King of Pain

I made a conscious decision recently to purge negative and toxic people from my life.

I even went as far as blocking them from my phone and social media accounts instead of just ignoring them. I have to tell you, that helps keep me from thinking about them tremendously. Although thoughts do still pop up – obviously.

I don’t need to rescue people from themselves. Their woe is me way of life gets tiring after a while, and I just don’t want to deal with it.

Yeah, I know that makes me sound like a bitch, but seriously, when that is all I ever hear from these people it gets so monotonous. I mean, doesn’t anything good ever happen to you? Are you ever happy? I can’t make you happy, only you can do that.

I’ve told you before, and on many occasions, that I am not the same person that I used to be, either. Back when we were real friends and were close. I am not that person. I am in  different situation. I am happy. I am confident.  I have discovered how to be my own person and not rely on other people to manage my emotions. I hope you can do the same one day.

Though I have to say that I am curious about you. I have discovered things accidentally on Facebook that I almost unblocked your number to text you about. I have questions. But I knew that would only open the door that I have padlocked shut. I don’t want to go down that road again. No amount of curiosity is worth the frustration.

So I will leave you with this, I hope you can be truly happy on your own terms. Find whatever it is that you love and stick with it. I hope you can let go of what you hold on to  and learn to live with the cards that have been dealt to you. I hope that one day you will no longer be your own king of pain.

Save Myself

Why are holidays so dang stressful? There’s really no need for it. And so many times, it is all undue stress that is caused by other people who are stressing over nothing.

I understand how people become more depressed during the holidays. The reasons vary from person to person.

For me, it’s basically because I miss my mom. My side of the family is super small. Basically just my brother and I. His wife comes from a large family as does my husband. So when it comes to planning parties and holidays, my sister-in-law’s family takes priority for them. While my husband’s family seems to take priority for us.

For Christmas, though, the only day my family is really occupied is Christmas Eve. That’s when my husband’s family does our get together with the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and now the next round of cousins.

My brother’s family does their large get together on Christmas day. But every year it is always so hard to find a date for us to all get together. It doesn’t matter how early I try to pin down a date with them, they always say they have to wait to see when they will get together with her dad’s family or their friends or whatnot.

My theory is that this has a lot to do with why I miss my mom so much more at this time of year. Sometimes I want to feel like someone puts me first. I want to feel like I’m important to someone. I haven’t felt like that since my mom died. For the past 14 years I’ve pretty much just been existing in other people’s lives.

I know, poor me. It could be a lot worse, I know. But right now, this is my worst.

Safety Dance

What is it about men that they think women want a knight in shining armor?

Maybe it isn’t that they actually want to be the knight, but they want credit for doing a good deed.

Let me fill you fellas in on a little secret: we don’t care.

We especially don’t care if it was something from more than a decade ago when you thought you were coming to our rescue.

When you say, “I had to really beg my friend to give you a ride to go out with us…” that doesn’t make me think more of you. That makes me feel bad about myself. I am not going to thank you profusely for begging someone to pick me up – especially when I could have just driven myself.

And when you say, “So-and-so always said you looked like you were wearing your grandma’s clothes when you wore that brown sweater…” Again, I am not thankful to you for defending my honor, I’m feeling more insecure about myself and wondering what else was said about me.

And fellas, that stuff sticks with us. I haven’t worn that sweater in about 17 years but I still think about that outfit I wore it with and question myself about it. Now. 17 years later. As a woman almost in her 40s and not a meek 23-year-old.

And it was probably 14 years later when you even told me the story about your friend not wanting to drive me. I know your friend didn’t like me, he ignored me when we saw each other at the gas station not long after that.

Even you online friends now, you don’t need to tell me that one of your friends didn’t like something I said in a post or a tweet. We aren’t married or engaged or even dating. Your friends do not need to like me and I do not need to like them. Chances are, if they don’t like me, I already know it. You don’t need to tell me how you feel like you defended my honor somehow. I am not going to be dancing a jig to show you how appreciative I am.

Unless it is something that I actually truly need to know about for some reason. Do not tell me. It will most definitely have the opposite effect on me that you are intending. It brings me down and I will not only be less confident in myself, but I will also think less of you.

