A day in the life of fear and self sabotage.

Change still terrifies me. And I have learned in recovery NOT to live in fear, but to live in faith. But when you are slapped in the face with a situation beyond your control, it is easier to resign to the fear.

I find myself walking alone today for the first time in several months.

The end of a relationship. The beginning of a new chapter. Complete with hope, anticipation, freedom, sadness, and fear.

So, why the hell am I so sad and afraid? I saw this coming a mile away. Hell, I was only procrastinating ending it myself. So why am I so sad now that he's gone?

I am not in control of this situation. That is what is at the heart of it. I cannot manipulate or rationalize or intellectualize myself out of this one. I gotta feel my way through this one.

I never intended to end up in this relationship to begin with, and once I was in it, I always had one foot out the door. But now that it's over, I find myself questioning what I felt and what I didn't feel for him. As it was with Jimmy, who died six years ago this past Friday, I didn't really know how much I loved him until he was gone.

But Jimmy died on me. This one I pushed away.

Happy Halloween

Some snaps from my home group's annual Halloween party....

Me with the ever-lovely Will...


Just me...





The hot and sexy punk-girl Beth, and me...

My good friends Molly and Christina (and me)...

Stolen

I stole this, my new favorite blinkie, from a friend. Thanks, Michelle.

Oh no she didn't...

Yes she did.

Do it Anyway

DO IT ANYWAY
Written By Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Back into the swing of things.

It's been a long, strange haitus...

Ok...I know, I know. I've been a little busy. But I'm back now. I'm settled into my new home and have lots of goings-on to report. More later, gators...

Some new pics of the ever-shrinking me...

a few more...

Ham of God

I wanted to share part of an essay out of the book I'm currently reading. The book is Plan B Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. She is my favorite author. If you have never read her, I highly recommend it. She is bright, edgy, funny, spiritual and in recovery to boot!

"Ham of God"

On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all of life was hopeless, and I would eat myself to death. These are desert days. Better to go out by our own hands than to endure slow death by scolding at the hands of the Bush administration. However, after a second cup of coffee, I realized that I couldn't kill myself that morning - not because it was my birthday but because I'd promised to get arrested the next day. I had been arrested three weeks earlier with an ecumenical bunch of religious peaceniks, people who still believe in Dr. King and Ghandi. Also, my back was out. I didn't want to die in crone mode. Plus, there was no food in the house. So I took a long, hot shower instead and began another day of being gloated to death.

Everyone I know has been devastated by Bush's presidency and, in particular,m our country's heroic military activities overseas. I can usually manage a crabby hope that there is meaning in mess and pain, that more will be revealed, and that truth and beauty will somehow win out in the end. But I'd been struggling as my birthday approached. So much had been stolen from us by Bush, from the very beginning of his reign, and especially since he went to war in Iraq. I wake up some mornings pinned to the bed by centrifugal sadness and frustration. A friend called to wish me Happy Birthday, and I remembered something she'd said many years ago, while reading a Vanity Fair article about Hitler's affair with his niece. "I have had it with Hitler," Peggy said vehemently, throwing the magazine to the floor. And I'd had it with Bush.

Why I'm Still in Michigan...

OK, there are a couple of other reasons as well....
But these were taken during my tri-weekly stroll on the beach earlier this week. (click the photos to enlarge)

*sigh*

I run. I'm a runner. No shit.

So, I am training for a 5K. OK, stop laughing. I'm serious. It's in August, and no...I'm not gonna walk it.

Why, you ask? Because I can, that's why. Because I can run because my feet don't hurt. And I can breath and my knees aren't shot and my back can take it. And because I couldn't say any of these things a year ago.

In order to hold myself accountable, my friend, trainer and running partner told me that I am supposed to shout to the world that I am training for a 5K.

Brand new things are afoot, my friends. A new lifestyle, a new season, a new physical me.....

Oh, and I just might be falling in love....

I'd forgotten..

What it was like to float... To walk without touching the ground, to fly. I'd forgotten what it was like to stare... into another's past, present, and future. What it feels like to just be. And also what it feels like to fall, so God, be with me as I close my eyes, heart in tow, and jump....just a little....

