The Randomness Continues...

I had a nice rebound last weekend. I was out doing some shopping and decided to try some stuff on. To my delight, all of it fit. Granted some of it was snug, but the point is I now have a lot more options available to me in terms of clothes, which is a great feeling. Plus I'm able to take advantage of really great sales prices, something I couldn't do before.

Another thing I noticed was after hours of walking around, my feet weren't sore and my legs weren't tired. I really felt in that small moment that all my hard work this past year has paid off. Even though I'm not the size I would like to be and losing weight is still a struggle, I'm getting fitter all the time. I can only think that if I keep going and continue to monitor my eating, that things will take care of themselves.

* * *

Last week at work was tough. Just felt bombarded and demoralized. I've found though that I've gotten much better at just ratcheting myself down. I have to work against the neurological ruts in my brain that default me to a state of anxiety. I've found that simple things like just focusing on my breathing for a few moments really helps. I calm down and regain perspective. I think part of it is that I feel like I'm fighting below my weight. I get bored. By the same token, I don't want more responsibility than I have, in that I feel like the demands of something more senior isn't something I want to take on. I'm grateful for a job, particularly the one I have, and at the same time, am constantly negotiating my resentment of the time it takes up in my life because it's not fundamentally what I want to do. I'm still trying to sort all this out.

* * *

I had an audition for a play a few weeks ago. I really wanted the part. I got called back but ultimately didn't get it. The pisser was, they asked if I wanted to come back and read for the part of the mother. That really ticked me off. I was thinking, ok if I'm good enough to play 25 years beyond my age range, why aren't I good enough for the lead you called me back for? I politely declined, and frankly, it was nice to do so. It was just nice to say I don't want to do this, for no other reason than that I didn't want to do it.

Part of it was my own fault as well. Well not really. I ordered a copy of the play in plenty of time, but Theatrebooks didn't get it in prior to my audition. I did try. I could have gotten to the reference library, but I ended up not doing this for various reasons. I do work full time, am training and otherwise have a busy life. So essentially, I went into the call back and held my own doing cold readings. I also got called back with actresses with a lot more experience.

I'll keep at it, but damn, I really wanted that part.

More Randomness

I just have a bunch of thoughts going through my head lately. I tend to want to write here with a topic in mind, but such is not the case these days, and I'd rather get this stuff out of my head.

* * *

Speaking of which, I bought a "To Do" pad today at Chapters Indigo. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it does have check boxes, which is what I need. I know it sounds strange, but I've realized that I need the visual cue of the box to check off and all my items cordoned off in a specific "To Do" book. I'm wanting to get more disciplined about writing things down, particularly regarding things I have to get done so they don't sit on my brain like an agitated granny. I want to see the whole landscape and prioritize accordingly. That will give me a sense of accomplishment and momentum.

I also got a money tracker book. It's a little notebook of tearaway pages, structured like a match book. All you do is write down at the top what amount of money you have in your wallet, and what you spend on what. That's all I'm doing for now and frankly it's enough. Things seem to move so fast, and next thing you know, 100 dollars has fluttered out of your wallet and you don't know why. I'm tired of having this vague sense of financial blackout. Eventually, I'll transition this approach to my entire budget, starting with my next payday. I can then make a note of everything that comes out, be it bill payments, debit purchases and the like. I'll move on to other more aggressive measures later, but for now this is enough. I've managed to keep my head above water financially speaking despite some very real challenges the last few years. As silly as it sounds, I was so proud of myself when the lease for my new car was approved because my credit rating was still good.

* * *

I suppose the above resonates with me because I always feel like I am living with this general sense of incompetence. The day to day of life has at times, seemed overwhelming. Yet despite everything, I've somehow kept going and kept it together. What I really want for this coming year is the sense of thriving, not just surviving, of feeling that I am on top of things, not just reacting to what is already heading my way.

* * *

I've felt a bit anxious driving around lately. Everyone on the road seems to be in a state of holiday induced rage, or at least impatience. Or it's the opposite; they're driving around in their own little bubble, holding everyone [ok. ME] up. It makes me nuts. The weekend before Christmas, Ragdoll and I went to the mall and were waiting for a parking spot, our signal on. A man pulled up beside us and stole it anyway. What is with people? Why is everyone so self-absorbed?

* * *

I went out with my folks, sis and niece on New Year's Eve to a great Japanese place north of the city. My dad took a picture of my mum and I for his cousin in Australia. He sent it to me this evening. I was delighted to see the re-emergence of my cheek bones. It's nice to see pictures of yourself and like what you see.

