Heart Like a Wheel - On Love and Trust

With apologies to Clement C. Moore:

Tis the day after Christmas, and all through my flat, not a creature is stirring, not even a cat.

A light snow is silently falling outside – it has been coming down since the rain changed over yesterday afternoon. It is not creating any significant accumulation, but it has renewed the freshness of the landscape, which had been rendered muddy and dreary after the rain washed away the previous snow cover over the past days. Perhaps that should lift my spirits, but so far, it has been ineffective in doing so. The gloom that settled over me on Christmas Eve remains in place. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as alone as I do right now. My parents and grandparents have passed away, my family is all scattered and busy elsewhere, my son is wrapped in his own feelings of depression and self-pity, and the love of my life has left me wondering about myself, my judgment, and my ability to love and trust again. In sum, I feel lost.

It’s hard to accept that the person who I thought I would spend the rest of my life with has abandoned that dream that I thought we both shared. It is incredibly painful that the person who, less than a month ago, used to tell me at least 10 times a day how much he loved me, now ends his emails to me with “Take Care”. I have always believed that he loved me as much as I loved (and love, still) him – that he did what he did because of his feelings of guilt, responsibility, and history. Many friends have questioned that – especially the men. Most of my men friends have said that he would not have done what he did to me if he really loved me, and that, if his love was real, he would have made sure we met in person long ago. I have steadfastly defended him – but today, for the first time since that horrible email telling me that it – we – were over, I find myself wondering if they were right. Was I really seeing him clearly – did I want his love so badly that I mistook his sweet words of love for reality? Was I just a fantasy for him – the perfect woman, who would be his friend, companion, lover, and partner, for life; rather than the real flesh-and-blood, flawed human that I am? Did he ever actually love me – or did he just love the idea of who I might be for him, not the woman herself? These questions are causing me to feel the pain again almost as sharply as the day it happened, and I don’t know how to find answers, or let them go. And they bring to the forefront the worst question of all: If I was wrong about him – if he wasn’t who I believed with all my heart that he was – if he really didn’t love me for who I am – how can I ever trust anyone, or myself, again? How can I possibly risk being wrong, and opening myself up to the potential for this much pain occurring again? In truth, I don’t believe that I can survive another hurt and disappointment like this.

As I noted in my last post, he and I have been talking again, via email, and with increasing frequency. And yet, today I find myself questioning whether I could really, truly trust him again. A part of me wants to, wants it so badly that I can almost taste it! But can I actually do that, after he broke so many, many promises that he made to me: that he would love me forever, and do anything necessary for us to be together; that he would never hurt me – a promise he made over and over to my friends, as well; that I would never be alone again; that we would be together soon; and many others. Is there a way for me to open my heart to him again, knowing that none of these things will ever happen? And even if I could, how wise would that be? How can I risk that? How can I ever know that he is really the person I thought he was?

The answer to those questions is this: I need to actually meet him, in person, and look into his eyes to know if he is telling me the truth. I had convinced myself that I didn’t need to – that the emails, chats, and phone calls were enough for me to be sure. Now I think I was wrong. If there is ever to be trust between us again, no matter what form our relationship takes, I need to be with him in person – to be able to touch him, and talk with him, and see for myself if he is being genuine and honest with me. I’ve come to believe that it is too easy to be disingenuous (deliberately or not) via the mediums we had, and much harder if you have to look into the eyes of the other person. And I think there is incalculable value in seeing the real person, face to face – perhaps only then can you understand, fully and completely, that that person is real; a person with beauty and flaws – and be able to love them as they really are – or not.

From the song by Anna McGarrigle, Heart Like a Wheel

Some say the heart is just like a wheel
When you bend it you can't mend it
But my love for you is like a sinking ship
And my heart is on that ship out in mid-ocean

When harm is done no love can be won
I know it happens frequently
What I can't understand oh please God hold my hand
Why it had to happen to me

And it's only love and it's only love
That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out

Phoenix Rising from the Ashes

Over two weeks have passed since my life got turned upside down (see previous post for details). I’ve almost stopped crying now, although tears will well up unexpectedly at odd times. The next week will be hard to get through, because that is the week that my love and I would finally have come together – all the miles between us gone, face-to-face for the first time. Now instead, I will be getting ready to leave for a Florida vacation with a dear girlfriend, who is hauling me off to the sunshine, warmth, and sandy gulf beach to heal. I am very thankful that I have that to look forward to and concentrate on, because without it, the next week would be unbearable.

In the past two weeks, I have moved from despair back to someone who appears (to the casual observer) to be nearly back to normal. I joke with friends, smile, talk to people on Twitter, and post to my Facebook page. I put up a Christmas tree, shopped for Christmas dinner, and wrapped a present for a friend. What they don’t know is that, inside, I feel empty and sadly melancholy. Nothing touches me as deeply as it should, even when I hear about tragedies in my friend’s lives – I care, but my ability to feel their pain is greatly diminished. I am still guarding my heart carefully and trying to keep the pain at bay. I can’t help it – I just don’t have the capacity right now to open my heart and bleed for them.