Quote of the Day

"our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

our deepest fear is that we are powerful~

BEYOND MEASURE.

it is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

we ask ourselves, who am i to be

brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

actually, who are you NOT to be??

you are a child of god.

your playing small does not serve the world,

there is nothing enlightening about shrinking

so that other people wont feel unsure around you.

we are born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us.

it is not just in some of us.

IT IS IN EVERYONE.

as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously

give other people permission to do the same.

as we are liberated from our own fear,

our presence automatically liberates others..."
~Nelson Mandela

Insert Chimp Vocalizations Here....

Quote of the Day

Anyone who says that sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain. ~Author Unknown

All things new...

I love spring. I love all the seasons. I can't imagine living in a part of the world where the seasons weren't so visibly represented in nature.

Overwhelmed with gratitude for nature lately, I have found myself pondering the parallels within the weather, my life and my faith. Life is truly a progression of seasons. As the weather begins to warm up and the rain begins to quench the earth's thirst, all things become new. The end of some things becomes the beginning of others. The leaves and creatures that fell last fall become the bread that feeds the earth in the spring. As they decay, new life is created. God closes some doors and opens others. He's good like that.

I find myself in new, uncharted territory in my life. I like that. Things for me have been so tainted with sameness and monotony for so long that any little bit of change in my life feels so radical and freeing. And frightening. But I am loving every second of it.

I am getting to know a new side of myself that I have never had the pleasure of meeting before. A new independent and to some extent even confident "me". This is an inner transformation that seems to have been spurred by outward, physical changes. I am not confused about that...to say otherwise would not be truthful. But I am glad that the changes are happening deeper than my skin.

I am more happy, joyous and free than I have ever been. I feel alive. I have seemingly endless energy, optimism, gratitude and intrigue. I am living again. With this living comes good decisions and bad decisions, but they are all a part of the journey. The good and the bad are what are making this trip worth while. God has made all things new. He is transforming the landscape around me, as well as the landscape within me. He is using the decay of my past to create new life in me. He is closing doors and opening new ones. He is guiding me to mold myself more and more into the person He created me to be. A person who is more like Him.

So, as I persevere along this uncharted path, part traveler, part navigator, partly lost and partly found...I go by faith alone. And, let me tell you, my friends, this has been one hell of a blow-your-hair-back-screaming-roller-coaster of a ride. And I wouldn't change one second of it. Not for anything.

Impeach the Monkey

Please do yourself and the rest of us a favor; click on this link and sign the petition....for the love of God.

click here to impeach the monkey

Quote of the Day

It is so small a thing
To have enjoyed the sun
To have lived light in the spring
To have loved, to have thought, to have done...

~Matthew Arnold

Character Defects Abound...

Yes, my friends, that is me...the jerk. I seem to be making a lot of mistakes lately. Testing my boundaries, being too sassy, pushing things just a little too far, and guarding my heart at the expense of others.

Last night, in an attempt to be sarcastic, charming and witty (yeah right, get over yourself Lizzie) I offended someone. Someone who is just getting to know me. Someone who's company I actually enjoy. Someone who I thought I should protect myself from. Someone who is now disappointed in me.

It had appeared that I had pigeon-holed this person. Judged this person. Labeled this person. Classified this person as a "typical guy". The truth is that I think he is anything but the "typical guy", but as I am learning, it is easy for me to miscommunication my intentions....especially online.

Ok, big deal, right? He'll get over it. Except for one thing...I was judging him. I was pigeon-holing him. And I did label him. And I know better. And I got called out on my shit.

He told me that he was disappointed because of all people, I was claiming to work a program of recovery and he would have expected more from me because of that (paraphrasing). Ouch. The truth hurts.

You see, part of my program of recovery is to "practice these principles in ALL my affairs". Even the romantic ones. And I haven't been. I wasn't being open-minded. I wasn't practicing faith or acceptance. And I sure as shit wasn't surrendering.

See that's the thing, my friends....practicing these principles in all my affairs means not judging people. Having faith that they just might not be out to fuck me over. Surrendering control of situations and accepting those situations for what they really are. Hmmph. Sounds easy enough.

