Morning Peeps!

I think, perhaps, I write too much in metaphor. Even when words dance on the tip of my tongue, I want to convey meaning and tone in addition to content. I want the reader to feel what is in my heart and understand what is in my mind. So I look for words that might be a common bridge from my experience to yours.

At times, the words are as water droplets, coursing over the falls at Niagara, gushing with an urgency that no force can stop. Even when I know they will flood the bottomlands, possibly killing crops, my nourishment.

Metaphor (and simile, its progeny) are also buffers, shielding me (you?) from the naked vulnerability of my truth. What if, instead, I said: I-am-so-scared-your-absence-will-send-me-into-a-tailspin-and-I-will-lose-our-connection-and-I-will-not-know-what-to-say-and-even-if-I-do-speak-you-won’t-understand-and-I-will-become-a-bother-and-then-I-fear-you-will-reject-me-in-a-way-that-feels-so-brutal-I-will-want-to-die.

Them be mighty powerful words.

quote:

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. -Dr Seuss

Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions. -Sigmund Freud

Say what you need to say –
Red Tomato

RT
Them be powerful words indeed.
Pingles

I've been so busy RT that I've not said hello since you've been back. You do have such a lovely way with words.

quote:

Metaphor (and simile, its progeny) are also buffers, shielding me (you?) from the naked vulnerability of my truth.

I recognise myself there. Sometimes I think metaphors and descriptive language can deepen the experience for the reader and really help people to 'get' us too though. It's a delicate balance isn't it?

For me it goes back to feeling as if I need to shield others from me. As if my vulnerability itself is toxic and harmful. It's a tricky double bind, wanting understanding but worrying about being too much.

Thanks, Mallard.

Yes, it is a delicate balance. Too much vs vulnerability. Ug.

RT

Morning Peeps –

Vulnerability.

I hate it, hate it, hate it. I want to stay in my safe spot – the place where I know what will happen next, even if “next” is something horrible. Isn’t the known better than the unknown? Maybe. Maybe not.

I think what occurs, at least for me, is that when moving from the known to the unknown, when we dare to do something differently, we put ourselves into that vast land called Uncertainty. There can be so much discomfort there, we go to great lengths to avoid it. Even if it means staying stuck. Even if it means continuing to hurt.

Am I am the person who cries, “I don’t want a shot,” or the patient who, sitting in the dentist’s office says, “I’ll schedule that root canal later”? My avoidance is akin to saying, “I know I might get the flu, and that’s okay.” “I know I may get an infection in my mouth, and that’s okay.” I avoid the known pain, gambling it won’t get worse, thereby preventing potential relief, comfort, protection, security.

Being complacent is a choice. It’s an agreement to stew in stagnant waters. It’s a decision to accept the status quo even though _____. Expecting change without doing things differently is not hope; it is a delusion. Hope is being at the cusp of vulnerability and taking the next step. And who knows? Maybe in taking that step you will find yourself enveloped in warmth and comfort and love. I hope you’ll try.

quote:

There is a difference between vulnerability and telling people everything about yourself. Vulnerability is a feeling. Telling everyone about yourself is just facts and details. -Simon Sinek

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few. -Brene Brown

Baby steps, okay?
Red Tomato

quote:

Expecting change without doing things differently is not hope; it is a delusion. Hope is being at the cusp of vulnerability and taking the next step. And who knows? Maybe in taking that step you will find yourself enveloped in warmth and comfort and love. I hope you’ll try.

that's really beautiful, RT. it gives me a little more strength to maybe start to try to do things differently. i do think that, in spite of it's uncomfortableness, making oneself vulnerable IS the next step in feeling the warmth and comfort and love that you speak of. it's just so darn hard being vulnerable...

I think doing things differently is the only thing that *will* work, closed doors. But, yep, it is so darn hard.

-RT

Morning Peeps –

I’ve lost my pants. Surely I put them somewhere reasonable. Surely I did not take them off in public and leave them somewhere. Surely they are here someplace! They are my black pants – jeans actually, that aren’t the usual denim, rather some brushed material that is a magnet to dog and cat hair from miles around. I need these pants. They’re the ones that fit a little looser and are, of course, black. The slimming-black. The don’t-notice-my-big-butt black.

