Women

How will we ever accomplish the things we want to accomplish if we just keep tearing each other apart? Think of the power that would come in lifting each other and helping each other out. Think of the mountains we could move.

Free Day!

So I got a huge wake-up call a couple of weeks ago. I went to the doctor for my annual check-up and all those wonderful things that a woman gets to endure every year. Somehow, I've managed to gain 15 pounds this year. I'm the same weight now that I was the day I went in to have my 16-month-old.

I come from husky (coughfatcough) German stock, rife with diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Aside from obvious cosmetic issues, I'm pretty freaked out for my health.

So I've started watching what I eat. No stringent plan, just really watching portions and limiting simple carbs and sugar. WELL. Thanks to fitday.com, I've come to realize that I was eating roughly twice what I need in a day. Dang. Emotional eating, mostly.

In order to avoid total failure, like all my other diets have, I'm allowing myself one Free Day. Saturday is the day that I forget that I'm on a diet and do whatever in the heck I want. Body for Life recommends it. My sanity counts on it.

The cool thing is, I find I'm not really binging at all. I don't want to mess up what I've done all week, but also I'm recognizing when I'm satisfied and enjoying the taste of things instead of just inhaling- then inhaling more. I feel so much better overall that bogging my body down with sugar just doesn't sound appealing, so I'll allow myself some, but I don't want half the pan.

Moderation works for me.

I need to add exercise into the mix, but this is the healthiest I've lived for a long time, maybe ever. Even my attitude is healthier. I'm starting to see and feel a little bit of difference already, and that feels good. Mostly, I love being in control of things again. Having no order or control or limits on what I was eating really didn't feel good. I guess that could be an analogy for a lot of things. Fill in the blank.

My favorite song

Lately my favorite song is "Reasons Why" by Nickel Creek. I've heard it a hundred times, but a few months ago it was like I was hearing it for the first time, and it really resonated with me. It was one of the things that pushed me towards being more honest with myself. Being realistic about my faults and my good points, and being more responsible and accountable for my life and the things I do. I always had reasons, but if you really cut away at so many of those reasons they are excuses, and they can be overcome. Also about how we can so easily and quickly slip away from where we want to be. How we can make choices that adversely affect our circumstances, and still blame God even though it's our own agency that brought us to the "ladder against the wrong wall" Here are the words:

Where am I today, I wish that I knew
'Cause looking around there's no sign of you
I don't remember one jump or one leap
Just quiet steps away from your lead

I'm holding my heart out but clutching it too
Feeling this short of a love that we once knew
I'm calling this home when it's not even close
Playing the role with nerves left exposed

Standing on a darkened stage
Stumbling through the lines
Others have excuses
But I have my reasons why

We get distracted by the dreams of our own
But nobody's happy while feeling alone
And knowing how hard it hurts when we fall
We lean another ladder against the wrong wall

And climb high to the highest rung
To shake fists at the sky
While others have excuses
I have my reasons why

With so much deception
It's hard not to wander away
It's hard not to wander away
It's hard not to wander away

Internonymous.

At the moment I'm thinking about the Internet and how we have the capability to be largely anonymous. Some people call it keyboard confidence: using the anonymity of the Internet to say things that you wouldn't necessarily have the fortitude to say in real life.

I've been guilty of it. I've commented on blogs when something offended me but I didn't want the responsibility of continuing to defend my point. I once created an alter ego on a public forum to say things to some people that I wasn't brave enough to say under my real name. I'm ashamed of it, and I wouldn't do it again. It was a lie, it felt like a copout, it was beneath my true self.

And here's the thing: I got caught. Someone who knew me well enough, caught on to my voicing and the (trademark?) sarcasm that comes out when I'm annoyed. She emailed me and told me she knew it was me. Even before that I was really embarrassed with myself; but then knowing that someone who I respected and had gotten to know, knew who I was and saw right through my alter ego. . . well that was humiliating. Because it's not LIKE me to hide my opinion from someone. But sometimes it seems so much easier than either saying what you think, or realizing that what you're thinking isn't something you should be thinking and maybe you need to work through some issues.

Which is ultimately what I did. That experience made me take a long, hard look at myself, and ask myself why I would feel the need to hide behind an alter? Is it because I'm afraid? If so, I need to either be unafraid to stand up for what I know. Am I ashamed? If so, I need to change whatever it is within myself that makes me want to say unkind things.

Fortunately, good changes have come. Like all of us, I have a heck of a long way to go, but at least I'm on my way.


Actually, it was a relief to know that I am never truly anonymous. I am who I am, and those who know me, know me. I have a recognizable persona that is mine alone; unique attributes that, for better or worse, mark who I am. It's also good to know that I am capable of change, even though I fight it at times.