You see, my friends, unfortunately, I am discovering that my heart is guarded. Didn't really think it was. Seems that I'm not willing to be so quick to give it away this time around. I'm being a little more cautious, a little more picky, and unfortunately, a little more jaded. Yes, folks, I said it. Jaded. And I used to be someone who always saw the good in people. What happened? Life happened, I guess.

People lied. People cheated. People used. People left. People died.

But some people loved. And I guess it's just easier to forget the good stuff.

31, single, and jaded. Not a good combination.

For now, I will suck it up, apologize one last time, hope for the best, and try to be a little less cynical....just for today.

Food for thought...

unrealistic expectations...

You know, the program tells us not to place unrealistic expectations on people. I find more and more that to place any expectations on anyone is to be unrealistic. It seems that whatever I think I know about someone, whether new to my life or old, is often way off. This is not a bad thing. It is just the progression of my realization that I do not, in fact, know everything and also the fact that I am rarely, if ever, in control of anything.

I have had two particular experiences over the last few days that illustrated this perfectly. Both times, I couldn't really have been more wrong about the person. One was a very negative experience, and one a delightfully positive experience.

Once I was almost freakishly disappointed by my total lack of insight and judgment, and the other I was pleasantly surprised at my misconception.

People never cease to amaze and surprise me. And this coming from someone who used to proclaim that people were incapable of surprising me. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I am learning, more and more, that the less expectations I put on people, the easier it is to accept and love them for who they are, where they're at. As a friend and sister in recovery put it so well at a recent speaker meeting; on the topic of humility, if I took into consideration a persons' experience and their character defects as well as their strengths...I would probably do exactly whatever it is that they do or say in any given situation. To truly accept that is to accept one for who they are and where they are at.

And for today, I'll keep coming back...and work on my humility.

It's just me...

I would just like to announce to the world that in exactly three pounds, I will be down 100 pounds!!!!!!!

I can hardly believe it.

My friends, I cannot express to you what it is like to feel healthy, light on my feet, happy, sexy and confident for the first time in....well, possibly forever. I feel like me.

This has not been an easy road, by any means...but a road well worth the travel. Many people ask me...would you do it again? Hell yes I would. In a friggin' heartbeat.

I don't think that people fully grasp what it is like to be extremely heavy. There is the physical pain and discomfort, yes. The health problems, some humiliating. But for me it was the things that couldn't necessarily be touched that were killing me; the way a stranger would look at me, the way I would have to ask for a different chair when I went out to eat with my friends because I no longer fit into the regular ones, the way I was incapable of looking anyone in the eye because of the shame over my "condition", the way I knew society as a whole viewed me, and most of all, the way I felt more alone than ever before in my life. I truly, like I did in my drug addiction, believed down to the bottom of my soul that nobody understood what I was going through.

I wish that I had found www.obesityhelp.com years ago. It is such a tremendous support group and wealth of information for those who struggle with obesity. It has been a similar force in my life to NA.

Anyway, just felt a little like shouting out from the mountain tops today.

God is good. He really is.

What kind of soul am I? (quiz results)

You Are a Hunter Soul

You are driven and ambitious - totally self motiviated to succeedActively working to acheive what you want, you are skillful in many areas.You are a natural predator with strong instincts ... and more than a little demanding.You are creative, energetic, and an extremely powerful force. An outdoors person, you like animals and relate to them better than people.You tend to have an explosive personality, but also a good sense of humor.People sometimes see you as arrogant or a know it all.You tend to be a bit of a loner, though you hate to be alone. Souls you are most compatible with: Seeker Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What'>http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofsoulareyouquiz/">What Kind of Soul Are You?

Happy Easter

The Art of Assumption

What is it about us addicts that we have to live in our heads all the time. We are told never to go up there without proper adult supervision, yet we do it anyway. And we don't do anything but get into trouble up there. I made a stupid assumption this weekend, and made a fool out of myself as a result. A therapist once told me that to assume anything is to make an ass out of u and me. Boy...you can say that again. What an asshole I am. The problem is that for an addict who is still trying to conquer her control freak issues, I feel the need to be in the know about everything. If there is something that is beyond my perception, then it makes me feel out of control. I hate to feel out of control. A lesson learned. Chalk it up to life experience.

just for today...I will work on jumping to silly conclusions, for my own mental health and well being.