I lost a-heap-o-weight in 2011 and 2012. As I went down in sizes, I shopped at Goodwill to subsidize my wardrobe. Approaching my goal weight, I got rid of all my large-sized clothes. Then I had the year-from-hell in 2013, and I didn’t care. The rare thing that consistently gave me comfort was food, ice cream especially. I gained 20 pounds. My BMI went from normal, right past overweight, to obese. Not morbidly obese, thankfully, which is the land I once inhabited. But obese? Heck, I thought I was still looking normal. Sheesh! But, I guess it’s all relative and we are an obese America.

Still, I can’t find my pants. The pants I bought after I gained 20 pounds. My only black pants. Laundry hamper? Nope. Laundry room? Nope. Dresser, closet? No, no. Stack of clothing that doesn’t fit? Mending? No and no. How about the garage (who knows?)? The only two places still left to investigate are the suitcases from a recent trip and my wife’s closet. (I do the laundry, day after day, 30 years. Surely I can tell the difference between my 16’s and her size 8.)

I also can’t find my sweatpants. I’m getting pretty darn tired of going outside to fill the birdfeeder when it’s five below zero and all I’m wearing is a t-shirt and slippers. How did a formerly type A personality fall to these depths? I’m getting pretty darn tired of it.

But maybe, just maybe, they’re right in front of me, and I’m not noticing.

quote:

My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment somewhere. -Steven Wright

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds. -R. D. Laing

Yours truly,
Butt-Naked Red Tomato

Hey Draggers - who you laughin' at? I write nothing butt the truth!

-RT

Morning Peeps –

Sometimes things are different.

She says she will help me. She says things can change. She says things can be different. She says it like she means it. Like it’s true.

She apologizes for an infraction so minor, I am startled she says a word. Yet, in those words, she is saying mistakes happen, we can both be accountable, everything’s not my fault.

She says I can ask for what I need, that I can reach out in whatever way I need. She says I can call, text, email.

She says it is her job to establish boundaries so I am safe to do the work.

There is so much hope in these words, I can hardly believe them. Each time she says things I don’t dare to expect, I cry. She shows me a benevolence I barely recognize.

This is huge. Huge. I can’t say it enough. Huge.

quote:

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all. -Emily Dickinson

Hopefully yours,
Red Tomato

((((RT)))) i am so glad you seem to have found a T that fits your needs. revel, enjoy, and grow.

Thanks, CD. I do feel fortunate. I know we're still in the "honeymoon," but I feel very hopeful.

-RT

Morning Peeps –

I’ve been listening to Robinson Crusoe on audio book. Despite being the child of an English Professor who loved literature, I missed reading most of the classics. It wasn’t because I didn’t like to read. I did like it. I read all the time – generally three or four books a week. Just not the classics. Now, approaching my sixth decade, I am trying to rectify that gap in my schooling. Using new technology, of course, with my ears instead of my eyes.

This Robinson Crusoe book… it’s a good story, and it gives me so much to consider. Basically it’s the tale of a man in the 1600’s who is shipwrecked on a deserted island, the only survivor. Aside from a few provisions he is able to save from the ship, he must make do with what the island provides.

Apart from shelter, food and safety, the thing I ponder most is how he is able to live for so many years without anyone to talk with. As a near lifetime consumer of talk therapy, I can only imagine being reduced to some kind of insanity. I completely understand Tom Hanks’ (Cast Away) need to have a companion, if only a face on a volleyball he called Wilson.

For a time, Crusoe has a talking parrot. He has a dog and some cats but doesn’t describe these as the intimate companions I find them to be. He tames goats but only to assure the availability of food. His sole companion, Man Friday, doesn’t appear until Crusoe’s been on the island for 24 years!

I do like my solitude, tend to avoid the phone and chance encounters with friends and acquaintances, but at 11 o’clock on Tuesday, I want someone to listen to me. I want to be heard, known, validated. Therapy, though, is a contrived relationship, rarely paralleled in real life. In Crusoe’s place, would I have engineered a companion? An imaginary friend? I rather think I would.

