A first. A very good first. Last night the beautiful boy spent the night, alone, in his own room. He fell asleep very early, around 6 p.m., because we got off schedule during the weekend. So he awoke around 10 and played for a while. We took him to bed around 11 and both of us lay down with him, hoping for him to settle. With no bottle. He squirmed, he squirmed, he tossed, and turned, he whined and fussed, he… This is starting to sound like Dr. Seuss. Anyway, it went on. And on. We finally caved and gave him half a bottle. He inhaled it and was none too happy when it was all gone, but I did the deft binky switch maneuver, and he went for it. It helps to be too tired to fight. I tiptoed out of the room, but he heard me, lifted his head, and started to cry. Oh, the most heart wrenching how could you leave me cry. So I lay back down and got snuggly buggly again. Which I like very much. It only took an extra 5 or 10 minutes, and I tiptoed back to my room. His door is open and gated, my door is open and down the hall. The monitor is on. I can hear him if he needs me. He slept until morning. Ahhh, bliss. I’m crossing my fingers that it wasn’t a fluke and that he’ll make it through the night tonight.
When I awoke to whimpering at 4 a.m. the other day, and found my child lodged beneath my dresser, I decided it’s time for him to learn to sleep in his own room. We had his room ready when he came home from the hospital with him, over a year ago, but never actually used it. It began to collect things, until it was filled with bags and boxes and ribbons. It had become, and stayed, the gift wrapping room. We moved all the non-baby things out, and I put a cube shelf unit in his closet for his clothes (which were conveniently in the laundry room until now). We gathered most of the toys from around the house and arranged them on shelves for him. We left a few of his favorites downstairs. I put a queen mattress directly on the floor and finally found a use for the crib bumper that I’d worked so hard to make him, over a year ago. It is now a queen mattress bumper. It’s just a bit longer than the two sides of the mattress that meet the wall, and they provide a little amount of cushion when he’s scooting himself across the mattress in the middle of the night, half asleep. He does that. Like a little mole. His face is down and he scoots on his stomach with his butt up in the air, scoot scoot scoot, here, there, back again. He moves quite a lot in his sleep. We’re working on a night-night routine, and I’ve been sleeping with him until he is familiar with the room. I’m also weaning him from night time bottles. This is alot to throw at him at once, but I’m tired of washing sheets every single day, if I don’t wake up at 2 a.m. to change him (and risk waking him as well).
He likes to have me right where he is, so it’s hard to get anything done. I’ve been trying to clean out my spare room and turn it into my craft room, thus giving myself precedence over my non-existent guests. I finally got him to take a nap, and he had a nice long rest. He just woke up and I’m marveling in the moment. I can hear him happily playing and singing and cooing and having a good time. I don’t want him to see me and decide he has to cry until I come be with him, so here I am, blogging, but more importantly, hiding from him. Hiding from my own son!
It’s been about twenty minutes. He’s been alone long enough now, and is starting to lose interest with the things in his room. I must go snuggle my Boo!
Okay. I’m back. And I’m feeling much better. A thank you to all the people who post such warm and nice things.
I find that one of the hazards of blogging is that it’s so in the moment. That’s all fine and good when the moment is good. But when the moment is dark. Well. Not so good.
I will first say that I like myself. Whew! I tried to ponder it more fully last night, and the night before, but I fell asleep. I wanted to ask myself to try and put together a mental list of why I liked myself, in that moment, so I could make those thoughts more concrete and perhaps file them away for times of darkness when the goodness escapes me. But I fell asleep.