I have been incredibly blessed with wonderful friends who have supported me during this time. They have tweeted, called, texted, left messages on Facebook, and emailed. Several offered to come and sit with me – one did. They told me over and over again that I would survive – that things would get better – that the pain would diminish. Slowly and surely, it has done that. I have leaned on their love to help me through this. I’m not sure how I would have gotten through it without them.

About a week ago, my love and I began to talk again – by email only, but sharing feelings as well as the events that affect our lives. We started to explore what kind of a relationship we might still be able to have now, if any. His decision about what he needed to do did not change the love and friendship we had during our relationship. He hurt me badly, but in spite of that, I still love him and want him in my life. I know it can’t be the kind of relationship that we had planned – a life together, and everything that comes with that. Because I am who I am, I have to support him, even though that means my dreams have been shattered. His decision, however, does not mean that he doesn’t still love me, or that he doesn’t miss me terribly, as I do him. We are the love of each other’s life – but we simply can’t be together.

It may be some time before he and I can strike the balance we need to, to preserve our relationship in whatever form it can now take. In truth, I’m still not sure that it is possible, although I fervently hope that it is. Our love relationship was very intense, and it is bound to be difficult to establish a friendship without that. But we are in agreement that we have to try, because we mean too much to each other to just let it go. And so we will give it our best shot.

One thing that has been very encouraging during this time is that I have not resorted to eating as a way to ease my pain, as I have with every other traumatic occurrence in my life. I’ve gone back to my warm water exercise, surprisingly able to pick up right where I left off when my knee broke down again and I had to get another series of injections, requiring me to stay out of the pool. I’ve been able to stick to my eating plan, and have continued to lose weight – I have now lost 77 pounds since April, when I began, and that’s 146 pound lost from my top weight, in 2005. I am hoping that this means that I have broken a life-long bad habit, numbing pain with food. Only time will tell if it is really gone, or if this is the exception rather than the rule. But I am grateful for it this time, anyway.

The End of the Dream

I have been trying to write this for days, but just couldn’t stop crying long enough to do it. The man I love has left me. I am shattered – hurt beyond words, pain that seems unending. I thought that I had finally found my soul mate – the person I would spend the rest of my life with. He promised to never hurt me – that I would never be alone again – that he would love me forever. And so many more promises that, in the end, he broke. I was willing to give up my life here, my career with the University, all or most of my possessions, and my country to immigrate so that we could be together. In the end, he wasn’t willing to undergo the pain of disassembling a 32-year marriage that he told me over and over made him unhappy and unfulfilled. So he left me – blindsided me with a “dear Jane” email, after texting me 6 hours earlier to tell me how much he loved me and couldn’t wait to be with me for New Year’s in Las Vegas. Needless to say, he left me with a huge hole in my life, a pit in my stomach that won’t go away, and more tears than I thought I had in me.

I still want to believe in miracles – I still want to believe that life has good things in store for me, and that I can achieve my goals. But right now, all I can see is loneliness, darkness, and pain. I don’t know how I can ever trust anyone again. I don’t know how I can take the risk of being hurt like this again. And please don’t tell me that time heals all wounds. It doesn’t heal ALL wounds. It helps, but it may not really be able to bring me back to the person I was before this happened. I was a vibrant, loving, giving person, willing to give my heart. I think that person is gone for good. I don’t know who or what will emerge. Only time will tell.

Catch-up Time

I have been sorely neglecting my blog for the past month – my apologies to those who faithfully read what I have to say! I love and appreciate you more than I can say! Lots of things have been happening in my life; most of them are wonderful, some not so great, and some just plain different. So this morning seems like a very good time to get caught up.

The Thanksgiving holiday has been a little hard on the old diet, but I’ve given myself permission to indulge a bit (just a bit!) while with friends and family. Tomorrow (Sunday is the “start” day of a new week on SSS), it’s back to the straight and narrow. My weight loss has continued, but has slowed somewhat due to lack of exercise. I’ve now lost a total of 68 pound on SSS (that’s since mid-April), or 137 pounds off my all-time high weight. I’m shooting for 75 lost by the end of the year – hoping I make it!

The lack of exercise is due to my knee problems kicking in again. I attended Educause early this month, in Denver at the Colorado Convention Center. As some of you may know, that place is HUGE, and the amount of walking required to get around there was enormous – my bad knee simply could not take the abuse and began hurting and swelling again. I’m now in the midst of a second set of SynVisc injections to add lubrication to the joint. This time, I’m getting them in both knees, too, since the right knee is also deteriorating. My final injections for this round will be a week from tomorrow. Within a couple weeks after that, I should have my mobility back and be able to begin my water running regimen again. For now, I have to stay out of the pool altogether to prevent infection in the injection sites. It’s very hard to do that – my body is feels heavy and achy, and of course my weight loss slows to a crawl or a dead stand-still. I am definitely looking forward to getting back to doing what I need to!

