Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
So those that know me might find it funny to find out that I see Easter as a way better time to set resolutions for yourself.
It just seems to fit–rising from death, new life, saviour.
But perhaps that’s just me being overly dramatic. I can’t be content to just make a goal for the year, I have to feel like I’m saving myself from some disastrous path I’m on.
Or it’s because I did get saved from a disastrous path one Easter.
This year marks 15 years since the Easter when I was at the lowest I’ve ever, ever been. I’ll just say depression and leave it at that. But I hit bottom on a Good Friday back when I was 21. So yes, alcohol was involved.
It was terrible and scared the shit out of my family, my boyfriend. It scared the shit out of me. I guess in some ways it’s good. It was a wake up call that I needed to stop letting my depression get the best of me.
And I never have again. Not like that, or anywhere close to that.
But this Easter I again feel an urgency to change my life.
And it’s my health. It’s the same path I started out on two months ago, but it’s time for a recommitment. Traveling, depression, family illness, have all thrown me off track. I’ve allowed them to throw me off track.
So time to recommit. Time to rise and start a new life.
Find a counselor. I actually have taken the first step and have a call into one. Let’s see if she and I can ever stop playing phone tag.
Cook at home. Enough is enough with the eating out. Jeez, stop being so lazy.
Walk. Just walk. Start there. Build up.
Get back to tracking my metrics. You don’t know if you are making progress if you don’t track it.
That’s it for now. Start simple. One foot in front of the other, one choice at a time.
But it is Spring, it’s beautiful. Time to enjoy life and stop beating myself up for my fat rolls and lack of fitness. Time to move in the right direction.
I’ve been locked away with a sick kiddo for the last three days. Yeah, the same kiddo I had been wanting to put up for sale. Luckily, we’d made up. And I guess nothing brings out the motherly instincts like a sick, snotty, diarrhea-having child.
But any-hoot.
I finally got out of the house today to run some errands. First stop, Target. You know, Satan’s shopping hole that sucks you in and doesn’t let you free until you’ve added at least five things to your basket you weren’t intending on buying.
I stupidly tried on some clothes.
And maybe it’s good that I did because I made a horrifying discovery.
I have a mirror issue in my house. I have no full length mirror. Well, I did finally buy one but it hangs so high on our oddly tall closet door that it doesn’t do me any fucking good. So I leave the house looking like god knows what everyday.
Which makes me realize I made TWO horrifying discoveries.
1.Carrying my tiny wallet and stupidly large cell phone (I hate you Apple) in my jean pockets results in weird, unattractive bulging. Must start using purse.
2.I have back rolls. Like rolls of fat down my back. You’re probably thinking, well duh EJ, you weigh 225 pounds. But I have never seen them (see above mirror issue). But even if I had mirrors, who has the back to back mirrors you find in dressing rooms in their house? You can’t actually ever see your back, unless you twist, which just distorts everything.
So, I should have guessed, but I just didn’t know. I have these huge rolls. You know that horrible female outline thing one might do with their hands? Add an extra hump in there for my rolls.
Check out Geraldo be super creepy with it at :35.
Jeez.
So thanks Target. Thanks for not only luring me into spending too much money, but for the brutal wake up call and blow to my self-esteem.
Except when I really don’t. Except when it’s pretty much the exact opposite.
I hate to hate my child.
But sometimes I do. When he’s bratty and whiny and asks a million questions. Especially repeatedly asking me about Star Wars. And like the tough shit, where an honest answer would require discussions on death.
Today is that day. It’s been Spring Break and we’ve traveled. Basically I’ve been locked up with him for a week.
And I’m done.
Done with the tantrums. Done with the illogic. “Don’t cut my pancakes. Put it back together!!” “I can’t eat my pancake, it’s too big.”
I want to scream.
And as often as I like his cuddles, I feel super over touched right now. Super at my wits end. Super like I might throw him against the wall.
And I hate to hate my child. I feel like a terrible mother and all those articles that tell me to cherish these days when he wants to snuggle because someday he will be sixteen and push me away, don’t help. I just feel extra guilty.