I know that I mentioned earlier that it’s probably hormones, and in the moment when I was writing that, I was in a dark place and commented that it’s such a copout to say that. I have to say, now that I’m in a more positive place, that there is some truth to that. Hormones are these crazy little brain chemicals that wreak utter chaos if something disturbs their fragile balance. I know this. I know this. I lost a brother to the imbalance. And I’ve spent a lifetime drifting in and out of darkness, and when I get stuck there, it feels like deja vu and I get disgusted with myself for getting stuck there again and not being able to find my way out and only recognizing enough to know that I’ve been there before, thus giving myself more reason to despise myself. Magnifying silly superficial things beyond all reason. It’s that broken record sensation I spoke of earlier. If we were talking classical control systems theory, it would be called positive feedback, which leads to instability and ultimate destruction. Now I have a visual of Galloping Gerty, which fell victim to harmonic frequency. (Umm, nerd alert. So I majored in Control Systems. Woop. Dee. Doo. I even actually used a teensy weensy bit of it in my professional life. But anyway, I digress. I was just attempting to express an analogy.)
So anyway. Hormones. A cacophony of hormones. That, and a yawn of excuses.
I could just delete the posts of darkness, but it wouldn’t be altogether honest, so I think I’ll leave them be. It sort of fits the SPT All of Me theme.
But right now The sound of exploding glass has just interrupted all other trains of thought. That, and somebody wants his mommy.
I know the personal history theme is over, but I found this picture while digging through some old boxes of things. I’ve been on a sort of a downer lately, feeling anxious about things in general. Too much work. Not enough family time. Not enough baby time. Not enough me time. Thinking about self image and wondering why it is so easy to magnify the flaws and disregard the features. I’ve been feeling frustrated with myself for not being physically what I would like to be. Today, I would leap for joy to have the look that I had 25 years ago, in this picture. Yet in this picture, I remember the person I was then. And I had the same self image. I wasn’t satisfied. Oh if only. Such a tiresome and most shallow expression. Where is the thankfulness for all that is good in life So easily taken for granted.
I was nominated for Homecoming Queen that year, the fall of my Senior year. I don’t know why. I wasn’t crowned, and that didn’t bother me. I remember feeling so uneasy being the center of attention. I don’t like that feeling at all. I try to stand to make myself look as small as possible, so self-conscious of the midsection and the legs. My calves were so big I had to take my boots apart and re-sew the zippers in to give me a little more room, as much as I could possibly get. I was always in danger of them exploding from my legs. Now that would have been a sight! 
I’m the one next to the king. A bit heavy, and very much aware of it. Today, there is much more of me. A hundred pounds more. 
What an awful thing to put in writing. What a shameful thing. Four pounds a year for twenty five years. It can creep up on a person, and it wasn’t a bit hard. I actually wear it rather well, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. It makes the denial just that much easier. I wonder why the person in that picture couldn’t be happier with herself. How shallow was she There were probably people who would have loved to have her face, her skin, her eyes, maybe her hair. But she didn’t pay much attention to those features. They came with the package. She didn’t ask for them. They were just part of the genetic roulette. As were the legs. How foolish is it to let such a thing contribute so much to the total sum of self worth
Very foolish. Very shallow. There are some things in life that the girl in the picture can control. Self worth is a choice. What a shame that she keeps forgetting this. She flashes a toothy smile, tosses her head, and is on her way, pushing those thoughts behind her for another day.
I dreamt that I had sleep apnea and I was a doctor, looking at myself (you can do this in dreams, be more than one character), and I put the stethoscope to my chest and realized that I was missing 3 beats for every 4 beats, so I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to my brain, which explained why I so often wake up with excruciating headaches. I guess that also means I’m ¾ dead. I do get an inordinate number of headaches. I probably do have sleep apnea, actually, because I’m told I snore like a sailor, and sometimes I find that I wake myself up, choking and coughing. I should go get it checked out.
I had another dream that I belonged to this huge powerful company and everyone was in a big auditorium. There were food tables here and there and people were lining up to grab something before sitting down for whatever was to come. I wanted to get in line but somebody needed me, and when I could finally get to the table the meeting was about to start and I had to sit down, but it was too late anyway, because all the food packets were gone. One of my coworkers found me and told me about a design that another coworker was pushing, and he was very upset, saying it would be creating some troubles down the line because of inconsistencies between models. We need to keep options consistent across the board, for simplicity, for configuration control, and also to keep costs down. I told him not to worry, I completely understood, and I’d find my other coworker and let him know we had to work out the design requirements a bit more, to make it consistent. It meant a lot more work on our parts, up front, but it made things smoother in the end. Later, in the dream, it was like being on trial. I didn’t want to stand out or have any attention brought on me. People were being called accountable for things and they were made to be seen as they were. I cowered, hoping I’d not be called, but I was. And I was told I was a… …I stuttered and mumbled and tried to deny it, something about not being a Squished Piggy (really, it was just like that in the dream, literally those words), but the verdict came out as I felt my form change to that of a pig, and I was horrified to feel my nose change to a snout and the rest of me follow suit. So there it was, plain as a day. I’m a pig. I didn’t like that dream very well.