The love that I wrote about in my last post has continued to grow and flourish and has now blossomed into a fully-committed relationship. Barriers and difficulties notwithstanding, we are both moving toward being together on a permanent basis. We plan to make that happen within the next year – hopefully in even less time than that. I am excited and terrified – not terrified about the relationship itself, but the prospect of completely giving up my life and everything familiar to me to move to another country and start all over again. However, nothing is as terrifying as contemplating life without him, so I will do what needs to be done to make that happen. In another way, it is a great adventure that I look forward to and embrace. And I have never been happier in my life!

One big challenge ahead is that my son, who will be 34 in January, lives with me and does not have a job or real skill set. He has physical and emotional challenges as well, although he is an articulate, intelligent, and funny person. Now he has to figure out what to do with himself, to be able to survive on his own without me to provide for him. In some ways, this is probably a good things and overdue – but in other ways, it is heartbreaking and terrifying. However, the time has come when I must do what’s right for me, and show some tough love. It is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I have to do it. He will still have family in Wisconsin who will help and support him, and I will do what I can for him as well, but he needs to have a life of his own, and this is the only way for him to get it, I’m afraid. I had long hoped that he would do this on his own, but it just didn’t happen.

And so life goes on – thank you for caring enough to read my thoughts and follow my life path. Hopefully I won’t be so tardy with my next post!

Miracles Can Happen!

First of all, for those following my weight loss journey, my progress continues – I’ve now lost 64 lbs. on the Skinny Switch Secret diet. That’s a total loss of 132 lbs. from my all-time high weight. Many pounds left to lose, but I truly believe that I WILL lose all that I need to – perhaps not all I’d like to lose, but certainly all I need to lose. That is an important distinction to me and one that I remain mindful of. It would be easy to fall into the trap that societal expectations sets for us and buy into only being successful if you fit the unrealistic “perfect” body image. But I am NOT going there. It won’t happen – as the matter of fact; I really don’t think I want it to happen – so there is no point in torturing myself and setting myself up for failure. I will lose what I need to lose and I WILL be perfect – perfect for me, anyway. For me to truly believe this is a miracle. To have it happen will be another.

There is another huge miracle that has completely blessed my life, and I am so happy that I can barely express it. After 55 years of looking so hard for love and being hurt and frustrated, love actually found me! It came from the most unexpected place – a chance meeting on Twitter, of all things. If you read my last post (Falling in Love – in 140 Characters or Less), you know that, in many ways, being on Twitter has changed my life – I’m met so many wonderful people who have become great friends, mentors, and inspirations. My life has become so much richer from the interactions, support, and love I get every day from these new friends! I am grateful for each and every one of them.

And now, in the most amazing turn of events I could ever imagine, I have met a man who is clearly the great love of my life – my soul mate – on Twitter. We first connected through mutual friends; that’s the way you usually meet people on Twitter, you start following people your friends follow. For a few months, we interacted occasionally and casually – yet there was something about him that I found intriguing – he was smart, funny and sometimes bawdy, but always very sensitive and supportive to his friends when they needed it. I have a real weakness for funny, smart men, so of course I began paying more attention. I didn’t realize for quite some time that he was also paying a lot of attention to me and my interactions – there’s that low self-esteem thing again – until he sent me several private messages that began the intense connection stage of our relationship. We found that we simply couldn’t stop talking to one another – we had many, many common interests, opinions, fears, loves, and passions. Direct messages led to emails, instant messages and finally phone calls. It didn’t take long for both of us to realize that we were falling in love.

This is not an uncomplicated, fairy-tale romance – many miles and even a country border separate us, along with job and family factors. But while there are huge barriers and difficulties, loving him is the easiest, most natural, and most satisfying thing I have ever done. Knowing he feels exactly the same as I do makes me very grateful and blissfully happy. And just like my weight loss quest, I know that this, too, will end in success someday. Our love will carry us through everything to come.

Happy Sweetest Day, my love! Thank you for bringing love into my world! I love you always and forever!

Falling In Love - In 140 Characters (or less)

Most of you know that I’m on Twitter. Many of you know me BECAUSE I’m on Twitter. Twitter has been a huge adventure for me. If you had told me a year ago that I would have a Twitter account that I spent hours on every day, I’d have thought you were crazy! No way that was going to happen! I didn’t even understand how Twitter worked! Like chat, only to the whole world??? What on earth would make me want to do that???

I actually got started on Twitter at a conference. Some folks from UW Milwaukee gave a presentation about how they were using Twitter to increase communication on campus. As a demo, they set up a hashtag to tweet conference information. Since I always hate to be left out of anything, I decided to give it a try. At first I was pretty shy – I only tweeted once, when asked to by the session moderator. And actually, for quite some time after that, I didn’t do much – I followed a few people from UWM that I knew – then found a few others. I never seemed to think I had anything to say, so I pretty much just lurked. Then, oddly enough, some people found me – local people at first – and I started following them, too. One of them, a really smart funny guy named Denny Griffin, who goes by the twitter name of @wipoolplayer, tweeted some really interesting facts, quotes, music, etc., and I started to RT (re-tweet) him. Soon, I was finding other interesting people through him, and it sort of snowballed from there.