In a very real way, Crusoe does have a listener. He writes. He speaks of a reader, though who would that be on a deserted island? This I understand. Most of the time, I write to a reader. Not always someone known to me, but indeed some type of imagined audience, even if I don’t have one.

So Gentle Reader, thank-you for stopping by. Thank-you for taking time to read my words, for helping me not be stranded on a deserted island. And, especially to those of you who have commented, thank-you for letting me know I have been heard.

quote:

Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine. -Honoré de Balzac

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. -Graham Greene, Ways Of Escape

Thanks,
Red Tomato

Morning Peeps –

When I was a senior in high school, I entered a poetry contest. I don’t recall anything about my poem, but there are two things I will never forget. I placed third in the competition and the prize was a book of my choosing up to a specified amount. I hadn’t won first place so the cost of the book I wanted was too much. I made a deal with my English teacher so I could get a beautiful hard copy edition of Roget’s Thesaurus.

The second thing I remember is that the girl who won first prize, she a year behind me in school, married my father five years later. My father has now been dead for 16 years, but my “step-mother” is still that girl who beat me in a poetry competition almost 40 years ago.

Our lives are like mosaics and the memories, tiny scraps of color, are pieced together into Van Goghs, Georgia O’Keefes or, perhaps closer to mine, Jackson Pollocks.

quote:

Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. -Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

I won’t forget you,
Red Tomato

P.S. Found my pants.

-RT

((((RT))))

i also enjoy solitude, but at the same time the thought of spending the rest of my life without a partner is really scary to me. but, i do like to come and go as i wish and not have to answer to anybody, so it's a bit of a conundrum for me these days.

it really is a pleasure to read Morning Peeps! your posts resonate with me on some level or another and make me think. so, thanks right back at you for sharing your thoughts.

(((Draggers))) if I can give you a chuckle or help to make your day just a little bit better, then the time I spent was worthwhile.

(((Closed Doors))) you are a good friend, and I appreciate the help you gave me on the "back end." That conundrum. . . the hoping and wanting - the fearing and pushing away... it is a hard one, and I struggle with it here every day.

Thanks to both of you for letting me know I'm not just whistling in the wind.

And yes, the pants were in the closet.

-RT

Morning Peeps –

I looked in the mirror the morning and was frightened by the dark bags under my eyes. I blame it on Sugar, our Lhasa-Havanese-Bischon-ish white mop of a dog. She likes to get up in the middle of the night – sometimes several times, and I have been chosen to get up with her.

Eleven pm is “last time out,” a last call before “nite-nite.” In this cold weather, Sugar gets bundled in her smart, blue, plaid, Worthy Dog coat and sent out to roam the fenced yard. On her heels is Brewster, a Miniature Pinscher and Pumpkin, a Sheltie. Brewster is our skinny boy and constantly cold, so he has a collection of hoodies, sweaters and jackets – most of which must be pushed up to his shoulders when he goes outside so he doesn’t pee on the belly part of the sweater. Oh, and there is also his diaper which must be feverishly removed while he dances at the door, anxious to get outside.

So that happens at eleven pm. At 1:48 am, Sugar is at my bedside, barking. “Outside,” she woofs. I don’t think she really needs to go to the bathroom, rather she seems to be a nocturnal wanderer. Sometimes she is gone so long, I will be sound asleep in the chair by the door before she moseys back up the deck stairs. In the dark, I un-velcro her plaid coat, stumble back to the bedroom, hoping that Sugar is following me, for I cannot get cozy until I have boosted her to the bed and covered her up.

3:45 am. We do it again, although this time Sugar is alerting me that Pumpkin wants to go out. Pumpkin is our special dog. He’s nervous. He will easily bark for five minutes when the ice dispenser releases a load, but will stand at the outside door for an hour, waiting for someone to notice he wants to go outside. So, he has Sugar who looks out for him, alerting us to his needs. Even at 3:45 am.