Or I don’t. At this moment, I am beyond guilt. I am so enraged and fed up that I have somehow conquered the fear I had about writing again after a week off and have picked up the old Chromebook and am madly writing away on my porch. Dreading that at any minute he and the papa unit will be coming around the bend and I will have to be mom again.
Is becoming a mother the worst thing I have ever done? Because part of me just keeps yearning for the days when it will be normal again. And that is just never going to happen.
Part of me thinks I am too selfish and fucked up to parent somebody else. I can’t even parent myself. I can’t calm myself down. I can’t let go of this anger. I can’t stop feeling like I just need some goddamn time to myself.
I remember when the hubby and I were dating, not yet engaged, and he asked me during one of my own tantrums how I would ever be a mother to someone else. How would I take care of another being when I was such a hot mess myself, basically. And I said something along the lines of I guess I’d have to grow up.
And he admitted later that his private response was, get this girl pregnant STAT because he was so tired of dealing with my emotions.
So perhaps my overly emotional child is just karma. I get to see what’s it’s like to try to take care of someone, tend to the feelings of someone, who just doesn’t want to feel better. Who doesn’t make any sense.
I would’ve dumped my ass.
Or perhaps not. Because love is funny and I will sit here and hate my child, but still give him a hug and snuggle him to sleep at naptime. And it will all pass. Maybe not today. But it will.
In the meantime, I’m going to try not to punch the little bugger.
Not. It’s been raining a ton, so this song has been in my head.
But I am so tired of the figurative rain in my life.
This was written last night, but I think it pretty much sums up where I’m at, what’s been going on, why I haven’t posted much this week.
It’s raining it’s pouring
I wish that I was snoring…
It’s 11:30 pm, which I know for many isn’t horribly late, but it is for me.
I need my 9 hours of sleep.
But I can’t sleep because today has been the most depressing day. Ok, not really.
But the most depressing in quite awhile.
My grandmother has been in the hospital with an angry gallbladder etc. for a few days now. It’s not too… I don’t know the word. But she’s 96 and shit breaks.
What surprised me today was how much being in a hospital, listening to chances of recovery, listening to talk of quality of life, made me think about, and hurt for, my mother-in-law.
And it’s all just so poorly timed because we are leaving this weekend to go to Toronto to see the in-laws, minus one.
Minus the one who was… the life of the party. The engine of the family. The queen.
And what an empty court without its queen.
And I must be watching too much Downton Abbey because I’m writing this with a snobby English accent.
Anyway. I sit here hurting for two Nana’s. My kiddo’s, who left too soon. And mine, who’s really grandma to me, who may be dying at a ripe old age, with years of memories and a large family to leave behind.
And I don’t know which to write about.
Because it’s all just tied up into one big mess of hating mortality, disease, and having to say goodbye.
And my grandma isn’t dead yet. So it seems bad juju to write as if she is. But she’s not getting better. And she’s 96.
So. Nana.
I’ve slowly been dreading this trip to Toronto more and more. Not because it’s awkward (it will be). Not because it’ll still be cold in Canada when I’ve been enjoying 80 degree weather. But because there is going to be this big gaping hole. Like, a physical lack of Nana in this tiny apartment where every corner used to scream “Nana’s shit. Don’t fuck with it.” That shit will all be gone. I helped put some of it away (in the trash) after the funeral.
But this is the first time we are going back since last June when she died.
And she won’t be there, feet curled under her on the couch. She won’t have her crazy tray of pencils, notepads, calendars and pill boxes beside her.
Where will that tray be?
She won’t be passed out in her super inclined bed. She won’t even be down the street at the hospital, wishing she could come home and make sure every piece of her fabulous jewelry would have a good home after she was gone.
It will just be empty without her. And without all her shit. All the signs of her living, day in, day out in a hoarding, pack-rattish sort of way that makes me realize my husband married his mother. And makes me want to run home to clean.