* * *

The other day I picked up my usual copy of Oxygen and for the first time, MixMag. I've decided that I'd like to be a DJ, even if it's just part time. It would be a good outlet for me I think as I love music and dancing so much. I get a newsletter from Hay House and they had an article from Joan Borysenko about burn out. She was talking about going back in your mind to the things you loved as a kid as a way to get your energy back. Those neural pathways are still there just waiting to get fired up. I realized that what music does for me is too important for me to not do anything with it. Folks seem to enjoy the mixes I put together, and I think I could really make a go of it. I'm still auditioning for plays and as always, struggling to find time to write any of my books. DJ'ing seems doable.

* * *

I've managed to keep my purse and wallet clean for three weeks and I've realized what the secret is. I throw out receipts. And by throw out I mean put them in the garbage.

I've avoided doing this for years because I feel bad about the environmental impact. I'd put papers and receipts aside for shredding...later. You can see where I'm going with this. Now I'm throwing non-essential receipts out, which other than for warranty purposes, means all of them. It's made all the difference. It's the same with coffee cups. For a while, I had a whole washed out collection of them at the office to take back to Starbucks. You can see where I'm going with this.

So I'll get to the whole paper shredding, recycling bit in due course. I think it's a very very important thing to do. The problem for me is that while I'm trying to do my part for the world's environment, my own has been suffering greatly. This is one key objective for 2011: to get my living environment up to snuff. Paint on the walls, Items organized. Enough already. So for now, to keep my car, purse and wallet functional and clean, all that paper has to go as expeditiously as possible. Next weekend, I'm getting the basement organized. It's the first step to reclaiming my home proper from the clutter I've been in as long as I can remember. It's not healthy, and I don't want to live like this anymore. I want a home that makes me sigh with relief versus exasperation when I walk through the door. I want to have people over, so that I can reciprocate the wonderful hospitality I'm always receiving.

Plus if I generate some garbage, so be it. I'm entitled as much as anyone else to take up a baseline allotment of space and resources in this world.

Randomness

"Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. By God, you learn." ~ C.S. Lewis

A new year is almost upon us. For me, 2010 has been inspiring and utterly heartbreaking all at the same time. I feel like I have learned a lot about myself, that I have grown up in some very meaningful ways and am better prepared for the future. In others I feel very childlike, as if I am ambling like a toddler through a terrain with which others are already well acquainted.

I am trying to sort myself out.

* * *

Since my last posting, I did manage to get back to yoga. The first two weeks after my bad respiratory virus, I did restorative yoga on Tuesday and Thursday nights. The Tuesday night class was more active, with 20 minutes of poses and I was very heartened when my teacher noted that I was a lot stronger since I last saw her. I have to admit, it was a great feeling to barrel through poses I had struggled with in the past, to experience them in a completely different way.

The Thursday night class was more passive in the sense that you have a practitioner working with you to move you through all the poses and stretches. There's atmospheric music, blankets, aromatherapy and comfy padding. It's totally deluxe and I feel like I've had a full body massage by the time I'm done.

I lasted two weeks of doing Tuesday and Thursday yoga as well as weight training and then the pace of things started to get to me. It was tough getting home late five nights a week and I had to ease it back in order to keep going.

Post holiday budget armageddon, I'm hoping I have enough money to book more classes and get into some more active yoga. It's a good counter to my weight training and cardio [such as it is these days.] It balances me out and makes me feel good about myself.

* * *

I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't discouraged by my weight right now. I'm discouraged in the sense that I'm still not at a normal weight and can't wear clothes I want to wear. Plus I'm impatient by nature, so this only compounds things. I've just accepted this and acknowledged it, but at the same time have also focused mental energy on the positive things I have accomplished in the past year. Some of these things include:

Being able to military press 50 lbs. I can't remember my rep count on this, but it was definitely more than five reps and a personal best.

I went from 24 sits up on an exercise ball damn well near killing me to being able to hold myself up in a "V" position [bent knees] while my trainer throws me a 12 lb medicine ball from both sides. I do two sets of 15 reps both sides.

The Return to the Land of Normal - This marked the first year I could shop for clothing in a lot of normal sized stores. Granted, I fit into their large and extra large sizes, but they are not plus size stores. I also bought new winter boots today, boots that I love and that wouldn't have fit over my ankles a year ago. I'm down three full sizes. It's nice to have options.

* * *

I had brunch with Indigo last weekend at Nadege and as always, parted from her company feeling inspired. I went across the street to the Japanese Paper Place and bought myself a couple of pink mole skin note books for me to start using during my training. I'm going to start writing down what I do so I can keep track of it myself. Obviously my trainer does this already, but I find that things just aren't sticking in my brain. I don't have the level of competence yet to be able to say "I'm going to train this, this and this today at these weights..." This is the next logical step for me. Indigo was talking about how she tracks her physical progress in writing and makes notes of her goals, so I decided I would do the same.