Another one. This one morphed from the pig dream. My company was on the verge of announcing a brand new product. The biggest personal transport ever. It might have even been meant for space travel, or something, but it was a gigantic ocean liner that had the hugest seating capacity; a great many abreast on the top deck. It was all hush hush. I might have had a premonition about it, that it was a doomed venture. It was perhaps a dream within a dream, but I saw several of these ocean liners on the high seas, being tossed to and fro by the gigantic waves, and they were straining and out of control, subject to the fury and whim of the sea. I awoke just as they were about to be clashed together on a huge wave. I was strapped into my seat and remember seeing part of the hull of another ship, painted a nice shiny blue. Part of it was silver, towards the top. There was work that needed to be done – some metal had to be spliced in, where there was corrosion, as though an old ocean liner had been used for the frame and parts were rusted out. It looked so out of place, to see rusted through patches on this sleek new ocean liner.
Note to self. Consider not having caffeine and/or chocolate after 6 p.m., because face it, it sometimes affects me.
There are times when I get wrapped up in the same old things, like a broken record, over and over again. There are times when I think I’ve grown beyond whatever the hang-up is (and it’s usually the same old thing or set of things), then something will happen and once again I’ll find myself back there, at square one. It amazes me that I can so swiftly find myself right back at the beginning, blind sided, if it were. I’ll struggle with the thoughts and feelings for a time, and then I’ll be over it. Until the next time. I find it quite tedious. And then, it occurs to me, that I might be hormonal. Yes, that’s it. It’s usually it. It’s such a copout, to blame the endocrine system, but there it is.
Why do I blog It’s a scary thing, to put ones thoughts out there in the public realm. People can read, have thoughts, pass judgments. It’s terrifying! I don’t want to be judged. I mean, I do, in one sense, want approval. Who doesn’t It’s one of my tedious themes. Then I get over myself for a while. Until the next time. But I’m not seeking the world’s approval. Really, I’m seeking my own. I would have liked to have had my parents’ approval, but history is what it is and they are who they are, I am who I am, and I did as much as I possibly could for as long as I could to gain their approval. Now I’m just wrestling with myself. I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think that being centered takes a lot of self discipline. I think that accepting oneself does as well. Maybe it’s easier for some than others. Especially if they don’t have whacked out hormones! Again, that’s a copout. But there is some truth to that, be that as it may.
All that said, I don’t write for an audience. I write to work my thoughts out. And it’s mostly crap, because that’s often what’s in my head. Note to self: practice more self-discipline.
I would like to see myself as my son sees me. To him, I am the most beautiful woman in the world. He sees me and sees the mama he loves and the one he depends upon. He doesn’t have any notions about my size, shape, or color. He sees who I am. He sees a fun person, a loving person, a kind person, a patient person, a caring person, and sometimes a stern person. I could stand to learn much from him. It’s called unconditional love. How I want to shake the conditioning of a lifetime. It’s such ugly baggage to be saddled with. And for what No good comes of it.
Because I am. I have a ribbon to prove it.
Self-loathing is not all encompassing. I have some fine qualities that I appreciate in myself. However, I’m not wont to write about them. Journaling, and now, blogging, is usually where the troubles come out. Or the thrills. Moments of extremes. The daily grind is just that. Mundane. Who wants to write about it Who wants to read about it Although having the calm and mundane readily available to remind oneself of what is fine and good in life is somewhat valuable in the sense of bringing one’s perspective back to safer ground, rather than teetering on the extreme precipice, in danger of plummeting into depression from whence the recovery is an arduous task.
