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ADALAI's Recent Blog Entries
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" Eleanor Roosevelt.
"You may have holes in your shoes, but don't let people out front know it. Shine the tops." Earl Hines.
Ok ok, so maybe I am digressing a bit here, but trust me I will ramble back on path. When I started with Sparkpeople, (the first time, before I took the break, then came back and saw the amazing results in most of the folks I started with.) I weighed..here it comes..are you ready..
Jan 18 th I weighed 338 lbs. I was devastated. The yo yoing had reached a point where I couldn't control anything, and while I have never spoken that number outloud, I think I can today.
I got down to 305 lbs, can you believe it! Really fast. And life happened, and I started to feel inferior, and retreated. Stopped logging in, stopped caring what I was putting in my mouth. Stopped wanting to move.
I came back, 7-26 I weighed in, and it was 333 lbs. I bawled, I wept, I looked around and saw the amazing transformations that others had made while I was gone, and for a really quick second .. Almost right back to where I started in less then 6 months! ( on 7-21 it was 331!, told you the scale was a wicked Master.)
I wanted to disappear again. The thought of having so much weight, and let alone, someone finding out how much that starting weight was, just broke my pea pickin heart! Self esteem issues are something I have plenty of, and in a lot of ways, SOMETIMES its easier to sit and wrap yourself up, and go "You know what, this is it for me. I am never going to lose over 150 lbs, and frankly, I love the way candy bars taste. That whole "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels? I will make it MY GOAL to find something that does!"
Realized something though. If this works for other people, it will work for me. I am not a freak, a side liner, or alone. And all those things, were things I felt, day to day. Even on the days where everything is crap balls and toenail clippings, even when I don't see a steady progress, and I feel like I am pulling a fast one on myself. Not a good liar, so I will say, somedays I have to imagine a Zombie uprising, and just how fast my chunky backside would be eaten, to make myself get up and exercise. Believe me, it helps. Esp with walking, just imagine behind you, someone going "brains". It super helps you pick up those feet, and get going. btw, on the same note, I really want to start doing some "Forza" for the same reason. Something about swinging a Bokken makes ya just feel amazingly powerful.
So right now, I weigh 324 lbs. In 12 weeks I have lost 9 lbs, but a few inches too. Newp, its not amazing progress, but let me tell you what is.
I can walk.
I can jog. (And in a good bra, I can not black my eyes while doing it!)
I still cry when I catch my reflection sometimes, because I feel like Jabba the Hut, or even worse, Pearl from Blade. But, I am making a point to look myself in the eyes and tell myself, "Noone has the power to make you feel anything more then beautiful, not even yourself."
My skin has cleared up. (amazingly that makes me glee, ya'll have no idea.)
My clothes fit tighter and when I flex my arms or legs you see..this strange shadowing line, I believe its called tone? (Round these parts, I call it a MIRACLE!)
I am impressed, that I am -still- sticking with it. Believe me, I did the lo carb lost 80 gained it all back. Did slim fast, did the soup diets, did the Magic Cleanse (Also bought stock in charmin when I did it) I ate the heart diet, I tried nutrisystem, (dont know why eating four servings of their food a meal didn't work! I mean come on!) and probably a zillion more things, that my husband would be happy to list out for y'all, if you really want to. Everything short of ordering a tape worm to swallow, and that was just because I have really watched to many alien movies, and the idea of it chest bursting made me a little queasy.
I will never be white. I will probally never be a size 4 (I love curves, its just me, not knocking anyone, but my goal is to get where I am comfortable and stop. Try 130 lbs of weight gone first then whittle from there. Barely stepping foot into "Onederland"
More importantly, I wanted to lose and tone.) I will never lose the weight and be magically 10 inches taller, with breasts of a play boy model. Losing weight, the journey isn't going to take away the nightmares I sometimes have, or make me a magically 'better' person. As a person, I am always improving, or at least I strive too. It will make me healthier, and make me feel not like some sore thumb beacon spouting out for advice. But it isn't a magic cure all.
My shoes may have some holes in them but I need to stop worrying about who can see the bottom of them. Shine the top, and give a big smile. Nothing is a magic fix, and anything that comes real easy, is something I probably wouldn't want anyways. I am a bit of a brat like that.
 motivation! plus, its utterly silly, and welp, I can handle silly or sarcastic with my serving of confession this morning.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Writing this, and it will probably be those random thoughts!