Hall Of Fame

This boot camp is tough. It is definitely the hardest and longest hour of my day. I’m in the middle of my fourth week and I’m proud to say I’ve gone to every class (except two when I was out-of-town). After almost 4 weeks I should be seeing some type of results, right?

Wrong.

I lost a couple of pounds after the first two weeks. The third week I gained a pound. According to my scale at home I’m staying pretty steady this week.

I am super frustrated because I’ve gone from being basically almost sedentary to up and moving around every day. After my hour-long class I’ll go for a 2-3 mile walk with my husband (if we don’t have to go grocery shopping that is). I’ve gone from eating a bowl of ice cream before bed every night to eating a bowl of plain popcorn. I’ve dramatically cut down on the amount of carbs I eat. I’m being choosy and reading labels and trying to increase my protein intake. I am drinking water all day. I’ve even swapped out my chocolate milk at dinner for a glass of water (although perhaps I should keep the chocolate milk for the calcium?).

I know it’s still early in my journey. I knew it wouldn’t be easy and nothing would happen overnight, but I feel like I should have had some type of progress by this point. I am starting to feel defeated already.

Before you say anything about the numbers on the scale, I want you to know that I’m not foggy about this type of thing. I know that muscle weighs more than fat, so it is perfectly logical that I could just be gaining muscle and losing fat. BUT, my clothes are not fitting any better. I guess the upside is that they aren’t fitting any worse, either.

Running is still hard. Leg days just about kill me. And I can’t catch my breath to save my life. I was hoping it would be a bit easier by this point. It really doesn’t feel like it is at all. I’m still sore all the time. I wake up at 2 am because my legs are killing me from my knees down. I’d love to not have to take Tylenol or ibuprofen on a daily basis.

I just want to feel like I am going through all this and will have a positive outcome at the end. I want to feel like 12 weeks of sweat and tears will be worth it in the end and not a waste of my time and money. I want to know that I won’t fail.

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

Ah, salaam and good evening to you, worthy friend.

There’s something so satisfying about cleaning out unnecessary items, isn’t there?

I always hang on to things, “just in case” and it’s really just a waste of time and space. Just in case usually never happens, because I am just realizing this, I am going through The Purge.

I’ve actually started this process a few months ago by purging unnecessary accounts on social media. There were a lot of people who I followed who were super negative and just brought me down. Or they were just into topics and interests that I don’t really care about at this age. The kind of life they live is not the kind of life I want to live so I had to break ties. It has been a positive change.

I am continuing to purge those people from my life. Some of these people didn’t do anything or say anything wrong specifically, I am just at a different place in my life than I was. And as I do this I am moving forward. I’ve met a lot of people at boot camp who are nothing but positive energy. They are all encouraging and helpful. I don’t even know all their names yet, but they’re always there with a high-five or an encouraging smile. I even smile while I’m there dripping buckets of sweat.

I’ve complained a lot about my life in the past, but I made changes. A lot of changes. And life is much sweeter now. Sure, there will be hiccups now and again, and life won’t always be sunshine and lollipops.

I Will…But

Hi there. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sorry about that. I guess I just had too much going on in my head. I couldn’t turn down the volume in my head long enough to narrow anything down to one thought to write about.

Today though, today is different. Today I happened upon something that made me come to a conclusion. A conclusion that I had come to once before, but I let my needs to be wanted and liked come before my self-respect. Well, that ends today.

See, online it is so easy to be different from who you are. It is also easy to befriend so many more people than you would in real life. Personally, I’m friends with or follow almost all of my real life friends, and I’ve also picked up a few strangers along the way. After a while, I (like many people) will clean out my friends/followers and weed out the people who annoy me or I don’t interact with. I don’t block people though. I save that function for anyone who might have a very negative impact on my life. In fact, throughout all of  my social networking accounts, I think I only have 1 person blocked.

Anywho, I’ve decided that if we know each other in real life – even before social media – and you have to hide the fact that we are friends, then I don’t think I want to continue this relationship. If you have to hide the fact that we talk, that we joke, that we watch the same TV shows from your other “friends”, then there’s nothing more to say.  I am not your other woman, I am your friend. And if you have to hide that from people, if you can only talk to me through one of your alter egos, then maybe you never were my friend. So, if you choose to have a “relationship” with someone you met online rather than my real friendship with no strings attached, then I don’t want YOUR friendship.