But that apartment will be so much cleaner this time. So much neater. So much emptier.
Fuck. I don’t want to go. I do, but I don’t want the sadness that it is, and will be bringing.
And my grandmother just makes it hurt all that much more. I may be facing the death of another family queen.
Though my grandmother would deny being it.
Nana fucking rocked that role.
P.S. I just got home from seeing my grandma, and for any family that is reading, she is actually seeming much better. Much more alert.
Boy oh boy. Traveling and eating well are NOT a good mix.
What were my goals?
Eat salads, avoid pancakes, share with the hubby, avoid Dessert Gallery.
How’d I do?
I ate one salad. I shared one meal with the hubby–it was the only time I had pancakes.
But I followed up that shared meal with a piece of Chocolate Cheesecake.
We were eating at a place with the word ‘pie’ in the name. I couldn’t help myself.
But chocolate cheesecake for breakfast–bad, bad choice.
Low moment: Not sure if it was the chocolate cheesecake, or the BBQ we brought friends for lunch, but my tummy said FUCK YOU. And it said it in the car. So I made friends with a gas station bathroom. And it was one of those ones where you have to ask for the key, so they totally knew I was in there for a long time. EMBARASSING.
Achievement: I met with the BFF, and we didn’t just eat. We walked around the park with the kiddo. A train ride was even involved. But I was more excited that we walked enough to make her FitBit vibrate and scare the shit out of her.
Goals for this week: Gladly, gladly cook at home. That’s one thing about eating 9 meals out in a row. I really want to eat home cooked plants now.
And everything I need to somehow remember this weekend.
So I’m heading out of town for a long weekend of BFF time. Which is awesome! For everything except my tummy. Eating out every meal for 3 days–eek.
There was a time I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But now I am. Partly because I’m keeping track of my metrics. Partly because eating out just doesn’t sit well very often any more. And I’m more aware of that now–that food sometimes ends up torturing me.
I think the best way through is to have some sort of game plan.
Like, sharing dishes with the hubby.
Avoiding pancakes for breakfast. There’s nothing worse than being in a food coma when you are supposed to be social.
Salads.
And no f-ing Dessert Gallery, no matter how close we are to it.
Wish me luck! See you back here Monday so I can celebrate my successful eating while traveling. I hope.
First, I’ve gotta take a second and thank everyone for the tremendous response to my post yesterday. People reached out to me to share their own stories, even a couple of people I’ve never met before. And it was truly touching. And a reminder that we never know what a stranger is dealing with–so be kind. So thank you for sharing, for your words of encouragement, and for letting so many people, including me, know that we are not alone. We may not all be shiny, happy people, but it made me so happy to know others heard me and let me hear them. That we virtually held hands.
And I get to follow that up with a discussion on cauliflower.
It seems the only way I am motivated to cook lately is if I tie it to some kind of “event”. Like my Vegan Valentine’s. Well this past Sunday it was for the Oscars. Yes, I am one of those people that the Academy Awards are my version of the Super Bowl. So yummy food should be involved. I thought I’d take it as an opportunity to try out some new vegan recipes, and I invited friends to torture get feedback from.
-Landlocked Ceviche- basically cauliflower instead of fish
-Stuffed Mushrooms- stuffed with quinoa and herbs
-Deviled Chickpea Bites- basically hummus on cucumber and baguette
-Black Bean and Corn Salad
-Meatball Subs- except the balls are made of beans
-Peanut Butter Millet Buckeyes- not new, but totally worth repeating
So, I go crazy, cook madly for a day, and then don’t want to cook again the rest of the week. Not very balanced, is it?
But since it was for the Oscars, here are the awards we decided to give the food.
Crowd Favorite:The dessert, duh. Chocolate is involved, need I say more?
Best Dressed: Black Bean and Corn Salad. Just look at those colors!
Most Disappointing to the Cook: My husband made the mushrooms and he just couldn’t get over the lack of cheese that he normally stuffs mushrooms with.