Doing the Halloween challenge. For me its like 3 lbs a week, which when you have as MUCH to lose as I do, it should come off a bit faster, but much like bra sizes, every one is different. My weight loss? It creeps, no, it snail crawls. I see women going "omg first week and I lost 10 lbs!" and I am so thrilled for them, I really am. (Hahah please don't see me as that troll under a bridge going "That heifer! How is she doing it!" I don't. More so I go "YAY! ")
I feel great. I can run, I can walk, I can shake my groove thang like noone is watching. Probably because they aren't cause when I shake said groove thang, I make sure the windows are drawn tightly, so children walking by aren't afraid. 
Weight is just a number and I know that scale, which is as we speak, earning itself the title of "Most Malicious Auditor of the Flesh", likes to giggle at me when I get on it. I swear to you, I stepped on it the first time and it squealed "No, really, get off me." Then it said "Fairest Lady in the Land, why are you doing this again..hahah just playing, no really Mandy why are you stepping on me!" Now it just goes "Same!" or "DING DING DING you won a prize!" before it flashes to One lb lost.
That's ok though.
See I met this other measuring tool. It's called a Tape Measure, and I am in love with it. Well, ok, honestly at first we kinda stared at one another and it whispered to me "Seriously, you want me to wrap around -that-. What are you taking up sewing a dress for the Statue of Liberty?" I only had to throw it across the room twice, before it started singing my praises like I was the Donna Measurement Mafia! It, has the redeeming quality, of showing me that even if the scale isn't moving as fast as I want it, the muscle underneath all this squishyfluffly stuff is totally remembering what it is to be used!
Now..if I could just get my bra to talk to me.....
Have a great day ya'll! Time to watch some true blood and do my weight training. SO much easier to lift looking at Eric...
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Ok, so this blog, isn't going to be the easiest for me to write, but I think it's good sometimes to do those things that aren't easy for you. (Who am I kidding! ) And just as a head's up, I sprinkle a lot of totally sarcastic humor in with things, so there's your cautionary warning!
For those who know me, my family and I lived in New Orleans for 9 years. I came from a small town in Kansas, and was married young. Due to a few factors, one being genetic, and one being given to me by a incident when I was little, we couldn't get pregnant, ok wait let me rephrase that, I could get pregger's but couldn't stay that way. Literally we marked a map, with our favorite cities, or 'dream places” to live, closed our eyes and tossed the darts, and where the two darts were the nearest too, is where we were off to. (I was 18, I don't know what HIS problem was, deciding something like that with a method like that!) Honestly, it was to get away from the places that had so many bad memories for me, and to realize even IF my childhood had messed up us being able to have children, it wasn't the end of our life's. We were going to move, get stable, I would finish my RN and then we would adopt!
I picked up a friend I met online a few states over that wanted to go with, and we moved. My husband came down later, and we all roomed together, til R and I branched out into our own house. I crap you not, the party after graduation I just didn't feel right. And we found out, at the ER I was six months along. You have no idea ,at 21 just how blessed I felt. My miracle. She was born in New Orleans. And I didn't even care when they said, “We are sorry, but she was a flux, we can't even explain how you carried her to term.”
We bought a house against the park, we both worked, good jobs. We watched our little one grow, and there THOUSANDS of miles from family, we made friends that were family. BBQ's on the weekend, couple's days to the park. Honestly, we were young and things just seemed SO in a row. I used to take J to the quarter every Sunday to watch the artists, to eat beignets when she was old enough, and then we would go to the Lake so she could smell the brackish water.
I took a job at a hospital in New Orleans. Loved the city, all it's soul, dirty and rough and undefined. I adored how folks could be exactly what they wanted. And I cried tears in a hospital in New Orleans, when I lost another baby. I yelled at God , about how unfair it was. (that situation is a another story completely!)
We did manage to have another baby. Rea. My little angel that they wanted to take, because I was bleeding between the wall and the placenta. I refused, and I held J tightly through that whole pregnancy. She was born in New Orleans too, and I thanked god for those friends from there, for our circle of tightness. The girls were blessed with adopted uncles and aunts, and grandparent's that even though we weren't blood, accepted us in with the ease that comes from “The Big Easy”.