I have met some wonderful people on Twitter – some local, some that I will probably never meet IRL (in real life), but who have become more dear to me than I would ever have I imagined. One of them, a lovely incredible woman named Bev Wallace (@nursebevw on twitter) has become perhaps the closest female friend I have ever had. Bev is amazing for many reasons – she is a former nurse who can no longer work due to pain caused by Celiac Disease, Fibromyalgia, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Since she can’t work, she has channeled her considerable talent and energy into trying to help others. She has founded a charity called “Crafters With Love” (www.crafterswithlove.com) and has recruited others to assist as well. Many days, she runs things from her bed, with a laptop and a telephone. I can’t tell you how honored I was when she asked me to sit on her board of directors – as vice president, no less! Bev and I talk many times each day, mostly on twitter, sometimes via email. I’ve also become close to the rest of the wonderful, talented Crafters With Love group – John Lusher (@johnlusher), Roxie Hobart (@petpaint) and Amy Walker (@ivysunny). These people are all amazing in their own ways, and honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better group of friends and associates. And in most cases, I’ve gotten to know them only on Twitter, where each thing you say (tweet) has to be 140 characters or less.

Imagine if you had to speak to people in only sentences limited to 140 characters. (There is a very funny youtube video on that subject, by the way). But that’s the way it is, and we’ve all been doing it. I’ve seen friendships begin and flourish – I’ve even seen new love relationships begin. I have, myself, recently met someone who I am beginning to feel very close to – and who knows where it might lead? And it all began with 140 character tweets – funny, sad, silly, boring, interesting, friendly, angry – you name it. I’ve met local people that I dearly love, but might never have run across any other way – like my dear friend Stacy Snook (@stacysnook) who I just met in person for the first time last night, at a “TweetUp” that she and two other locals, Jenna Borum (@chivetalker) and Chad Schomber (@chadschomber) organized at a downtown brewpub. Stacy is also an amazing person – a mother, wife, business owner, and cancer survivor. She and I are looking forward to getting to know each other better in person, as well as tweeting each other pretty much every day. And I met other terrific people there as well – a group from Milwaukee came in and were definitely the life of the party! It was a wonderful evening which left me feeling blessed to find new friends.

The bottom line for me is that, much like FaceBook, Twitter is about connecting. One difference is that on FaceBook, you mostly connect with people you already know. With Twitter, you are connecting with a whole world of people, most of whom you DON’T know. So yes, you have to be careful – there are some sick, twisted people out there – and some people who use others with no regard for their feelings – they are people trying to get you to look at the slutty pictures, sell you teeth whiteners or any of a million things, and invest in their ground floor “opportunities”. There are chances for misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and anger. It is not a world for children. But for me at least, the opportunities to have my life enriched far outweigh the negatives. So, in the final analysis, Twitter is about finding people you can love and support, and who will do the same for you.

Learning To Love Me

I’m a giver. Always have been, probably always will be. I give money, time, effort and love. I support, comfort, amuse and listen. I am honest and outgoing, without being a social butterfly. That’s just who I am, and those qualities are not ones that I feel compelled to change. They are qualities that I like about myself, and that I am attracted to in others.

However, while I know all these things about myself, I still tend to concentrate on the negatives, and relegate the positives to the been-there, done-that pile. I pick at myself constantly, finding fault with what I accomplish and berating myself for what I do not. I have always been my own worst enemy and the person that I am most critical of. My friends frequently upbraid me for making self-deprecating comments and jokes. I guess I’ve always thought that, if I say it first, nobody could hurt me by saying it to me. Strange thinking? Probably.

In the past couple of weeks, I took another blow to my fragile self-esteem. I‘ve written before about my sadness over my lack of success with relationships. It always seems like I get just so close – then it all falls apart. In this case, I had a date with someone I met online, but had not yet met in real life. I was very excited – had my nails done, got a pedicure, and even got my hair cut, colored and styled. About mid-day the day before, he let me know that it wasn’t going to work out – that he was going to have to work and wouldn’t be able to make it to town. I was, of course, very disappointed, but assumed we would reschedule. What I found out afterwards, is that he lied – he didn’t have to work; he got “a better offer” – a younger, slimmer, blonde offer.

Of course, true to form, the person I blamed was me. At first, I blamed myself for being undesirable. Then I blamed myself for getting into the situation in the first place. It took almost a full day for me to turn that situation around and, instead, blame the jerk who stood me up. But although I intellectually understand that he’s the one to blame, my emotions still told a different story. All those years of feeling inadequate came tumbling back and landed in a pile on top of me. I felt sad that, once again, I’d failed to be attractive enough, and I’d ended up alone again.

