Several post back I told you that I was in negotiations for my value in a possible relationship. Well, I am still on the shelf. Either he didn't want to or could not afford to pay the going rate. I gotta admit, it bothers me a little and no matter how many of my friend reaffirm that it was for the best, I can't help but wonder, what if? Not only that, but over the past month...which I've been absent, I've cut a few guys. The latest was a gentlemen I met for dinner this past week. This one was ok, nothing to shout about, however he had potential. He had potential that is until I discovered I knew someone who knew someone who knew him. Turns out he "exaggerated" on a few things. Sigh...back to the board. Ok, so here's my struggle. I keep hearing over and over again how miserable lots of married people are. I even have people telling me that though they're out of marriages, they reget the marriages and the fallout. BUT I also see lots of miserable folks who don't walk away from the relationships, and I think its for the same reason I keep looking and the same reason some settle for someone who doesn't value them at the level they should. No one wants to be alone and sometimes not being alone is ok even if you're still lonely. I am having a problem walking out this holding out for someone who values me, because frankly I see few folks in relationships like that. I see a few folks who had the sense to get into a long term relationship early. They've had the opportunity to ride out some storms together and understand the value of their partner. The rest of us have grown to value ourselves for our survival skills and independent strength. Its difficult to appreciate and value what others bring to our lives. So honestly there are days where I ask "does he really have to value me at $500 per stock? Is it so bad that he's only willing to pay $250?" I mean if I can survive on that whats the big deal right? Hmmm, so I wait 20 plus years to get married and then throw it all away settling in one clown? No, not gonna happen, I guess I'll roll on into old age single, alone sometimes, making long term plans for my care, childless and whatever I'm giving up not settling. I just gotta keep believing that this reality is better than being miserable with someone who doesn't value me, lies to me, cheats on me, abuses me or any other sundry of sucky behaviors.
So I guess you'd like to know whats going on with the weightloss huh? Since July I've gone from size 32 to 24/22/20 and I even have 1 14/16 sweater. I'm not talking pounds cause frankly its not moving as fast as I'd like. I'm lighter than I've been in 5 years. Someone told me they didn't recognize me until I smiled tonight. A friend told me I move quicker than earlier this year. I wear a small heel much more often and sneakers a lot less. Oh yeah remember how I was panting as I walked into the building at work in one of my first post? Not anymore!!!!
Now the downside is that I'm able to eat more things and I really have to work at not eating emotionally. I have to be conscience of not eating along with the people I eat with. The holidays are crazy, you people do nothing but eat!!!! Lol, I didn't realize how much we eat at this time of year.
The other downside is that I REALLY thought my love life would begin to soar at this point. Seriously my love life was better at size 32. Actually it wasn't, its just that I made love to food more then and it hurt less. I could blame being single on my weight. Now I know its me and not the weight. I know that I spent or wasted years being afraid of true intimacy and letting someone in. Now I freak at the thought of not ever being able to let someone in. I've made a career of picking guys who were not able to be 100% in a relationship. Its like knowing that you keep picking the wrong road while trying to get home and if you don't do something different you will just keep driving around never arriving home. But driving around is all you've ever known...hmm.
Now the cool side of this is that the future is blank...for a controlling person thats very scary, but as a person who fears it may be too late it provides fresh hope. I mean a blank future could send anything right? right? I'm asking you...well thats what I gotta believe. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...
Friday, November 20, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Clutter and moving on
This weekend I helped a friend clean (this blog was started 11/08/08). Oh my gosh! Ever know someone who had a clean appearance, but you discovered lots of dirt beneath, and you finally understood why he or she could not finish the degree they'd been working on for several years at 4 or 5 different universities or whatever they couldn't finish? Thats what I experienced with this friend. She had stuff from several relationships, all contained in one area. My cousin once recommended this book to me, "Clutter's Last Stand". The author, (I'm paraphrasing) said that clutter, mess, unnecessary things which we continue to hold onto and not get rid of drains us of energy and basically prevents us from moving on. I know a young lady who has wedding gifts from her first wedding, which she has never used. She's been married and divorced again. Yes she has stuff from the second marriage as well. I think she finally got rid of dress #1, but still has dress #2. I have another friend who has paperwork and such from several relationships, I know another person who has her dead spouses' things still in place. He's been dead several years. I use to keep pictures of my ex-boyfriend's little girl on my desk at work. Funny, I don't know where those pictures are now, and I no longer have those urges to call him just to see how he's doing. Lets face it, seeing things remind us of when things were different, and sometimes they even give us permission to slip into the past when we should be moving forward. I would look at her picture and remember trips to the community pool, remember Christmas in front of a warm fire, remember "mother/daughter" outings, and so on and so on. I would either forget or minimize his lies, cheating, and the things that made the relationship unhealthy.
I kept thinking about the book as I cleaned and kept coming across souvenirs from relationships. At first I was really judgemental about my friends inability to let go of the crap and move on, but after I had some time I began to look at her clutter through the lens of my fat. Its real easy to look at someone else's "clutter" and say why can't she or he just drop that stuff and move on. From the outside it is very clear that the things are cluttering the person's life and hindering progress, but sometimes its all that a person knows. Ok lets stop walking around the pasture and go on in the barn...