Just as I crawl back in bed, the commotion has woken Brewster who peers out from deep under cover. Once awake, he HAS to pee, and there is no putting him off. It will be in his diaper or some chair leg if he isn’t attended to immediately. This round, then, is done in a hurry, because he’s gotta GO.

Then 4:32 am. I kid you not. Sugar is at the bedside barking again. This time, I know she is interested in breakfast, but I am not interested in a 4:30 feeding routine, so I ignore her hints and pretend she wants to go outside again. Up. Jacket. Out. In. Un-jacket. Back to bed. Sugar dozes for a bit, but she knows the alarm goes off at 5:30 and that breakfast will be served. Just don’t hit that snooze button!

I have been well trained. Sugar is in charge, and I do what I am told.

quote:

In a dog's life, some plaster would fall, some cushions would open, some rugs would shred. Like any relationship, this one had its costs. They were costs we came to accept and balance against the joy and amusement and protection and companionship he gave us. -John Grogan, Marley and Me

Woof, woof-
Red Tomato

Draggers - I have many, many times thought of a doggie door. My sister has one and it seems to work great for her. As for sleep, I'm thinking Benadryl - for Sugar! And no, these pups aren't neglected. They see the vet for every sneeze and sniffle. (Except it's more likely to have something to do with their bowels or some other gross thing.) Some years back, a friend worked at our vet's office. One day she called and said, "Guess what? We just closed our books and you were our top customer last year." Ug.

-RT

There's several ways to diaper a dog, Draggers.

You can buy girl and boy dog "pants" that hold a pad. I know some use a baby diaper and cut a hole for the tail. We cut long strips of cloth, like from a t-shirt then wrap it around his belly and boy stuff with a little pad. The we tie it off on top, and he looks like a sumo wrestler!

-RT

nay, you ain't just whistling in the wind! you're both heard and appreciated here, and you can take that to the bank!

i'm glad you found your pants, but i'm really sorry the kids have been so demanding!

Thanks, CD!

-RT

Morning Peeps –

I’m still thinking about Robinson Crusoe. There is something fascinating about 1) being wholly self-reliant and 2) being completely alone – not just for weeks or months, but years. It begs the question: what would I do? Another similar question that gets a lot of airplay when the lottery is insanely large is: what would I do with all that money? They are both ideas rich for the imagination and interestingly they are on extreme ends of at least one spectrum. What would you do if you had nothing… or everything? Which would you prefer?

The idea I’ve been pondering most concerns one’s mental state in such extreme solitude. Initially, I wondered how I could survive without having someone to talk with, and I imagined a sort of madness prevailing. Today, though, I am wondering what it would be like to be totally free of outside opinion and the complications of relationships.

At what point on that deserted island do I let go of what people (my rescuers) will think if they find me naked? How long will that be important to me? Until I give up hope of being rescued? Until I accept I am truly alone? Or will I immediately discard my clothes, beat my hands upon my chest and sing the I’m-so-glad-to-be-naked song?

Seriously, though. How much of our days are spent wondering about something that is totally out of our control? Will she call me? Why is she driving so slowly? Will they accept my proposal? Why is he always late?

And our concerns about opinions: Does she think I’m an idiot? Does she think I’m attractive? Is he mad at me? Will he like what I wrote? Does she care? Does he like the dinner I prepared? Will she laugh if I cry?

And our expectations: If she cares, she’ll call me. If he respects me, he’ll listen to my opinion. If she loves me, she’ll know I need a hug. If they value me, they’ll give me a promotion.

Zip. Nada. It’s no longer relevant. On the deserted island, the only one who matters is me. Yes, I can choose to absorb those roles, to be the doubting, self-critical “other.” But to what end? Did I like the meal I prepared, yes or no? If not, I will do it differently next time. Wondering, though, if HE liked it, I am prepared to judge myself as good enough or smart enough or talented or sophisticated and on and on. What if the only “other” in your life is you? How will you think? What will you do? Will you be any different?