Life moved on. We did dance classes, and remodeled. They had found pre cancerous cells during my pregnancyy with Rea, we did the scrapping and for my own safety I elected to besterilizedd, after she was born. My womb couldn't carry anything else, and the miscarriages had caused so much scar tissue. (I had PCOS, Endometriosis, as well as a few other issues). We didn't go to Mardi Gras in the city anymore, but did the family friendly events. It's so hard to explain to folks exactly what a local sees in New Orleans, or did.
A few months before Katrina it was discovered I had cancerous cells in my uterus. I know that sounds so horrid, and it was scary. I had a hysto and went on my medication to make sure I would be there for both girls.
As goofy as it sounds, knowing the storm was coming two days before, wasn't something my husband and I 'knew”. I was woke up by a call “You guys don't try to ride this one out come on over.” Between my sickness, between sorting the girls out, and everything else, the TV wasn't something we were watching a lot of. In fact, those same friends who had accepted us in, made sure we knew. The storm itself was what we were frightened of, and not so much. I remember telling folks “See you on Monday, ya`ll! Enjoy the long weekend.”
Watching the evacuation on the tele is nothing like being in it. There are only a few ways IN and out of NO, due to the fact its surrounded by water. Folks in the inner city never had a need for a car, so it wasn't strange to see folks like 15 to a car packed in, riding on the bumpers of it. I was out of gas in my new car, so we took my husbands. We went to get gas and saw the lines, saw folks beating one another to get it, and decided we would just take the one vehicle. Honestly, I was so “ah its not gonna hit here!” that I didn't even want to pack up much more then what we needed for the weekend trip into Texas. Thank GOD for the hubby grabbing up the baby pictures of the girls. Just in case. And I bitched about the time he was taking to do it! I know right, one of those situations you really have to apologize later..(I didn't mean it, Molasses britches!)
Just realized how honkin large this is! So going to condense it a bit. We drove a drive that took 4 hours normally. It took 21 hours. Watching folks price gouge, watching folks broke down on the side of the road, and no way to avoid traffic to get over to help them. People, crying in tears, it was a madhouse. I was glad we had taken a few more 'imports' from New Orleans, a friend of ours whose husband was active in the Coast Guard there, they were from Cali, she came with us with their young child. It's funny, they don't mention those stories in the news. You hear all these horror stories, but one of our friends was married to a police man. Coast guard, armed forces, fellow nurses at the hospitals (I had quit working once we found out about the C word) firemen, security guards, were required to stay. They could leave of course, but they were asked and most did -stay- behind, to ride it out.
The storm wasn't the bad part. I watched it hit and we went to bed finally, going “ok its gonna be a bit of flooding but we are gonna be alright!” Happy. Excited. Able to tell my girls they would be in their beds by the end of the week, and nope! Everyone was gonna be fine! Then my daddy woke me up to look, the next morning early. The levee had broke. And in that one fell swoop, everything we had come to love about our -home-, was endanger.
We had friends who were airlifted out. Who had family members dying in ICU's that were not evacuated before hand. A mother of a dear friend left her mothers beside as soon as they managed to evacuate her from a hospital and because she left after the roads OUT were closed, she was stuck in the Dome. I know folks who lived through it, on their roofs, only to die broken hearted a few years later, no longer in their down town family home, but in a rental.
If you have stuck with me this long, thank you. Rushing a bit now, because the point of it was. We lost every thing. You hear these stories about folks, wanting a hand out, or how the victims were 'this' or that. Flat out. We didn't go back, other then the one time to be boated into our house and bring back one box of things of the girls, to try to salvage. My car gone, my house gone, our things, all those things we strove to do..gone. Molded, broken and left for garbage. The Native New Orleaner's, most of them went on back, I just couldn't. The idea of what was in the soil, in living in a graveyard of broken memories, and trying to get through it, was to much for me. (that makes me a chicken!)
But on a karma level, we relocated over in Texas (no not Houston) and got a rental and started over. Then got whacked by Rita, and honestly moved up north for a bit. Getting got twice in a few months is enough to make you go “I GIVE UP!” But we live back down here, and I am gonna say, New Orleans, got a huge amount of press and help, these small farming towns? Got screwed. At this point my husband and I were joking about moving to places we didn't like to see if the effect followed us . I know we aren't right.