* * *

I've stumbled across a theme lately in blogs, articles and the like that I've been reading. They're written by women who are recollecting the power of their youth and beauty in some respect and how they are feeling the loss of these things or a if not an outright loss, at least a transitioning away from these things to another phase in their life in which other things are more important.

I don't remember my youth as a time of power in any real respect. I remember a sort of blind hope and optimistic feeling about my future, a sense that somehow I would be able to stumble along, figure it all out somehow and get to where I wanted to go, that unique giddiness one feels when you know there is more time ahead of you then behind.

But powerful? No. Beautiful? No.

It's the latter in particular that keeps coming up; women noticing they don't get checked out as much as they used to or not having a tummy as effortlessly tight and flat as it was when they were in their twenties. I have to say I just can't relate to this at all, at least not right now, where I am and based on my experiences. It's only in retrospect that I realize there were men in my past that were attracted me. But I certainly didn't think at the time that I had beauty that could get me any thing, any man or get me ahead in any respect. And I certainly didn't feel strong physically.

I suppose if being overweight has any gift, it's that you learn to rely on more internal measures to get what you want out of life. But the price you pay, at least as I see it, is that the full cross section of experience is closed off to you. That's what a big part of my personal training has been about, getting myself back into my whole body, not just living from the collar bone up.

Still, it's all well and good to be able to climb Mt. Kilamanjaro if I want to, but fitting into a size 10 dress would be nice too.

* * *

I got a new car a couple of weeks ago. It's a 2011 Subaru Impreza and I love it. I just couldn't take another winter of worrying about another major repair bill. I'd rather know what I'm paying month to month and have big repairs covered by a warranty. I'm glad I did it and I'll worry about what I'll do with the buyback 3 years from now. Although it's an automatic, and not as engaging to drive as my Forester, I have to admit that overall I'm just physically more comfortable in my new car. I think my legs are perhaps too short to drive manual well in that I always seemed to be so far forward.

It's also amazed me how much joy a purely material and utilitarian possession can give.

* * *

I want to write here about my trips to Scotland this year and about my uncle. But not yet.

* * *

I've been having some strange dreams this week, almost like I have been mentally cleaning house. I have to admit, I've awoken feeling lighter the last couple of days.

In one I saw my maternal Grandfather. He died when I was 17 and I have never dreamed of him. [I do believe I saw his ghost once but that's another story.] Anyway, my grandfather was sitting at a table and smiled when he saw me. I could hear my Granny talking in the background and I was just so happy to be with them both.

In another dream, the first man I ever loved turned to me and kissed me. Afterward, he said that he was sorry for having hurt me.

Back on the Grid

This past week I was ill, as ill as I've been in quite some time. I thought my bout last year was bad, but whatever it is I caught, left last year's episode in the dust.

The week prior I had been to Scotland. Again! I was able to go with my parents and we stayed in a great apartment in Kelvingrove. It's a funny thing. I hadn't been to Scotland since 1994 and this year I got to go twice. If anything, it's convinced me that regular visits there need to be a part of my life from now on.

So I came back feeling really refreshed, despite jet lag that never entirely resolved itself and then WHAMMO! Congestive Armageddon.

So I've got some catching up to do in terms of my workouts. The nurse practitioner I saw said that I would be out of the contagious phase in three days, but essentially coughing for two weeks. I'm going to ease back into my routine as best I can and I've scheduled two restorative yoga classes to go to in between training days. I've missed my Thursday yoga since our office move and I need to start doing it again.

And for now, well that's about it. Not much to report. I suppose I just wanted to try and get back into a routine here too.

Summer Nights

There's something about the combination of cigarette smoke and womens' perfume in warm night air that is quintessentially summer. I've been out more in the last two weekends it seems, than I have in the last two summers combined, and on both occasions I've experienced summer nights drenched in smoke, scent and the lush rustle of trees. It's reminded how much of myself I am reclaiming back.

You forget about things. You forget about sitting on patios and how good an ice cold beer goes down around midnight while you listen to the gadget reviews tech geeks are conducting over malt while drunk girls talk to each other in their best aristocratic English accents. You forget about after dinner walking with a friend on closed shopfront streets and marveling over gorgeous shoes, then heading up to Chinatown to play "guess that smell" navigating restaurant garbage.

You forget the joys of afternoon tea and talk with a friend.

You forget. And thankfully, you can remember.

I sometimes shake my head in wonderment that I have gotten here. For so long it seemed impossible. It was impossible. But at some point I just put my head down and kept going, thinking that I'd eventually look up one day and find myself in a different place. What this approach lacks in coordination it makes up for in sheer pragmatism.

