On Monday, it will be one month since I started weight watchers. I've lost 7 lbs. in 3 weeks and I'll weigh in tomorrow morning. It was Matt's birthday on Friday so we went out to celebrate. I had some delicious cheese! I haven't really been eating cheese so this was a very big deal. I'm not expecting a great loss this week, but I would like to have not gained.
I also ran 4 miles last week. For me, this is huge! I'm so proud of myself for making out there twice and going for a real run. I enjoyed it too, another first for me. The pond where I live is so beautiful and the neighborhood is full of interesting houses and yards, lots of people to watch. I downloaded some new songs for my ipod as a treat to myself. It was so peaceful and I think I felt my first "runner's high." I wasn't thinking how much I hated it, or how it was hard to breathe, I just listened to my music and jogged along. I think moving my body at a pace that's comfortable really made all the difference. I wasn't trying to keep up with anyone or thinking about how many calories I wanted to burn, I just ran. My one goal was not to stop until I made the loop twice. If I felt myself getting tired, I jogged slower. When a new song came on, it made me speed up. I loved it! I bought some new running clothes last week and I'm hoping to make this a regular event.
I'm most proud of my attitude with these changes. I'm not trying to meet lofty goals or be perfect all the time. If I'm jogging, at least I'm out there doing it, if I'm eating cheese, at least I know its a treat for eating healthy all week. I feel a clarity within myself that I'm not sure I've ever experienced. I'm letting go of the need for perfection, or looking at this as a competition. I'm not comparing myself to other people or to how I used to look. I'm getting healthy and it feels great. For the first time, I'm excited about being successful in making a change for me. It's amazing how good it feels to be kind to myself.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Revisiting Girlhood
In high school I would sit on my bedroom floor, cross-legged, and listen to music for hours. I would sit on that teal colored rug, staring at the tan stain in the corner from nail polish remover I had spilled. I'd listen to all the voices telling me how to feel about everything in my world. My mother would open the door, never preceded by a knock, and ask me what how my homework was coming. In all my recollections of my mother at home she is always holding a laundry basket. As I look toward my own future motherhood, future matrimony, I do not see a laundry basket in my hands. I'm not sure why my mother did all of the housework, why she didn't have us do more to help, make us responsible for our own things.
I didn't do laundry until halfway through my first semester of college. An overweight, teddy-bear shaped boy named Gordy taught me. For the first few loads he supervised me, explaining how you can mix whites and darks if you wanted by using cold water. This horrified me. My mother would never do such a thing. I chose to laboriously separate my whites and darks, checking in with Gordy to see where grey was supposed to go. The first time I did laundry alone, I forgot the soap and simply rinsed my clothes. I did not realize this until they were finished drying and it occurred to me that I had forgotten this step. I think I washed them again. My roommate made fun of me. She loved the color black and had teenbeat posters of boy bands on her side of the room. She got upset because no one would come in and ask for her. When I came home late from the Tampa clubs, she made me easy-mac. I was always appreciative.
On the floor in my childhood bedroom, I created a world inside my mind with the music. I was a woman scorned, an outcast misunderstood, a lover trying to make things right with her man. Sometimes I walk by the middle school girls in the cafeteria and wonder if there is one of them who was like me. Purposefully isolated and always entertained. I don't believe there is one person who really understood my head during those times, myself included. Now as I listen to that same music, songs I haven't heard since the teal rug, I miss that girl.
I miss having mini dramas that consumed every breath, every moment. I miss writing in my journal by flashlight, hidden under the covers in my bottom bunk bed, moving the blue ink slowly so my sister would not wake. It would get so hot I would pull the blanket down from my head, lift my face up and take a few replenishing breaths. I wrote until my hand ached and my eyes began to close. So many of the pages end this way, incoherent thoughts and shaky letters, as if suddenly an old woman borrowed my pen. I miss the word "someday," how writing that word held so much agonizing possibility. I have always hated not knowing the future. Would he still like me? Would she ever be nice to me? Would I ever get invited to those parties? Would I ever feel like I belonged somewhere? Someday...
I think I'm still waiting. Although sometimes the not belonging feelings, the unsteadiness, is only followed by being able to look back and see how I got through something scary. I felt things so intensely on those journal pages. I really lived each day attuned with how I felt about what happened around me and to me. I miss that girl, the one who knew with certainty how uncertain it all was, and made it all ok for herself. I think the adult me loses that ability, struggles with trying to make it all ok for everyone around me, rather than taking care of myself.
Maybe that explains why my mom was always holding a laundry basket.
I didn't do laundry until halfway through my first semester of college. An overweight, teddy-bear shaped boy named Gordy taught me. For the first few loads he supervised me, explaining how you can mix whites and darks if you wanted by using cold water. This horrified me. My mother would never do such a thing. I chose to laboriously separate my whites and darks, checking in with Gordy to see where grey was supposed to go. The first time I did laundry alone, I forgot the soap and simply rinsed my clothes. I did not realize this until they were finished drying and it occurred to me that I had forgotten this step. I think I washed them again. My roommate made fun of me. She loved the color black and had teenbeat posters of boy bands on her side of the room. She got upset because no one would come in and ask for her. When I came home late from the Tampa clubs, she made me easy-mac. I was always appreciative.
On the floor in my childhood bedroom, I created a world inside my mind with the music. I was a woman scorned, an outcast misunderstood, a lover trying to make things right with her man. Sometimes I walk by the middle school girls in the cafeteria and wonder if there is one of them who was like me. Purposefully isolated and always entertained. I don't believe there is one person who really understood my head during those times, myself included. Now as I listen to that same music, songs I haven't heard since the teal rug, I miss that girl.
I miss having mini dramas that consumed every breath, every moment. I miss writing in my journal by flashlight, hidden under the covers in my bottom bunk bed, moving the blue ink slowly so my sister would not wake. It would get so hot I would pull the blanket down from my head, lift my face up and take a few replenishing breaths. I wrote until my hand ached and my eyes began to close. So many of the pages end this way, incoherent thoughts and shaky letters, as if suddenly an old woman borrowed my pen. I miss the word "someday," how writing that word held so much agonizing possibility. I have always hated not knowing the future. Would he still like me? Would she ever be nice to me? Would I ever get invited to those parties? Would I ever feel like I belonged somewhere? Someday...
I think I'm still waiting. Although sometimes the not belonging feelings, the unsteadiness, is only followed by being able to look back and see how I got through something scary. I felt things so intensely on those journal pages. I really lived each day attuned with how I felt about what happened around me and to me. I miss that girl, the one who knew with certainty how uncertain it all was, and made it all ok for herself. I think the adult me loses that ability, struggles with trying to make it all ok for everyone around me, rather than taking care of myself.
Maybe that explains why my mom was always holding a laundry basket.
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