeks that it didn't ring at all. Not that the second decides the first, but at least when I'm busy I don't have time to be angry, or sad, or scared.

I have stories to tell of my interesting times in this new single world I've entered, but as this is a public forum...an open book, and as such, some things I have to keep to myself...for now...

I am afraid of telling my story. I don't want to appear needy or bitchy. I don't want to seem out of control or overly restrained. It's a hard, narrow, line to tread. If I don't say I need to watch my food choices, I end up in situations where I am sorely sorely tempted to eat. Food and I are arch enemies. And I need it.

Hmmm...keep your friends close and your enemies closer?

I also started this crazy x-fit program...full bore x-fit. No more of the semi-x-fit, but total immersian. How was it explained...Intense, ever changing, daily work outs. I'm gonna work on some before pics and see if there is any obvious change.

4 more months until I see the plastic surgeon for my tummy tuck and boobie lift...not that I have much boobies to lift, but maybe a boobie enhancement?

EEEEKKK!!!!

Super excited. I've worked so hard on this body, and to be uncomfortable showing my middrift due to excess skin...that's sucks big time.

I was born weird...

...this terrible compulsion to behave normally is the result of childhood trauma.
-I don't know who wrote it, but it made me laugh my ass off.

A frightening thing happened to me last week. I got a call from my sister who told me my mom had been rushed to the hospital vomiting with chest pain. I was in my daughters living room and literally felt my knees go weak. In the spot I was standing, I found myself suddenly kneeling.

You see, the relationship I've had with my mom over my lifetime has certainly not been 'normal'. The youngest of 4, 6 years younger then my next sibling, I always felt like I was not really a part of the equation. I didn't realize until I was much older that my mom had me so she wouldn't feel lonely. My siblings all away at school. I watched my sisters hate each other and torment my brother who managed to be away from the house much of the time. But at least they were visible to each other.

I always felt invisible.

My mom divorced my dad when I was far to young to understand what divorce was, and she went to work to support her family. As an immigrant that meant she worked nights, in hotels and clubs, so most of my childhood was spent alone. If I needed a note for school or some money I'd go into her room, wake her in the morning and ask her to sign the note that I had written, or sneak some change out of her purse, and she'd go back to sleep, and I'd go to school. By the time I was in high school, I was writing and signing my own notes and school papers and report cards myself.

When I'd get home from school for the day, my mom would be gone to work for the night.

All my siblings moved out of the house very young...to escape my mom's iron rule, or just to escape each other...that I have never been sure of. My sisters at 18 which made me 8 or 9 my brother at 16 which made me 10.

It was just me, my mom, and Bob, her boyfriend.

Most of the time, it was just me.

One day I came home and she'd gotten a puppy. Hector. He didn't live for long. Never made it past puppyhood before he got hit by a car. But we had Knight. The dog my mom rescued from my cousin Paul. We originally dog sat him for a couple of weeks, but he stayed. He was my best friend. I loved him totally. To this day, at this moment, I get a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye when I think of him. He was my one very bright light. His little doggy face watching for me to come home at the end of the day. His warm doggy hugs...He was never too busy or too tired or to angry at me to listen to me. He'd patiently let me dress him up, and walk him in the sun...he was my pillow...I was his. The day I came home and Knight had disappeared was the day my life changed forever.

I still don't know what happened to him..........

But suddenly I had no one to love...no one who loved me.

And it seemed no one noticed. No one cared.

I ran away from home for the first time at 14. Managed to stay away only a short while before I knew I was way over my head. Lost more then my innocence.

No one noticed. No one cared.

Mom, having had such a hard time with her out of control teenage daughter, made the decision I was to move to my dad's. A 2 room cabin in a 1 horse town with his very young wife and their 2 babies...who's marriage was rapidly crumbling...The same man I had listened to her berating from the time I was 4.

I ran away again 3 months later. And for the first time ever I was visible. Visible enough to get hit. I was the straw that broke my dad's marriage camels back. I've never forgiven myself for that. I've never forgotten his 2nd wife...

But my mom, then decided that I should come back to Calgary...I was happy with my loving sister on the west coast, but mom didn't want me to stay there...so I shuffled around between my mom and my other sister. She, who lived as my mom did, raising her family with an iron rule, thought that after a lifetime of running wild, I would excel with every moment, every heartbeat, every breath regimented. Yeah right.

So I ran away again...I was 16.

I ended up back at my dads, now with another young eventual wife...who tried to give me a home. She really did...She was the first real person to whom I felt visible. But I wasn't able to settle...be good, which is all they really wanted me to be...and so...I was unable to live with them after a very short while.

But in the meantime...Mom and Bob broke up...mom went to Holland for a holiday...and hooked up and married Dick...her 2nd (3rd) husband.

She was gone gone gone...In a very offhand way she invited me to go with her...but I knew she didn't want that at all, but rather felt she had to offer to show she was a good mother. At least, that's what I did and still do believe.

So at 16...I was on my own...I met my 1st husband...

I'd see mom every couple of years when she came to visit the kids...I grew, I changed, I was angry, and uninvolved. I had a husband and children, without parental interference or advice. I didn't have a husband but still the children, without parental interference or advice, I had another husband and still the children, without parental interference or advice. Only seeing her when she came to Canada to visit. I rarely phoned her, or wrote, or really even thought of her much at all. After all, she'd left me. Not the other way around.

I always knew she'd pass away one day...without my daughterly interference or advice, but in my mind, she was already gone.

Until last summer, when I saw my mom, not as my mom, but as a woman. An 80 year old woman. And to her, I was visible. She really saw me. I really saw her.

So this call I got last week Tuesday sank me to my knees. Realizing that my whole life I've been angry at her, unable to truly love her, absolutely unable to accept her decisions, wasted all this time pretending that because I didn't matter to her, she didn't matter to me.

But she does matter to me, because I am a part of her. And I love her...and am so frightened of loosing her. I'm just not ready. I only just found her.

On a positive note: I have been managing this anxiety and stress without turning to food for comfort.