I miss my cats...

So, I have physical custody of my dog...but my cats are still with my ex. We agreed that I would take two and he would take two. Serenity and My Widdow Guy will be coming to live with me in the ghetto. I won't bring them until they have had a full course of Feline Leukemia vaccines due to the fact that, as outdoor cats, they will be exposed to the community ghetto kitties at my apartment complex. Three more weeks.

Even though I am the sole custodial parent of the Nana Belle, she does go to stay with Kevin on the nights that I work at the rehab. Tonight was one of those nights. I decided, in light of the gorgeous day, that I would walk her over there instead of driving. It's only a few miles one way. So I did. And half-way back, I turned around and saw that My Widdow Guy was following me home. Um, talk about breaking my friggin' heart.

I had to walk him back to the house. I miss my kitties.


On a lighter note, I saw three different male eastern bluebirds during my trek today. One of my favorite Michigan birds!

The baby girl...could she be any cuter???

quote of the day

Truth is the only safe ground to stand on. ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton

the disease of addiction...

on secrets...

Our secrets keep us sick. Resentments rot the container they're in. Two unrelated catch phrases often heard in recovery.

I propose that they are one in the same. I propose that our secrets are actually resentments turned inward. Things over which we have so much shame, that we feel that we deserve to allow these things to rot us from the inside out. And they do. Slowly, but surely.

What is it about addicts that we choose to hurt ourselves. Why is it that when we act like ADDICTS, we feel so different and shameful that we can't imagine anyone actually accepting us for who we really are, secrets and all. And why is it that we have such a hard time acknowledging that we all feel like this at one time or another.

I propose that shame keeps addicts using. Whatever that shame may be, it takes on the illusion that it is too much to bear, too much to share. I propose that we have actually seen addicts die from shame.

We have a disease of lies. A disease that tells us that we are not allowed to be imperfect. That we are not allowed to fall short. And that, when we do, we must not tell anyone about it, for they will surely run as far and as fast as they can. A disease of lies. A disease of shame.

I, for one, will not allow the shame and lies of my addiction to kill me today...just for today.

For Miss Molly. Look carefully...

The real terrorist threat...

Reflections of the newly single...

So, how does one go about this whole "being single" and "dating" thing??? Hell if I know.

I have officially had two online conversations with prospective friends/etc... one good and one bad. And I mean really bad. Details are irrelevant, but for a moment, I wondered if all men out there are such caustic, control freaking, dull, closed-minded assholes. That is until I spoke with prospect #2 (to steal Michelle's dating language). He seems a little more down to earth, laid back, intelligent, and introspective than Jackass non-prospect #1.

I am pretty sure I made about as much of a fool out of myself as I possibly could during the course of our conversation last night, and as a result, I am mortified...but it was a good learning experience if nothing else.

Though I refrain from much of what I want to spew, I seem to feel this constant need to explain away myself and my life. I guess I feel like I am so weighed down with baggage, that I couldn't possibly be a realistic prospect to any man worth dating. I mean, a thirty-something, recovering addict, former fat chick who, let's face it, is never gonna have a baby-smooth, tight, six-pack or a slammin' ass - It's just no longer in the cards for me. My life is far from "normal" and far from "boring".....or is it??? I'm so hard on myself.

I seem to be quick to forget all that I do have to offer. Despite my baggage, I am a quick-witted, educated and strong woman, who for the most part, has her shit together. I can be loving and kind, fearless and searching, and on top of it all, I can cook. Who am I trying to convince? Obviously me.

It was brought to my attention last night that we ALL are in one type of recovery or another. So, why am I so unique? I suppose EVERYBODY who is "out there" has baggage. And the whole point is to find someone who is intrigued by the "whole package"....body, mind, spirit AND baggage.

Right?

Why I live in the ghetto...

So, my apartment complex may be a little ghetto, but the reason I picked this place to live is because of the wide open spaces adjacent to my building. I walk my dog daily over there, and today I remembered to bring my camera. Keep in mind that I know NOTHING about photography!

Winter sleeps!

And today I heard the first spring peepers singing!