Being fat is/was all that I've known. I don't have a skinny moment or star to guide my ship by. I am basically sailing blind. Recently I've developed an obsession, its called looking in the mirror. I never owned a full length mirror. In my apartment in Harlem, there was this beautiful marble stand and it held a mirror that went to the ceiling. I stopped by it in the mornings to make sure things were straight, but never to simply admire how my hips looked in something or how my breast rounded into and really enhanced the look of a blouse. I never just stood and looked at and appreciated my body. I've said for years, that I was going to buy a full mirror for checking myself, never did it. At my job we have these wonderful long panels of mirrors, and a big "ole" mirror in the women's bathroom. I went to the breakroom to microwave a cup of water. Hmmm, 2 minutes, just enough time to go to the bathroom. I really didn't have to go that bad, but it hit me I was going to check myself out in the mirror. With each smaller piece of clothing I fit into, I enjoy the view more. As I walked to the bathroom, I marvelled at how smaller women take this small pleasure for granted. Being fat, I am use to hearing "you have such a pretty face", I'm not use to hearing a man look at me and utter some explecative of appreciation. If you think hard enough you probably have a "star-less" experience. Let me help you out, I'll share a few more of mine. For years I had no reference point for how real love looks in a relationship. I had no idea what a normal courtship looked like. I had no idea what it was like to see a woman put her trust in her man and he reward that with actions which line up with her trust. Sometimes when we have no point of reference and if we've never seen something, we can't imagine the benefits it would bring to our lives. We can't imagine what we've missed not having them, and we settle for less, we don't dare hope for those things, we are actually scared (maybe even terrified) of even thinking about setting sail for that distant shore. This whole weightloss thing is very much a mental battle and the fat is my clutter. Everyday that little voice whispers, "what IS skinny, how do we know we can find skinny, what if we wander around on the ocean for years and NEVER get to skinny, what if we get so loss that we end up back where we started, what if we get to skinny and life is worse than the land of fat, wouldn't it just be better to be in the land of fat and happy than on this unknown journey, are you sure there's something out there, what if there is a big waterfall at the end, and what if we fail and everyone laughs at us? Then some days the voice just says hopelessly, "we'll never get to skinnyville, and if we do, we won't know anyone there." I get it, change is difficult and scary, and when you add in the unknown it can paralyze you into staying some place that's just "okay". I get that my friend holds on to her memories because at least they provide her with clear landmarks, familiar stars. At least she knows these things, people and situations. What she doesn't realize is that familiar and known are not always good, and "good enough for government work" is not always healthy. She doesn't realize that each piece of clutter and leftovers from old relationships is like an anchor that holds her ship in place. She is not able to set sail to better things. I can only entice her to launch out and set sail for people and things that will nurture her soul in ways she can't even imagine. In the mean time, I am working on listening less and less to the crew members on my own ship that cry for a mutiny. With each pound I drop, I'm throwing clutter overboard and sailing on.
I kept thinking about the book as I cleaned and kept coming across souvenirs from relationships. At first I was really judgemental about my friends inability to let go of the crap and move on, but after I had some time I began to look at her clutter through the lens of my fat. Its real easy to look at someone else's "clutter" and say why can't she or he just drop that stuff and move on. From the outside it is very clear that the things are cluttering the person's life and hindering progress, but sometimes its all that a person knows. Ok lets stop walking around the pasture and go on in the barn...
Being fat is/was all that I've known. I don't have a skinny moment or star to guide my ship by. I am basically sailing blind. Recently I've developed an obsession, its called looking in the mirror. I never owned a full length mirror. In my apartment in Harlem, there was this beautiful marble stand and it held a mirror that went to the ceiling. I stopped by it in the mornings to make sure things were straight, but never to simply admire how my hips looked in something or how my breast rounded into and really enhanced the look of a blouse. I never just stood and looked at and appreciated my body. I've said for years, that I was going to buy a full mirror for checking myself, never did it. At my job we have these wonderful long panels of mirrors, and a big "ole" mirror in the women's bathroom. I went to the breakroom to microwave a cup of water. Hmmm, 2 minutes, just enough time to go to the bathroom. I really didn't have to go that bad, but it hit me I was going to check myself out in the mirror. With each smaller piece of clothing I fit into, I enjoy the view more. As I walked to the bathroom, I marvelled at how smaller women take this small pleasure for granted. Being fat, I am use to hearing "you have such a pretty face", I'm not use to hearing a man look at me and utter some explecative of appreciation. If you think hard enough you probably have a "star-less" experience. Let me help you out, I'll share a few more of mine. For years I had no reference point for how real love looks in a relationship. I had no idea what a normal courtship looked like. I had no idea what it was like to see a woman put her trust in her man and he reward that with actions which line up with her trust. Sometimes when we have no point of reference and if we've never seen something, we can't imagine the benefits it would bring to our lives. We can't imagine what we've missed not having them, and we settle for less, we don't dare hope for those things, we are actually scared (maybe even terrified) of even thinking about setting sail for that distant shore. This whole weightloss thing is very much a mental battle and the fat is my clutter. Everyday that little voice whispers, "what IS skinny, how do we know we can find skinny, what if we wander around on the ocean for years and NEVER get to skinny, what if we get so loss that we end up back where we started, what if we get to skinny and life is worse than the land of fat, wouldn't it just be better to be in the land of fat and happy than on this unknown journey, are you sure there's something out there, what if there is a big waterfall at the end, and what if we fail and everyone laughs at us? Then some days the voice just says hopelessly, "we'll never get to skinnyville, and if we do, we won't know anyone there." I get it, change is difficult and scary, and when you add in the unknown it can paralyze you into staying some place that's just "okay". I get that my friend holds on to her memories because at least they provide her with clear landmarks, familiar stars. At least she knows these things, people and situations. What she doesn't realize is that familiar and known are not always good, and "good enough for government work" is not always healthy. She doesn't realize that each piece of clutter and leftovers from old relationships is like an anchor that holds her ship in place. She is not able to set sail to better things. I can only entice her to launch out and set sail for people and things that will nurture her soul in ways she can't even imagine. In the mean time, I am working on listening less and less to the crew members on my own ship that cry for a mutiny. With each pound I drop, I'm throwing clutter overboard and sailing on.
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