When Did I Get This Fat

I know you're thinking: you're not fat.  And I may not be.  But none of my pants fit anymore.  I had to go out and buy new pants.  AND for the first time, I had to buy LARGE shirts.  Mediums don't fit me.  The size itself tells me I'm big.  Large size shirts = large sized girl.   So you can tell me I'm not fat all you want, but I'm fat.

I don't know what happened, or how I got fat, or how to make it go away.  But I want it to stop.  I hate every picture I take.  I always wind up wearing sweats even when its totally inappropriate.  I don't wear tank tops because I don't want to show my fat arms.  And every time I go to the gym and the machine asks me to enter my weight, I enter it really fast so that no one near by sees how fat I've gotten.  I almost feel like lying to the machine so people won't judge me at the gym for being slightly obese.

I mostly blame this on my move to Chicago.  This place is full of fattening foods, and comfort food.  Plus it's FREEZING cold and so naturally my body stores fat.  A lovely side affect of winter weather.  It's not bad enough that it is below thirty every day, but hey, lets put a few added pounds on your ass and thighs!

Ughh...

Dr. Henry Cloud

He is a famous therapist who I am friends with on facebook.  He is a very technological therapist (with lots of published books), I feel like he never sleeps.  Anyway: today he wrote something on his facebook that seemed quite intriguing.

Question: is what you are doing sustainable? Think about some area of your life, whether work or personal, or emotional, and put it to the sustainability test. "Can you keep doing what you are doing for an ongoing amount of time?" If you could, that would mean that it is sustaining itself, or said another way, you are finding enough resources to keep "it" going.  If not, it may be a sign that you need to make some sort of change, or just make sure that this is not "just a season." A CPA could not keep up the pace of March, but he or she knows that after April 15th, the pace will change. If you are in a known season, and overextended, that may be ok. The problem comes when a "season" becomes a "pattern."  If you are in a pattern that you do not want to go on indefinitely, think of what you can do to make a change that will get you to a sustainable place.

This sustainability question session got me thinking about my current situation.  Currently I am in a place where I am living a life that is not something I can sustain for a long period of time.  Having hardly any friends, feeling like my work life is empty, having nothing to do in my free time but shop, having no one to share life with besides my boyfriend...that is hardly living at all.  I go home, I make dinner, I watch TV, i sleep, i get up, go to work, go home, make dinner, watch tv, sleep, get up...(okay, you get the picture).  Basically my day to day living has no living in it.  I'm just living on a plateau going no where and walking the same way every day.  I don't know how much longer I can sustain life this way. 

So, the next question is : do i try to sustain life in L.A. which has been invariably calling my name?

I heart

today is a day for the things i love:

♥sharpies:

 
♥art:

 

 ♥california:

♥bokeh:

 

♥moon sets:

♥literature:



♥my friends:
 
 ♥photography: 

Tiger Tiger Tiger

Today Tiger gave his speech/apology to the world, or to those people who didn't boycott it.  Personally, I think Tiger did a fine job.  Could you imagine having to apologize to BILLIONS of people for your mistake.  Just imagine how you felt when you were younger and you broke your mom's favorite vase, or crashed your parents car, or did something totally stupid...and you had to admit it to your parents, or your best friend, or someone else you really care about.  How horrible was that?  Didn't you just feel so bad, and like such a disappointment?  Well multiply that feeling times A BILLION (literally), and try to apologize.  Considering the circumstances, and knowing how many people Tiger let down, I think he did a fine job.

Tiger is clearly working towards being a better man and restoring his marriage.  He is taking steps to work through the therapeutic process of restoring his mental health, he is attempting to heal his marriage, and his biggest concern was the well being of his family through all all of his personal wrong doings.

So to a very specific bitch that I know judged Tiger like she was perfect...go screw yourself.  I know you think you know what's best...but for one minute of the day can you give someone a fucking break...I know you think that "tiger woods sounds like a tool" and that "this whole thing is the some of the most atrocious shit I've seen" but can you HONESTLY tell me you've never had to apologize to anyone?

Yes, Tiger is responsible for getting himself into this situation, and yes it is Tiger's bad for cheating on his wife.  But he is doing the best he can.  People make mistakes.  People fall down and make poor choices and do dumb things sometimes.  They act like idiots, and ignore what really matters.  Every single person has done something they regret, or they would take back, or something they wish they had never done to begin with...but what Tiger has shown is that he isn't just backing out when it's easy.  He isn't just walking away from his marriage and his kids and family.  He is taking the hard steps of dealing with the issue.


Most people in this world are too scared of therapy or too scared of themselves to actually look in the mirror and face their shit.  So, although many people would disagree with me, my hats off to you Tiger.  For being the better man and taking the high road.   Congrats on working it out in therapy.  My hope is that you don't find yourself back in this situation and you really work it out with your loving and supportive wife, and that your kids don't have to feel this pain again.