Here’s the kicker though – he never even met me! He had seen pictures of me- mostly shots of just the top part of my body. He never even bothered to read this blog to find out who and what I am. He didn’t really know who he had a date with. Truthfully, I don’t know why he wanted to see me in the first place – I guess he was attracted by my flirtatious manner online. After he told me he was going to be coming to see me, I told him that I was a big girl – I didn’t want to see a look of disappointment or shock on his face the first time he saw me. He said that didn’t make any difference to him – he was excited to see me. But in the end, it did matter. It mattered enough for him to stand me up in favor of someone completely different from me. He never even gave me a chance to disappoint him.

So why beat up on myself? Because that’s always my first impulse in any negative situation – it must be Kathy’s fault – she either did something wrong or she isn’t “good” enough, or … well, whatever – you get the picture. Let’s face it – this guy is a jerk, and that has nothing to do with me. I may not be arm candy, but I am a warm, loving, attractive woman with lots to offer the right guy. The right guy has just never come along – maybe he never will – but that doesn’t change who I am or my capacity for love and enjoyment of life. It would very much like to have a partner who wanted to share that life with me. That doesn’t mean that I should “settle” – I deserve a great guy! If a great guy never appears in my life, that’s too bad – but I will still be who I am. And that just has to be good enough.

The First 50 Pounds

This is going to be a fairly short post (at least I think it is!). On my last weigh-in on Sunday, my weight took my total lost up to just over 50 pounds. And while that is not nearly as much as I need to lose, it represents a huge leap for my confidence. For me, it says “You can do this. You are doing it. You will continue doing it”. It is a success. And I can’t begin to express how important it is to celebrate every success, no matter how insignificant it might seem to others. The long-term goals are very useful, and keep you focused on the totality of what you are trying to achieve. But it is hard to sustain day-to-day enthusiasm for a project if there are not recognized, interim goals and achievements.

I used to live in the future. (No, I’m not Jane Jetson, or a character on a sci-fi show.) Living in the future means that I put of everything until some later, hoped-for event had occurred. A few examples: “When this project is over, I’ll take some time off to spend with my family”. “After I lose weight, I’ll try dating again”. “When the economy is better, I’ll try to start saving some money.” “One of these days they’ll come up with a diet drug that really works; then I’ll lose some weight.” What I’ve finally learned is that the future never comes. The future is always the future – the future is never now. If you put things off waiting for something that might happen in the future, you’re screwed. Now just might be the only future you will ever have.

So, although I have a lot more to lose, I’m celebrating my first 50 pounds lost. Instead of celebrating by eating, I got a manicure and pedicure; then I got my hair colored, cut and styled so I feel like I look as great as I feel. I’m acknowledging all the hard work that I have done to get to this point. And I’m looking forward to working on the next 50 pounds – not just for the weight that will be lost, but for the growing I will do while I work on it.

Trust and Betrayal

By nature, I’m a very trusting person. Maybe it’s just the way I was raised – in a very small town where you knew everyone and they knew not just you, but your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Where nobody locked their doors or windows, and folks slept out on the screen porch during hot weather. Where everybody took care of everyone else’s kids as if they were their own, and you were always welcome at a neighbor’s house and dinner table. Maybe that’s why I have gotten hurt so many times in my life since – I always seem trust people until they prove that they can’t be trusted. You’d think I’d learn sooner or later. Looks like it’s going to be later.

Why are some people so selfish that they don’t care about what happens to someone else as long as they get what they want? How do they get to that point? Did no one care about them when they were young? Did life screw them over so badly that they feel like they deserve whatever they can get, no matter what? It’s always been a mystery to me why some people are such assholes. I keep thinking there must be a reason for it, and if I could understand it, I could deal with it. After 55 years on this earth, I still do not understand, and at this point, I doubt I ever will.

For me, life is all about loving and being loved. It’s about giving of yourself to make others happy. It’s caring about people you don’t even know – wanting life to be better for them, and doing what you can to make it that way. It’s about finding that one person that you want to spend the rest of your life making happy, and doing everything in your power to do just that. It’s about treasuring friends and family above everything else, and being there for them whatever happens. It’s about not running away from problems and uncomfortable situations with the one(s) you love, but hanging in there and fighting for the best outcome for everyone. It’s about giving love whenever and wherever you can.

Unfortunately for me, that means that I get disappointed and hurt all too often. When people tell me something, I believe them. When someone says they will do something or be somewhere, I believe that they will. And when they don’t, I’m not always half as mad at them as I am at myself for being such a sucker! Which, of course, means they win twice – once when I believe them, and once when I beat myself up for being so foolish.

Sometimes I wonder what the right answer is, here. Is it to trust no one and believe that everyone you meet has ulterior motives? Is it to “play the game back” and hurt rather than be hurt? Do I just withdraw from life altogether to avoid being hurt? Or is it my lot to keep believing, keep hoping, keep trying and, in the end, keep being hurt and disappointed.

In case you are wondering, this week someone I thought was a friend turned out to be someone who only wanted to use me to get something they wanted. They offered me some things that I value – friendship, caring and companionship – only to get me to let my guard down so that they could manipulate me to get what they wanted. I’m left feeling like dirt under their feet. And somehow, I doubt that they care one bit. After all, they got what they wanted in the first place. Mission accomplished.