My extremes. The highs My Boo. Fun diversions and friendships discovered in the community of Blog. Triumphs in bargain hunting. Discoveries in general. The lows All the other drivel that takes place here. Alot of struggle coming to terms with the loss of my brother. Struggle over growing pains. Not just mine, but those of the people I love.
I have this poisoned mentality where I’ve somehow convinced myself that I have to wait to enjoy the things in life that people who don’t have weight problems get to enjoy. The beach. A tropical vacation. A cruise. Pampering. A night on the town. Dancing. Swimming. Shorts. Skirts. Heels. Shopping for clothes, period. It’s a sad and self-inflicted punishment. A poor body image is a prison. And it is poison. POISON! It’s an ugly self-loathing that is mostly undeserved. It doesn’t seem to be completely related to my actual weight. I’ve carried this diseased attitude around my entire life. I didn’t always look like a beached whale. But I must have thought I did. Looking back at old pictures, I wonder how I could possibly have been unhappy with how I looked. I looked good! By no means perfect. By no means Barbie or the girls in the media. Never frail. Always strong and sturdy. But always heavier than the average girl. And today Today I probably don’t truly look like a beached whale either, although much more so than the me of adolescence, some twenty five years ago.
Being accepted. It has alot to do with being accepted. Maybe I would have a healthy self image if I had been raised to feel wanted and accepted. I never cease to amaze myself that I can still be carrying thoughts like these around, when I’m an adult now. An adult! A D U L T. Over forty. FORTY! I would think I would have gotten over childhood by now.
I know better, but I don’t do better. I don’t know how to breach the void between knowing and doing. I can analyze it, intellectualize it, explain it. It boils down to caring what others think or might think. To elevating that over what I think. It’s a sick thing, to allow myself to let the imagined judgement of a total stranger, even, a nonexistent public, rob me of my living moments. It’s crazy. It’s stupid. But I still do it.
Today I found these words exploding from my being. Every time I hear a certain song I remember my brother and I cry, thinking of a young life that is over without experiencing Venice, Rome, Paris, Argentina. I sat at my desk all week long, completely wrapped up in the project I’m working on. I worked all day, every day, barely breaking for anything, through lunch, after quitting time, until the very last moment when I had to leave to get to daycare to collect my Boo. I get consumed in what I am doing, and while it means I’m super productive at work, it’s TOO MUCH. A life out of balance. It’s a character flaw. I need to learn how to put other things in focus, like allowing myself to take breaks, get some fresh air, take a walk, anything. STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER. Something has to give, and what gives is my vessel, my body, my self. A desk job is not good for one’s physical condition. Cerebral fitness isn’t all that attractive, and I’m not so sure how healthy it is either. On the way home I see the sky is blue. The air is crisp. I feel it on my face before I get in my car. It feels so GOOD. I need to find some way to make a living that is more active. Because I want to LIVE! I want to BREATHE! I just don’t quite know what to do, though. Else I’d be doing it. So I simply say it.
I want to LIVE!
The words will have to do for now. When I picked up my beautiful boy this afternoon, I spun him around in circles a few times, this way and that, before putting him in the car. It was so crisp and cold, the cold air in his face took his breath away and he was delighted. We giggled for joy, breathing the air and spinning around. His wide open laugh with drool dribbling out is a beautiful sight to behold. Joy. It’s the picture of joy, and I love it, and savor it; am absolutely grateful to experience this moment of life. This is the kind of life I want to be living. Breathing! Dancing! Holding my boy!
A day is a day to live
Or a day is a day to die
Make time for hopes and dreams
Before another day goes by
It’s easy not to give it thought
To simply plod along
Since daily life must still be lived
And another day goes by
Waking, washing, working
Feeding, serving, resting
These are all the mundane things
Thus another day goes by
Soon the years have disappeared
Never to return
Oh to live with no regret
As every day goes by
A day is a day to live
And a day is a day to die
Now is the time for hopes and dreams
Now, before this day goes by