So here I am, on a deserted island, preparing yummy meals in the buff. I like it. I like it fine.

quote:

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes. -Sally Field

I’m okay, you’re okay –
Red Tomato

Morning Peeps –

T is still in Hawaii, but we talked on the phone yesterday. I worried she wouldn’t call at the specified time. I worried I’d be forgotten. Then I’d have the dilemma of what to do. Call her? Wait? Both terrible options. Both the result of being disregarded, ignored, neglected, overlooked – all the things I expected. So, at 1:55, I relived all the anguish I carry with me. At 2:02 T called.

T says things can be different. She keeps telling me that. I guess I keep expressing my fear and doubt. Part of me is perplexed that I have been in therapy so long without learning this. The other part is having a difficult time visualizing what “different” might really look like in my life. It’s hard to imagine, I think, because certain core beliefs about myself are so negative. Surely I am not worthy of a better experience. Beyond worthy, maybe it’s not even possible.

So we talked. Me protesting that my experience is proof that attachment figures are not reliable, that relationships end badly, that I am not worthy of love and affection. You are valuable, T says, a gift. Yes, I think. I’ve been told that before – but look what happened. Pain and suffering with no compensation. T tells me she is looking at the picture on her phone of Little Me. Have you ever asked yourself, T says, what that little blonde five year old did to deserve all this crap? I think of many answers, all based in my badness. One day, T says, you will be able to say – nothing. She did nothing to deserve it.


I cried and cried.
And cried.
My heart hurt; my stomach, snarled.

I had no idea
it would be like this.
Not This.
Like a stone
skipping across water
touching so many places
- five, six, seven –
before disappearing
past where the eye can see.

My body feels
each contact.
My mind remembers
the associations.
My heart is squeezed
by the memories.

I had no idea.

quote:

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. -Jim Rohn

You’re a gift –
Red Tomato

i really am so pleased for you to have found a T that is so responsive to you.
your poem is lovely, btw
have a wonderful day! stay warm!

RT
Wow, just read your incredibly moving post, wow is all I can say and your poem blew me away. Thanks for posting, RT
Pingles

CD - Thanks. I, too, am pleased at how well T and I are connecting. It is a gift.

Pingles - Thanks for your kind comments. I appreciate that you were moved - and glad you told me so.

-RT

Morning Peeps –

Today is January 30th. I began this rendition of Morning Peeps on the first of the month, and I’ve posted every day, so I think I’ve earned the right to say, “I’ve got 30 days.” Those of you familiar with 12-step programs know that 30 days is an accomplishment – an oft time difficult commitment maintained for, well, 30 days.

I jump-started Morning Peeps this year after a pledge I made at a Winter Solstice ceremony – a ceremony about the transition from darkness to light. I promised to use my writing to help bring hope to others. Without hope for oneself, how can there truly be hope for anything else? For social justice, drinkable water in every town and village, peace in the middle east and our own troubled cities – and a host of other changes that are critically important for our world and ourselves.

I am not so grandiose as to think everything I write is brilliantly inspirational. The bar I seek is lower. Can I make you chuckle because I’ve lost my pants or my dog is in diapers? Will my experience resonate so you don’t feel quite so alone (even if I’m not always optimistic myself)? Does the view from my window remind you there truly is beauty in the world?

I hope so.

quote:

Often we set out to make a difference in the lives of others only to discover we have made a difference in our own. -Ellie Braun-Haley

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light. -Norman B. Rice

Hopefully yours,
Red Tomato

quote:

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light. -Norman B. Rice

RT ... I love this quote as it is often what my T does with me. And of course, I see him as MY light.

I really am enjoying your thread and read it each time you post. You are a good writer and often give me a chuckle or make me think. I am also so pleased to see you doing so well with your new T. I think (so far) that she is perfect for you and she is doing all the right things and the things you need. You need nurturing and attachment and she is providing that for you. She is not afraid of it as your past T's may have been (as my oldT was).

Thank you and keep us updated on how you are doing.

TN

Thanks True North. You've always had such thoughtful comments to share with me, so I'm glad you're able to get something from Morning Peeps. And yes, so far newT seems to be giving me what I need. I'm very grateful.