The Dreaded Plateau

Trying to lose weight is a series of occasional highs surrounded by a vast sea of frustration. At least that’s the way it works for me. When the number on the scale goes down, there’s just no better feeling. In my case, those occasions are generally spaced out with a lot of incidents of frustration when the number either doesn’t change at all, or actually goes up (temporarily). It’s so easy to get discouraged when you are following the rules and exercising frequently – and seeing no results. Perhaps part of the problem is that we live in a time when we are accustomed to immediate gratification – cause and effect being adjacent to each other in a timeline – and we don’t deal as well with the “eyes on the prize” scenario.

In the dieting world, this is referred to as a plateau. Plateaus can be anywhere from a week to several months. This is the point at which your body decides to fight back and try to maintain your weight – a built-in response to prevent starvation by holding onto the pounds. Even if you are extremely obese, like I am, your body still responds to weight loss that way. It is during plateaus that people usually “fall off the wagon” – all that hard work and self-denial and nothing to show for it. I’m no different – every diet I’ve ever undertaken has resulted in a long plateau, which ended when I decided “to heck with it – I’m going to eat whatever I want – might as well!” and that was it. Once you fall off a particular diet or way of eating, it is so very much harder to re-start – you always have that feeling of “what’s the use? I’ll just quit losing again”.

I’m a tough case, to be sure. I’ve probably lost at least 500 pounds – if not more – in my lifetime. In the end, I give up and start eating things that aren’t good for me again – and put on everything I’ve lost and more, and I do it very rapidly. It’s not out of the question for me to gain 20 pounds in a month. I had a metabolic study once, and the endocrinologist told me that I was too efficient – that my body needed fewer calories to maintain my weight than anyone he had seen in his practice (and he wasn’t a young man, either!). That’s not an excuse for giving up, but it is a contributing factor in my frustration with weight loss efforts.

This time around, I’ve hit a number of small plateaus already. So far, the weight loss has restarted in 2-4 weeks, as long as I keep working at it. There could be any number of reasons for this - for example, I have greatly increased the amount of physical activity in my schedule, and I’ve been building muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. So sometimes, even when I don’t see the scale number change, I do see a change in the tape measure or in the fit of my clothes. Other times, I can be retaining water – this frequently happens when I suffer a bout of fibromyalgia. I don’t know what the relationship is – I just know that for me, there is one. Regardless of the reason, I can see my weight fluctuate as much as 3 pounds in the course of a few days.

What I can say this time around is that there has been a change in my attitude. While I’d love to see the scale show weekly progress, I have committed myself to doing this even if I don’t see it. I’m determined that this will work and I’ve gained an understanding that it may not happen quickly. I truly believe that this time I will be able to take off a large chunk of my weight. Maybe not all that I’d like to see gone, but a significant amount – enough to allow me to have the knee surgery I need and regain some mobility. I want to enjoy whatever years are left to me, and part of that enjoyment would come in being able, not disabled, if there is any way I can accomplish that. And so now I’m going off to the gym to run 35 laps and 30 minutes of resistance training in the warm water pool.

When Words Hurt

I hate prejudice! Prejudice against obese people is the one that hits me where I live, but I truly hate any type of prejudice, and I find myself becoming angry about it more frequently as I get older. Prejudice is a close-minded, irrational bias against some group of people – usually based on some cultural or societal perception – that leads, or allows, people to express themselves in a way that is demeaning and devaluing to those about whom they speak. Sometimes, this prejudice is so ingrained in their background that their expression of it becomes natural and without forethought. But words can hurt others deeply, and even jokes made at the expense of others are unkind and unacceptable.

This was brought home to me this week by a blog post by someone I know (I won’t name the person, so don’t ask) who posted and publicized (on Twitter) her newest rant, which she referred to as “FAT, STUPID People”! I was absolutely shocked and frankly, didn’t know what to think. However, I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, so I read her post. Her subject was an incident that she said happened at the grocery store, where she was confronted by a “fat beluga” for taking all of the sale pasta, which the woman went so far as to take away from her. She ranted on and on about how huge the woman was, using all sorts of nasty, vituperative and vulgar clichés. Reading it made me want to vomit, it was that nasty.

Now, this person is what is generally called a “drama queen” – someone who can take a small, seemingly insignificant incident in her life and turn it into a huge, nearly international incident – always with her as the innocent victim. But even if every word she wrote was true, the size of the woman she referred to had nothing at all to do with the situation. The woman was pushy and incredibly rude, yes – but she could have as easily been a normal sized person and acted the same way. Her size didn’t cause her to grab the pasta, as the writer assumed – it was most likely her desire to feed her family for less, rather than her being a greedy pig, as the writer characterized her. The woman was wrong to do what she did. But the writer was also wrong to unleash such a stream of invective about the woman’s weight.