We’ve had this discussion about hiding our friendship before, and even though I didn’t agree with your reasons (excuses) I let it go. I should have had more respect for myself right from the beginning.

The choice is yours, but it looks like you already made it when the real you clicked on block.

I’m Fat

This is getting very tiresome. I am getting very tiresome. That’s because I’m always tired.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to get up an hour earlier in the morning and do a longer yoga practice, or lift some weights, or go out for a run. But I don’t. I can’t. I absolutely cannot get out of bed in the mornings. I’m sleeping right through my alarm. All. The. Time.

And I am too tired after a full day at work and running the kids to and from dance or track or whatever sport they have that day.

I was hoping this feeling would be temporary and a couple good night’s sleep and I’d be back on track. Unfortunately this seems to be lingering. I’m sure I just need to force my ass to move and do something and I’ll start having more energy again. But it seems almost impossible.

I have days that I really hate this state that I’m in; I have days where I say that I’m OK with where I’m at. But I always hate picking out my clothes for the day. Every pair of pants I have are just a tad too snug now. Sitting at work is just a bit uncomfortable. And it isn’t warm enough outside for me to start wearing dresses to work. I need temperatures in the 70s for that.

I mentioned once before that I read a lot of blogs on different subjects. Today I have seen so many “Transformation Tuesday” photos on various social media sites. One day I will get to post my own photo, but to get there I need to move. And as I’m sitting at my desk almost falling asleep sitting up, I am making a promise to myself to start tonight – even if I just take a walk around the block.

 

 

Low

Seriously WordPress, you give Doubt as a prompt today? That’s a loaded gun right there. My whole life is fucking doubt.

It seems I finally get one piece situated and then the sky falls somewhere else. Nothing is the end of the world really, just extremely frustrating. I am pretty angry right now, and the places that I used to go for comfort and to calm myself are no longer viable options. And I have a desk job with pretty much zero interruptions to distract me most of the time so I have about 7 more hours to sit and stew here.

I am trying not to be angry. I’m trying to just be indifferent and sometimes I am. But you know how things go, someone will say something or I’ll see something on TV and I’ll get pissed all over again. It happens. I’ve been through shit before and have gone through all the ranges of emotions and have lived.

What gets me most are all the unanswered questions and the uncertainty. I know I’m doing the right thing and have made the right decisions, it’s just the transition that I have to get through. Just like any life change it’s going to be hard, so of course I’m going to doubt myself. It’s only natural. So please bear with me while I go through this.

 

PS, I have always absolutely loved this song

My Life

I talk a lot. I say a lot of what I want to do but I don’t always follow through. I make up my mind to do something because I know it’s the right thing but I don’t always have the will power to do it. Sometimes it’s just because I don’t want to give something up and sometimes it’s just because I have too much curiosity. Whatever the reason, though, I need to grow a pair and just stick with my decision and live with it.

This morning I took a step in the right direction. I decided to take my life back. I removed temptation (at least something that is directly connected with that temptation) from my sight. It’s easier to let things go if you aren’t reminded of them on a daily basis. Today I threw that reminder in the trash, and you know what? I feel damn good about it!

I woke up and decided not to hesitate any longer. No sense in prolonging hurt feelings any longer than needed right?  It was really so much easier than I thought it would be.  It’s funny how you can wake up one day and realize that you just need to remove the drama from life, and it can be as easy as hitting the unfollow button on a social media site or two.

Sometimes you just have to say, “I don’t care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life and leave me alone.”

Vacation

Vacations are not only fun and relaxing but good for the soul. Vacations can heal even the most bruised and banged up feelings.

This time away with my family was truly what I needed and the timing was perfect. This was exactly what I needed to reset and center myself.

The first hour or so on the 6 hour drive home the weather was awful. The rain came down so hard I thought it could break the windshield. Then it stopped raining and I could see beautiful clear skies down the highway.

I thought it was a perfect example of my life recently. I think I’m finally out of the storm and the skies are clear from now on.

Unfortunately once the sun went down I had too many hours inside my head with my thoughts. Things that I happily didn’t think about at all on my trip. Things that I was hoping to forget about and learn to stop thinking about while I was away. Things that I hope to not let into my head once I get back to work, when I usually think about everything.

Today will be a test for sure, but hopefully I’ll pass with flying colors. Eventually I won’t even bother asking, “Why me?”