Most Original: Landlocked Ceviche. Because, really, when do you ever eat cauliflower? Thank god there was a lot of lime juice. I think the trick is to let it marinate a long, long time. But it’s still got that weird cauliflower toughness.
Most Poop-like: Not in taste. Just looks. You work with beans, you end up with a lot of gooey brown things. Like the Deviled Chickpea Bites.
And the bean balls for the sub that I just couldn’t get to stay in the shape of a ball. They looked like flattened turds.
And as a side note, right before I served this poop-tastic meal, we had our own little kiddo poop-splosion. Nothing like cleaning up poop right before you eat a bunch of beans that look like poop. Kinda circle-of-life-esque isn’t it?
But overall, the food was pretty good. I’ve been eating leftovers all week and I’ve decided the Landlocked Ceviche would actually be a great snack to have on hand. It’s cauliflower, so it’s low calorie–you just have to control your chip consumption with it. But what else does this veggie have going for it?
Cauliflower, do you have any redeeming qualities, besides that you are bland and can pretend to be both mashed potatoes and fish?
Which is creepy.
It truly is a weird veggie–all tough and white. I mean, veggies aren’t white. When I bought it, my son sat there in the cart, poking the cauliflower, very concerned it didn’t move. Like over and over in the store, “Why doesn’t it move mommy?”
And in response to me saying I wasn’t sure I was satisfied with my dish, my friend said, “Yeah cauliflower is tough.” And I didn’t know if she meant texture wise or tough to make it taste good. Because I’m going to go ahead and declare both as true.
I had just assumed that cauliflower, being white and all, must be devoid of any real nutritional value. It must just be carbs.
But here is what my nutrition book shows:
½ cup raw, chopped cauliflower
13 calories
1g protein
3g carbs
1g fiber
So yeah, carbs. But a bit of protein and fiber.
This website shows the % of vitamins and minerals. What stood out to me:
For one cup of raw cauliflower:
77% of your vitamin C
20% of your vitamin K
14% of your folate
9% of your potassium
So cauliflower, as weird, tough, and bland as you are, you have some stuff going for you.
At least enough to keep torturing you into ceviche or mashed potatoes. Or whatever else…
Wake up, wake up, wake up it’s the 1st of the month
I remember the BFF and I used to sing “It’s that time of the month…”
Which for me, today… it’s both.
Which I wouldn’t normally share. But it’s not good news and is going to really jack my family for the next week.
We weren’t trying to get prego or anything–I’ve been a happy pill taker for a while now. And lately I’ve been a constant pill taker to avoid my period and the emotional meltdowns that come with it.
My period didn’t used to be this bad. But when you get on multiple meds, things get strangely dependent on each other. At least for me.
It used to be that “my monthly visit” just meant intense chocolate cravings. Maybe a tear or two at a car commercial.
But then I got on prozac. It was last year during the whole mother-in-law-dying-of-cancer time and I was just getting nonfunctional. Like, drive to work, cry in front of the school for 20 minutes, then drive home and call in sick.
And the worst part was not being able to enjoy my kiddo. Like ever. And he’s a sweet kid. He’s not actually THAT challenging. But I could never play with him. I’d lie around. Often crying. He spent more time comforting me than I did him.
Or worse, I’d be holding my feelings in for the sake of the hubby and then just treat the kid in a really cold, distant manner. Or an angry manner if I’m going to be brutally honest. I started yelling at him. For nothing.
So Prozac it was.
And it eventually leveled my moods some. It helped me be the calm one for the family. It helped me be the leader.
But somewhere in there, it was time for the sugar pills in my birth control pack. And I didn’t get the chocolate cravings. Or the tears. And I was all, “Yay. This shit is amazing!”
But then the next week came. And it was not amazing. It was grumpy, grouchy, anxious, panic attacks.
My body was not having it. It had managed to find a nice balance between my innate lack of serotonin, the Prozac, and my birth control hormones. And then my period ruined it. Goodbye hormones, goodbye happiness.