One of the reasons I found this so difficult to take was that I thought she was someone who was aware of my battle and would not have deliberately said something so hurtful. She not only did that, she was angry when I confronted her about it and asked her to stop being so offensive. She ranted on and on about how I was just another fat tub of lard and I had no right to tell her what she could or couldn’t write. In that respect, she is right – I probably should not have gone as far as to ask her to stop. I probably should have stopped at telling her that she was offending me and others. She has a right to write anything she chooses, just like the neo-Nazis, the KKK, terrorists and I do. We all enjoy the freedom of speech that we find on the internet. In the end, I exercised my right to not subject myself to that type of offensive negativity – I “unfollowed” her on Twitter so that I didn’t have to be poisoned by her venom any longer. I hope that someday she might find some peace in her life, but that won’t happen until she learns to take responsibility for herself and her actions and stop blaming others and “acting out” to get attention.

Remember the old saying “Sticks and stone will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? I guess words will never put a cast on my leg or stitches in my arm. But they certainly hurt me emotionally, as I’m assuming they do you, as well. I experienced that from the other side this week when I called a friend an unflattering name – I was only joking, but he was in a bad place and didn’t get that. I hurt and angered him, something I would NEVER do deliberately. But it happened, and I learned from that experience as well. Words can hurt you and others. I know a lot of people who rant and rave about having to watch what they say because of PC (political correctness). Sometimes they’re right, and there certainly are people who LOOK for things to be offended by. But everyone needs to be at least somewhat conscious of how their words may be received and interpreted by others. When in doubt, please don’t say it. It isn’t worth hurting someone – whether it’s someone you love, or not. There is enough hurt in this world already.

Part 3 - The Diet-Go-Round or “Just Call Me Duncan”

My life started as a big baby – 8 lb. 8 ½ oz – oddly enough, my mother’s smallest newborn (the largest was 13 lbs., 2 oz). My earliest memories all have to do with people fussing about my weight. My paternal grandmother was particularly persistent – offered me all sorts of incentives (new wardrobe, trips to visit, Packer games, etc.) if only I’d “buckle down” and lose that weight. She was such a nag about it – I never saw her or got a letter from her that wasn’t full of pleas to “get that weight off”. I know now that she meant well, but at the time, I felt “picked on”.

No one who knew me could ever figure out why I was a heavy child. I was extremely active – always outside, running up and down the hillsides with my cousins, biking, swimming, etc. In spite of that, I gained A LOT of weight every year. I don’t remember what I weighed as a child – but I have a very strong memory of an incident that occurred in 7th grade – my first year of junior high school, in a classroom full of other children that I didn’t know. Every year, even in elementary school, we were weighed and measured – not sure what that had to do with academics, but it was common practice then. Prior to 7th grade, I attended a small school in my hometown – so small that grades 1-3 were in one room and 4-6 in the other. In those years, the teachers called us into the office one-by-on and weighed and measured us privately. However, in 7th grade we were called to the front of the class and weighed and measured in front of everyone – and to add insult to injury, the teacher then called out each student’s statistics to a teacher’s aide, who recorded them. I’ll never forget that day as long as I lived – the humiliation of hearing her call out “5’5”, 185 pounds”, and the gasps and then outright laughter than followed. That incident alone has left a deep scar and I feel myself turning red just writing about it here.

Needless to say, I’ve been a yo-yo (that’s the Duncan reference, if you didn’t get that) dieter all my life. Down a few pounds, up a few pounds more. Sometimes even down a lot of pounds (as many as 125, at one point), but then gained back all that and more. Every time I gain it back, it becomes harder to lose the next time. And getting older is also a weight loss deterrent. My metabolism, never robust, is slowing down even more. It takes twice as much hard work to lose a pound as it ever did before. Of course, that makes it easier to get discouraged. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up, however.

Back in February of this year, I started having severe pain in my left knee. Now, I’ve had degenerative joint disease in my knees, hips, back, and feet for years, but this pain was different. I could barely walk. But this was different – it didn’t come and go, it wasn’t worse some days than others, and it was excruciating whenever I put weight on it. Eventually, I went to see my doctor and get it x-rayed. The verdict – I have no cartilage at all on the right side of that knee – absolutely none. I went to see an orthopedic surgeon – his assessment was that I need my knee replaced. HOWEVER – he won’t do it now. He wants my BMI (body mass index) to be under 40. At the time of the visit, it was 62. I got a series of SynVisc shots in my knee to try to give me some mobility back, and – lucky for me - it worked. I also began physical therapy to learn some exercises that might help strengthen the muscles around the knee. While I am now able to walk short distances without a cane, it’s a poor substitute for a working knee.

In April, I also began another attempt at weight loss, using a plan that has a slightly different approach and philosophy to preparing and keeping your body in a weight-loss state. So far, it has been working – I’m down 43 pounds as of today. I’ve also added a LOT of exercise – since land-based exercise is out of the question, I do my workouts in a warm water pool at my health club. I hope I can maintain the momentum. Experience has taught me never to take anything for granted.