-RT

Morning Peeps –

Yesterday I received an email from oldT. I’d requested a 2013 statement for my taxes and she replied that she’d send one as soon as possible. I hadn’t been sure she’d respond, and seeing her name pop up in my email sent 10,000 volts of memory and pain through me. In an instant, I was sobbing. Strobe lights of rejection pummeled my heart, memories so fresh, they might have happened yesterday.

Through tears, I tapped a text to T. She tapped back: try to keep your power; don’t give it away. But I felt powerless. Be a champion, T texted. She beat me, I wrote, and it hurts so much. Your little girl is awaiting you, T responds. I got nothing for her, I reply. She can wait, says T, until you’re ready. John Bradshaw writes about this, she adds.

I’m emotionally hung-over – still exhausted from the toll those flashbacks exact. Today I plan to immerse myself in a lovely, lavender scented bath – a place where I feel unconditionally embraced by gentle warmth – and read Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw.

quote:

Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Actually discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the "healing feeling." -John Bradshaw

Be sad –
Red Tomato

((((RT)))))

New T sounds amazing! What a difference a T can make.

quote:

Today I plan to immerse myself in a lovely, lavender scented bath – a place where I feel unconditionally embraced by gentle warmth – and read Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw.

I'm jealous. That sounds lovely.

quote:

What a difference a T can make.

Truly, Liese, truly.

-RT

Morning Peeps –

I got on the scale this morning, and I’d lost 2.8 pounds. Very happy, indeed, to finally see the graph lines move south. My last weigh-in was two weeks ago. I generally like to weigh every other day, but that requires remembering before food or beverage passes my lips, because I certainly wouldn’t want a sip of water to tip the scale. Plus, the scale is downstairs and it’s cold down there and I always weigh in the buff – so you see the dilemma. Still, I have only been back in my regimen for three weeks, and I’ve kept up with my Zumba classes, so I’m satisfied.

It’s been hard to get back into the exercise routine. I first started classes back in 2011 when I weighed about 240. It was hard, but I learned to really like it. I used to stand in front of the two foot section of wall that was between the rest of the mirrored wall – so I wouldn’t have to look at myself. Surprisingly, it took only a couple of weeks to learn the routines. I would watch the petite, fit instructor and as we both moved in time to the music, I imagined I was inside of her, light and able. Sometimes I actually felt that way.

By 2012, I was a Zumba junkie and knew that my Inner Disco Queen had finally found an outlet. But then came 2013 and difficult, difficult times with my therapist. With our relationship. I was depressed and in pain. I didn’t have the energy or motivation for Zumba. The only thing that felt good was food. And I didn’t care. Boom. Twenty pounds.

So, here I am in 2014, feeling more hopeful with a new therapist, determined to get back to healthy eating and Zumba. I know that when I exercise – even just take a walk – my mood is better. I know this. I know that when I am at a healthy weight I feel more able to do simple everyday things. I know this. Hello, I say to myself. Pay attention. Do what you know works. Do it. Okay, already, I answer back. I will, I will.

quote:

Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning. -Mahatma Gandhi

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can. -Jimmy Carter

Do it!
Red Tomato

P.S. Want to know what it feels like to be overweight and do Zumba? Next time you’re in the grocery store, pick up two 40 pound bags of dog food. Then try dancing down the aisle to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Seriously. That's exactly what it's like.

This is awesome RT. Good for you!! I call exercise my holistic tranquilizer. It really acts like that for me. Keep it up!

Thanks, Becca. I keep telling myself that I've been successful at this before, so I know I can do it again. Holistic tranquilizer? Hmmm... not sure I experience that while gyrating to 110 decibel music. But I know what you mean - the mental impact is tremendous.