I have a lot further to go, destinations I can see off in the distance, places I have been to before as well as the new and unfamiliar. Sometimes I think possibility isn't everything; it's the only thing.

Better Songs to Sing

Had my first fitness progress check in ages yesterday. I found it heartening, but ultimately anti-climatic.

The good news…

I have lost 16 pounds of fat.
I have gained 5 pounds of muscle
I’ve lost about 5 inches from my waist and that’s with the usual mid month bloat.
I can do 100 squats with flawless form albeit labored breathing by the 60-something mark.
I am almost at the norm for ab strength, quite an accomplishment given 25 crunches on the ball used to damn well near kill me.
I did a push up test and am in the “good” range. It’s the first time in my life I’ve been classified as “good” at anything remotely athletic.

On the frustrating side…

I’m still in the 200s weight wise. I am less than 10 pounds away from being out of “the twos” and it’s immensely annoying to still be there after working so hard for nearly a year.

I am this close to a size 14. Not bad considering I used to be a 20, but again, 14 is decidedly back in the land of normal and I’d like to definitively be there, versus still having a muffin top when I wear size 14 pants.

I’m not comfortable wearing dresses or skirts just yet. I still feel like my legs are too chunky. I would love to wear dresses and skirts and high heels again.

It’s not that I don’t feel I’ve made progress, quite the opposite. The day-to-day of my life feels completely different. So many things are easier and my workouts have been a great source of solace in the past year. At least three times a week, I carve out time for myself and usually I have to be so engaged in what I’m doing that I don’t have time to be concerned about anything other than the next rep. It’s a great mental release from my thoughts about a person or pet that has died, or the next thing at work I need to get completed.

I guess the reason there’s no “ta da!” here is that I’ve made fitness more a part of who I am and what I do versus being a goal to achieve in and of itself. It’s not as if you lose all the weight you want to lose, or get back into that little black dress and then you’re done. There is always the next challenge, the next target to hit.

I’ve been amazed at what my body has been capable of and how it’s improved. I remember when a 3.0 walking pace on the treadmill used to make my lower legs acidic with pain. Now I bang out 4 minutes of running at 5.3 to warm up and think nothing of it. It’s not easy, but it’s not ridiculously hard either.

I guess fundamentally, I’m proud of myself. I’m proud that I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through the past year and didn’t stop trying to improve myself. Other than a week’s illness, a week’s vacation and a couple of really tired days, I have worked out a minimum of three times a week consistently, and that’s with an iron deficiency and trying to get a sleep disorder remedied. That ain’t too shabby.

Still as Willy Russell would say, there are “better songs than this” to sing.

I’d like to continue my training to the point where I don’t need a trainer anymore and can train myself .

I want to walk into a clothing store and not worry about whether anything will fit or not. A couple of weeks ago I experienced the sheer joy of putting something back on the rack because I thought it was too expensive, not because I knew it wouldn’t fit.

I want to get an agent and do voice over work full time.

My first trainer was right. You are always stronger than you think. It hasn’t been easy going to my fitness club looking the way I have and still do. I still feel judged. It’s the essential irony of being overweight. I think people, particularly men, view you as out of control and not really having your shit together or being able to take care of yourself.

I’ve exhausted myself the past decade trying to take care of myself. Having to be in the world as an overweight person has given me reservoirs of emotional endurance and independence of which others can only dream. The only difference between me and an alcoholic, workaholic, whatever-holic is that the toll life is taking is written on my body. Try holding down a job chronically sleep deprived. It’s not exactly the domain of scatterbrained pussies.

If intention and discipline were all it took to lose weight, I’d be anoxeric by now. The difference this time around is that I have continued to make my intention actionable. I kept going no matter what, and that is what has made all the difference. I decided last year to take my life back and I have.

I remember my current trainer telling me at the beginning of our working together, that small dietary changes and the consistency of working out combined with time will always bring results. He was absolutely right.

I’m going to start fine tuning things. I want to see what else I can do.

And Then There Were Three

I've been thinking a lot about writing here. Obviously I haven't and that's because frankly, the last while has been a bit of a shit storm in my life. Something in my brain buckled, and I couldn't put a keystroke to screen until now.

The last time I wrote here, I had come through a relentless summer and fall. Ragdoll had been deathly ill, I had found out my first boyfriend had died, my grandmother died and Shuggy our cat died.

In February, our cat Neko died. In March, my youngest Uncle on my mother's side passed away suddenly due to a pulmonary embolism. Two weeks ago our cat Chudleigh died.

I'm now left with our three little cats, Lolly, Jerry and Possil. And I say "I'm" because my relationship with the Marine is also coming to an end. Nothing I've ever said about him here has changed. I mention our parting because contextually, I want future blogs to make sense. I'll say no more about it.

Some things are just too precious for the internet.