Yes, it took two medications, two chemical adjustments, to make me feel normal. And that feels very wrong and embarrassing.
But it was an easy choice. No more periods. My lady doctor agreed, got me a new RX sans sugar pills, and I never looked back.
Except that I am HORRIBLE with keeping on top of shit. I mean, if my husband wasn’t paying the bills, I would probably be writing this with my own blood on a leaf due to lack of electricity or a home.
Ok, I’m not that bad. But I am often late about… everything. Paying bills. Scheduling doctor’s appointments. Reordering medications…
Which is how I find myself in my current predicament. I didn’t realize I was running out of birth control, but I’m out. And I’m having to wait for doctor approval for a refill since the whole RX is out since I am overdue for my annual exam.
I am an infantile idiot. It is amazing I am a mother, responsible for caring for another human, because I sure can’t care for myself.
Which brings me back to the point of this blog.
When people ask me what I am writing about, or why I quit my job, I say “getting healthy”. And I think they often have the impression I quit because I have some mildly serious physical ailment. Which I sometimes feel is true. Being overweight and so dreadfully out of shape starts to feel like an ailment.
But really, getting healthy probably means, in huge part, fixing my brain so I can get off the Prozac. It means finding a counselor and working out my shit. It means learning to be kinder to myself and not always beating myself up, like for that one time five years ago, when I put my foot in my mouth at a party. Ok. It was five days ago. But still.
It means learning to enjoy life and not always inventing shit to worry about.
Because I CAN’T be this dependent on meds to hold me together. One, it seems unnatural and god knows what the long term side effects will be of putting weird, mood altering chemicals in my body. And it’s not even pot, so I can’t make myself feel better about it by saying “it’s natural, it’s from the earth.” No. It’s in a little pill and comes from some laboratory that has had recalls on their products.
Two, I am clearly a dingbat and this is just too much for me to keep track of. I even have one of those old-people weekly pill boxes and can’t keep this shit straight. So I am just not responsible enough to handle my drugs.
But really, I just want to feel healthy. And maybe it’s social stigma, but I just don’t feel healthy knowing I’m on Prozac.
It took forever for me to agree to get on it because of this stigma. Which sucks. Because I clearly needed help and I just made myself and my family suffer way longer than they needed to.
Wanna know what finally convinced me to put mind altering drugs in my body?
A kindergartner.
The year of the dying mother-in-law, I had a student named M who was super ADHD. Like, uncontrollable. Unbearable. He couldn’t do shit in school. He hid in closets, ran around the room, touched people. Not inappropriately or anything. But it really seemed like he was on speed and X all at the same time. Manically rubbing people’s arms and heads.
Now he wasn’t always like this–he sometimes had meds. And my realization of the power, the necessity, of helping yourself with meds happened in a five minute walk down the hall.
One day, as I picked up my kindergarten group for reading intervention, M was being so… M. Just touching, dancing, skipping down the hall. Rubbing the wall if he couldn’t find a human to rub. It was nuts. And I was grimacing and screaming in my head about what a horrible teaching session I was about to have.
But we got to the room, took our seats, and M looked up at me quietly. He raised his hand to answer my question. He listened when someone else had their turn to answer.
His meds had kicked in.
And it was life-changing. For him, but also for me. All of a sudden I saw how much I was standing in my own way. Meds truly helped M perform and learn at school. What if meds could help me perform at life?
And they have.
I really, really wish our society could get over this whole mental health being too hard to talk about thing. Because there’s help out there for people who are hurting. And why would we want it to be hard for people to ask for help? You would fight cancer. You would take medication for your high blood pressure. So why is it so hard to ask for an antidepressant?
Why am I still so uncomfortable taking one when I know the good it has done for me and my family?
And I think society has to answer that, not just me.
But in the meantime, I want to work towards more permanent solutions for myself. Work towards changing some of my habits in how I view the world and myself in it. In how I treat myself when I make mistakes or am learning something new. And there’s that word again. Habits.
Perhaps I can become whoever I want to be, if I just practice enough.