And just remember folks:

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young

I love Baz Luhrmann's song, "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen" (originally an essay "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997).  Ever since the song came out in 1998 I have been obsessed with it.  I listen to it several times a year, quote it often and sometimes sing it to myself when I am thinking something poor or trying to find the right words to get motivated.  It's a good reminder to people of my generation to see things are they really are, rather than in a skewed version of ignorance and innocence.

It goes a little something like this:





My favorite lines of the song/speech are (which are ever poignant today):

"Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh never mind.  you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you cant grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked."

"Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young."

"What ever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either
your choices are half chance, so are everybody elses."

"Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday." 

Quotes

If you don't know me...i am obsessed...like taken over, look at every day, can't stop repeating, and sending, and searching, quotes.  They are my all time favorite things.  I have binders and books, and emails, and scrapbooks FILLED with my favorite quotes.

Here are some ones that I am IN love with:

"I used to complain because I had no shoes, then one day I met a man who had no feet."


"There are two ways to live: As if nothing is a miracle; or you can life as if everything is."

in the midst of my searching I found my new favorite pastime: http://icanread.tumblr.com/

In case you didn't know

Pet peeves aside, I really hate it when people assume they know me (actually, on that note, I hate it when people assume they know anything).  I have someone in my life, who a. i wish i didn't know at all and b. likes to twitter about me.  The twitter post was something like "blah blah blah blah I don't know what I am talking about blah blah blah."  So, instead of asking me about my life, and getting to know who I am and what I have been through this person likes to run her mouth on twitter, act like she knows what's right, and treat me like I'm some one who has never been through anything hard.

Well, in case you didn't know: I have been through a lot.  And when I say a lot, I mean there were weeks when I could barely get out of bed, and moments when I had lost all hope in the world, and times when there was no sunshine and I was buried under piles of snow and rubble and I could barely breathe.  And it's not because I was melodramatic, it's because the world had completely crumbled in front of my eyes, and sadness was all I knew.  But I say this knowing that I don't want a pity party, or a parade in my honor crying tears of sadness that I have been through hard stuff, nor do i want sympathy.  Because how I chose to live my life is not in the shadow of those dark times, nor do I carry the weight of the struggles in my life when I wake up every morning and decide to go out there and give it another shot.  What I chose to do with my life, in spite of the hard times, is recognize the countless blessing I have been given.  The things that I have that many people in this world live every single day without. 

I am grateful for the bed I rest my head on, and the family I have that loves and supports me, and I am thankful that I am never hungry.  I am eternally grateful that I know what love is, and that I have the support of great friends all across this country.  And I am grateful that I have the chance to pursue my dreams, and the opportunity to travel the world, and the know-how to be a kind and compassionate person to everyone I meet.  I am grateful my mother taught me the greatest lesson in life : LIVE LIFE HONESTLY, and FORGIVE OTHERS.  And I am forever grateful to the fact that my father is the wise man that he is, and has the patience to listen to his daughter gripe about her life problems and the heart to tell her the truth.  I am thankful to have a sister who always kept a close eye on me, and is there to help guide and support me whenever I lose my way. I am thankful for my family's campground in Colorado. It is a place that I can go and be loved, accepted, and taken in every single time I go there.  I am so appreciative to every one in my mom's family, and every one in my dad's family because they are all special, loving, and caring individuals who are bright and talented and unique.   I am happy to have a car. and a job. and to have enough money to buy some new clothes every once in a while.  I am thankful that it is in my nature to help.  I am glad that I have it on my heart to become a teacher in the hopes to change lives.  I am thankful i get to drink sweat tea from Starbucks if I want it.  And I can go to the movies if I feel like it.  And I can marry whomever I so choose (as long as he loves me back!).  I am thankful every single day that I am alive and experiencing this gift of life.  I am so eternally grateful that I know God.  I am thankful I have friends that make me laugh so hard I nearly cry.  And friends that will go on crazy adventures with me and stay up all night with me.  I am thankful I have a deep yearning to create, even if I am the only one who knows it.  I am happy i grew up in a culturally diverse area, full of accepting loving people.  I am blessed to have had the teachers that I have that have allowed me to become the writer, the student, and the future educator that I am.  I am thankful and grateful for all the very little and all the very big things that I have in this life.

So, although I chose to live life as if it were a blessing instead of a curse, and I wear a smile every day because it brings joy to the world...it doesn't mean that I don't know pain, and I have had an easy life.   My life is just as hard as the next persons, but I choose to acknowledge the gifts instead of what's been taken from me.  I prefer to think that when there are cloudy skies, that the sun is out, you just can't see it.  I know that it is only in the darkest of nights that you can see the stars the brightest.  Life knows enough pain, every person has felt sadness, but I chose to live life happily to the best of my ability because I would much rather share happiness and joy than be full of pain and sadness.

In case you didn't know.