I can drive around here, and see fema tarps STILL on houses, see businesses still closed down, and it amazes me that on this anniversary folks still want to bring up, 'whose black, whose white” who was poor, who was not, who was stupid, who should have left, who knew what, and when and where and why. It's insane to me, that folks tend to gloss over and see what they need to see to be able to stomach the loss of life. The loss of humanity and just how beautiful and how ugly we can be to our fellow man. I know folks get sick of hearing about Katrina, that they get sick of hearing about Rita. I understand it. But I want you to close your eyes, and just imagine for ONE second, your house, your things, your items like toys from childhood gone. Ruined. I want you to imagine no power for weeks and weeks, and no clean water. I want you to imagine looters and seeing your town overran by folks who are trying to survive because you were blessed enough to get out. Imagine hugging your children to you and explaining why all their things are gone and why you aren't going home, and you don't know where their friends are. Where their 'family' is, their aunts, their uncles. And then I want you to let that breath out, and take a look around you and give the first person you see, a huge hug and tell them JUST how much they mean to you.
I took that from Katrina and Rita. That nothing, nothing at all is forever. That thing's can change in a blink of an eye, and I never wanted to lose someone, or something again without showing through action or word, how much it meant to me. Even the stranger across the street, I always make sure to wave at them! And now and again, one waves back and I have to grin.
Do one thing today that makes someone you meet today smile. Make sure to make the time to know what things own you, and what you own. Make sure to know that if tomorrow everything was gone, or your friends were all over the country because they too didn't have a home, that they know and knew you loved them.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Alright, so here it is!
What in the heck is wrong with me? Honestly. If you know, please let me know.
I am the proud mother of two beautiful little girls. Honestly, I had no issues being around groups of folks before, but suddenly, when it involves activities with them, I feel so amazingly and shockingly out of place.
Cheer leading. Their classes. Basically anything where all the parents are there and have to hang out together.
I grew up, family to family. I didn't meet my mom again until I was 13 and moved in then jetted out at 16 to live on my own. My husband and I moved to New Orleans and stayed there, until after Katrina, then we went up north by Chicago, and you know the strange looks and us being 'weird' was because we were southerners! but now back down in the south in a small town, it just is almost a paranoia.
My style is my own, I have always been a big girl, so its not like I am uncomfortable with my weight,(I mean I don't like it, but it doesn't make me think when I move someone goes "OMG FAT GIRL WALKING!" ) I would like to say it is, but I know that isn't it. Its more like not having anything to talk about, or this feeling of them going "O-m-g, that's their mom?" be it in the advanced academics challenges, or at the cheer practices, it just always seems, like there is this unspoken kinda thing.
I am not all about how my hair looks, how my nails are, what my husband does for a living. I don't work, so it seems like that in itself makes some women go "No Wai, did you see her bring her husband his drink?"
Rambling in this, and I know it, and thank you if you are reading it for flowing with me.
Is it because I don't like the trendy clothing? Cause I like wearing dark colors, and if my little one's are more comfortable wearing pink bows with plastic skulls in them, I am alright with that, instead of the neon colors? Is it because I don't have an issue telling my girls to make sure they say, "Yes Ma`am, and No Ma`am to their elders"? It can't be because of my piercing I took them all out! My tats stay covered. I don't have wild dye in.
I have always had a group of friends, like wherever we moved, it's always been really easy for me to make them, I am sassy and sarcastic and the chick that you know will tell you if you ask her for the truth. And I am still close, thank god, with alot of those friends from the different places we have lived.
So what is it, that makes me feel like I am constantly walking around with spinach in my teeth here? It's like on some levels, and a horrible comparison, but like being the last one picked for teams.
I have never been one to conform. Like, it's never been something for me, that I wanted to be. Honestly, and I try to make sure the girls know it too. Its better to stand out for your character, your insides, then any polish or facade you put out there. And this I have to say, is the first time in my life, I have felt the need to cover up those tats, not wear the clothes I like and instead do the soccer mom thing, just to fit in because I don't want things reflecting on the girls, in any way shape or form. But then I think about it, and..
I would be doing a bigger disservice to them, by pretending to fit into those groups, then by standing my ground and being me, take me as I am, flawed and jacked up, rough around the edges, and working on things, then to pretend to be anything else.
Meh.