-RT

RT, maybe you're be the impetus i need...

in 2009 i started weight watchers with a friend, and i believe that the conditions were just right for me to be as successful as i was. i ended up losing 85 pounds total ... from 245 to about 162. during that time i decided to divorce my now ex. so, not only did i shed the pounds but i shed the hubby as well. he's not a bad man, but it was a bad marriage and i believe it was right to have ended it. that was 2 1/2 years ago.

since then, my drinking has increased significantly and i have gained back about 30 of those 85 pounds i lost. i'm currently maintaining, but i know that if i cut or quit the liquor intake that i could easily shed those gained pounds. i've obviously proven to myself before that i am capable of doing this. but, it's hard. i think i'm coming to realize that i have not yet grieved some things about the marriage and about my future, and that i'm hiding from dealing with all that stuff by drinking. so, although our stories are different, there are similarities. they both, to me, seem to be the direct result of relationship with another. i'm not laying blame to anybody ... i just find the correlation interesting. relationships. how they can influence us in the best and the worst of ways. and that perhaps it may feel to be influencing us in a rather negative way at the moment, that perhaps it just seems to be that way at the moment. like, things will get worse before they get better. know what i mean?

good for you for getting back on track! and, yes! it might seem like a cliche, but excersizing definitely has a direct affect on ones mood! this winter so far has been a harsh winter, and it's been difficult to get out and excersize on a regular basis, so i am definitely feeling it's effects. lately, i've been going to the MOA to get my steps in, and it DOES help with the psyche. no doubt.

anyway, i'm so glad to hear things are picking up for you. keep it going and keep us posted. i rather look forward to MP, and if i can look forward to something, i'll hang on to that as long as i can!

((((RT))))

Maybe I planted a seed, CD, but you're the one with the impetus, with the power. I think you know what you need, and I believe you can do it. The mental part is the hardest. It takes a constant vigilance to recognize the moments when we have a choice. The choice to take a drink instead of feeling grief. The choice to eat a hot fudge sundae instead of feeling pain. Then, to be willing to do the hard thing. Because in the end, we know that the hard thing will have been the best thing. I'm with you 150%.

Draggers - It's another great song, and according to what I've read, Gaga wrote it when her grandfather was dying. I hope you don't feel you're on that edge, but I do understand edges. To me, it's that point where one step makes a difference. A huge difference. As for the mirror - I think our perceptions of ourselves are often far from the truth of who we really are. Still, I'm looking for that perfect mirror.

-RT

Morning Peeps –

The triangle with the exclamation point inside lit up big and red on the dashboard this morning. Hmmm, I thought, I don’t think that’s supposed to happen. The dashboard display was dark, but the car seemed to be on. Hard to tell, though, since the hybrid Prius is silent running on battery alone.

Sitting in the car in the garage, I pulled out the manual to decode the symbol. Turning from page to page, see this, see that, refer to such-and-such a section, I finally found a limited explanation. The one sentence description was long, the punctuation confusing and I couldn’t quite decipher the meaning. Was this a fatal event or a simple warning? I pushed the power button to turn off the car. Then pushed it again to restart. No red triangle. Good, I thought, nothing’s wrong.

I used the same judgment process with oldT. In one of our inaugural session, I asked T about email. I wanted to establish the boundaries of our communication up-front. T hesitated, then said okay, couched in a significant limitation. I heard “yes,” the desired response, but ignored the disbelief I felt regarding her limitation. The first wedge of distrust was planted before we’d even established the ground rules. Wedges, by their very definition, are triangular. They start small and widen. It wasn’t a big red light, but it was a warning that I didn’t heed.

Within six months, I had accumulated other concerns and disbeliefs about oldT. At the same time, though, I was exposing my warts, sharing my soul, telling my secrets. There were things I liked about oldT. My attachment grew. At the same time my connection was deepening, my distrust was widening. The relationship ended; it had too. But by then it had turned into a train wreck.

The signals wouldn’t be there if they didn’t mean something. Pay attention.

quote:

The more I pay attention to what's going on inside, the more I realize that how I feel, and how I react to what I feel, really creates my reality. And the more in touch I can be, the better chance I have to control what's happening in my life. -Ricky Williams

Are you paying attention?
Red Tomato

((((RT))))

quote:

At the same time, though, I was exposing my warts, sharing my soul, telling my secrets.

Amazing how we learn to ignore what is going on inside us. You have learned so much despite the pain endured with OldT. I have done and still do the same thing. One day we will both leash that baby in permanently.

Thanks for sharing. You're inspiring.