I like to write. I like to RP. I love to take pictures, I love to read things not on best sellers list. I listen to whatever music catches my interest at the time. I sew, I knit, I can my own food, all while wearing black and if I want to go get another tat, thats my business, it doesnt reflect on me as being any 'class' or another. I love to hike, and on the same hand, I love roaming a big city, or a forest, either one is beautiful to me. I don't like to judge folks, and I don't like being judged, if something doesn't hurt a child, or someone else, its noone's business who you are with, or what you wanna do with that time. Hell, wear latex, wear a collar, or wear a nuns habit for all I care. Not all my friends come from backgrounds that I would discuss in front of my kids, but all of them I am proud of or I wouldn't call them friends. My husband and I don't feel we have to join a certain club to feel alright with ourselves. I don't think every thing is answered by believing one way or another, and I sure the hell don't feel its my job to tell folks what they are doing wrong, in their own spirituality. I play video games, and the flute :) but not at the same time!
And god, those things make you stand out where I am right now.
Friday, August 13, 2010
In Step Four we call it a "moral" inventory because we compile a list of traits and behaviors that have transgressed our highest, or moral, values. We also inventory our "good" traits and the behaviors that represent them. In our life's moral inventory the defects or dysfunctional behaviors might include some that once worked; some dysfunctional behaviors may have saved our lives as children, but they are now out-of-date, self-defeating, and cause us a great deal of trouble when we use them as adults.
- A Hunger for Healing, p. 61
Been doing the soul searching inventory of myself. A lot of hard work, a lot of tears, a lot of emotions I have a tendency to love being buried. Emotional trigger's, got to love them, but I have been facing those inner bogey men, and for the most part, not feeding into the shut down, and eat mode. Stuff them down, somewhere, where folks don't see them, or the frightened little girl in there.
It's amazing, how much work you can do, like get in there, get down in the midst of it, work, and how utterly helpless you can feel to thing's that have happened in the past. Rational thought, tells you, you are no longer that person, no longer that child, that teen, that now you are an adult and a mother, and those things are so far behind you, that though they are apart of you, they 'can't" hurt you again. Not like they did.
I deflect, I use sarcasm and humor to cover things that make me nervous, upset, or cause pain in some way to me. I also use humor, sometimes self effacing to soothe myself, its a natural reaction, to make little of something no matter what it is. If I lost that sense of humor, I don't think I would have dealt as well with anything that has ever happened.
Everyone has ghosts in their closet. Everyone has stories that if you heard them tell them would make you weep, make you feel for them, make you wanna wrap them up and tend to them. I stand by that. I also, stand by that someone can tell you their life and as a person you go, "that would have killed me" but each person's pain is their own. Something horrible for one person, to another doesn't strike down in the same way.
Putting this out here, cause it's just something I need to see in writing, need to express on out. Vent it out.
I am not the same person I have always been, each day, each interaction, leaves it's however small footprint, or fingerprint on me. The trauma's, the things that have happened, the things I fear, the things I feed, the learning to shut down emotions, the learning to deflect, to care for others at all costs, the things that I wake up screaming about in the middle of the night, those things have made me.
Both the good and the bad in me, the things I love, and the things I wish to change, each show marks of fire's I have walked through and came out on the other side. Each scar, each mark from another or from myself, shouldn't speak to me of what was, but of what is to come.
I guess in this rambling what I am trying to say, to myself, to those who might read it is: I cannot deny what I have experienced. I cannot hide behind it. OR hide it from myself. But instead of shoving them down, and masking them, instead of feeding them, and hiding them, I need to know that those experiences, horrible, good, bad, ugly, amazing, painful and pleasureful have made me. My character, the things I love about myself, (when I am not curbstomping myself :) those things, are mine because of what I have been through.
My moral inventory is my own. I won't share it out here. And not placing weight on things ,as far as "These things made me do this" My behavior, my actions they are mine to own as well. I overeat, out of an addiction. Bingeing, becoming consumed or consuming to try to fill an emptiness, or stuff down some emotion or another, isn't healthy. Those behaviors that were salvation and allowed me to keep that sanity, during those times, are now self defeatist, and in truth hurting me more then helping -now-.
My account, my story, my life, these things are mine. I need to learn to accept that it's ok not to hide, its ok not to deflect, it's ok to be angry, to be upset. It's ok to scream and kick sometimes, instead of smiling and saying fine. I don't have to pretend that every day, everything is roses and sunshine, it isn't. I also don't have to be so cutting with my sarcasm, or remarks.
Probably a bit to much TMI. And to be honest, I had to backspace apologizing for that. :) cause I was going to.
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