I intend to chronicle this journey here on this blog. My hope is that my experiences will be useful to someone else who fights this demoralizing battle. I’ve never had a “thin day” in my life, and don’t know if I would recognize one if it happened. Many people I know who have lost a LOT of weight still have a body image problem –they still see themselves as extremely fat, even though you or I looking at them would think them normal. When we’ve spent many years being ashamed of who we are and how we look, it is difficult to imagine not feeling that way. But it’s an experience I hope to have. Come along with me. The only promise I will make is to be totally honest and open. I invite you to share your thoughts, dreams, hopes and fears.

Things I'm Thankful For

My three prior posts have all been about my pain and anger. In this post, I want to talk about what and who I'm grateful to and for. There is so much more to my life than the pain and anger - I just needed to get that out before I could move on to the more positive aspects - plus I wanted to give my readers some context for where I am now.

First and foremost, I'm glad to be alive. There were lots of days/weeks/months when that was not the case. On two occasions, I even tried to end my own life, because I just didn't want to deal with the pain any longer. Hopefully, those times are past now. Every day that I see is another chance for happiness, satisfaction and accomplishment. I hope that I can keep focusing on that.

Next, I'm grateful for my friends and family. I have a lot of new and very dear friends that I've met just recently - most of them I've never actually been face-to-face with. They are part of my "twambly" - my twitter family. Especially close to me are @nursebevw, @Caribpop, @KimPossible40, @KimberleKelly, @mbreinholt, @a_simple_girl, @car4dave and @dashingclaire. Some of these are also now my Facebook friends. To anyone who has not experienced the power of social media, this has been an awesome way to connect and share. My Facebook family, mostly people I have met and/or see on a daily basis are also the best. They give me friendship, encouragement, and love.

I'm grateful for the SynVisc shots that have let me regain a portion of my mobility so that I can walk (short distances without pain) and work out in the pool. Without them, I'd be in a wheelchair. And I'm grateful to the orthopedic surgeon who suggested them, after dashing my hopes of an immediate knee replacement.

I'm grateful to Rob Nevins for launching the Skinny Switch Secret diet site. Rob's theory of what we need to do to keep our bodies burning fat resonated for me. Ergo another grateful: I've lost 43 pounds since mid-April and hope to keep it going using Rob's plan.

I'm thankful for that 43 pounds for many reasons, most of which you can probably guess. The most important of those is that I feel better - I have more stamina, it's easier to breathe, and my clothes are more comfortable - loose instead of skin tight.

I'm thankful that I've kept up my membership to Harbor Athletic Club for all these years, even when I didn't use it. Harbor has a warm water pool that gives people like me (fibromyalgia, arthritis, limited mobility) the opportunity to move, stretch, and strengthen. I've gone from barely being able to get in and out of the pool, to doing a full 1 1/2 hour workout 3-4 times a week, which includes running laps (currently up to 25 - from 2) in the deeper end. In many ways, this has been as instrumental to my weight loss and improved health as the diet.

I am VERY grateful that my son is still alive and also losing weight by cooking for me and following the same diet. I've been very worried about him - he has heart problems and diabetes on both sides of the family. I'm so happy that he has finally found something he can live with.

I'm grateful that it's summer. I feel so much better physically and emotionally when I can get outside and enjoy the warm weather, the pool, the flowers, etc.

I'm extremely grateful that I'm working on trying to lose weight and get fit again. There was a time when I thought I'd given up and would just have to suffer the consequences and that fate was not on my side. Thankfully, I've found out that I'm a fighter, not a quitter, and that anything just might be possible if you are willing to do that hard work.

Finally, I'm grateful to all of you who are taking the time to read my posts and take this journey with me. Bless you all for your friendship and support!!

Love, Love, Careless Love

Today I’m feeling like talking about love, and my life experience with it. It isn’t a particularly pretty story, but I think it’s relevant to the discussion of how obesity affects all aspects of your life. And how our societal view of obese people can make finding a life-mate who appreciates you for all of who and what you are challenging.

As a small child, I had a hard time feeling loved. I’m sure that my parents loved me – it’s simply that they were not demonstrative people. The only affection I ever saw between them was an occasional hand touch. However, for some unknown reason, I’ve always acutely craved affection and reassurances that I am loved. I drove my mother to distraction asking her, over and over again, if she loved me or how much she loved me. And no matter what she said, it was never enough.

Fast forward to my teenage years. I watched all the couples with envy – I wanted a boyfriend SO bad! In my freshman year of high school, the unimaginable happened – a boy asked me out. Of course I said yes – I was so excited! I was actually going to have a date for the Homecoming dance! As it turned out, not only did I have a date – I had a boyfriend. I was in heaven. This same boyfriend lasted all through my high school years, but to be honest, he didn’t always treat me very well. He seemed to delight in keeping me off-balance and making me insecure. With my low self-esteem, I accepted that. I thought I didn’t deserve better treatment, and I was incredibly afraid of losing him. Three months out of high school, I married him. That may have been the worst mistake I’ve ever made.

The marriage lasted 8 years, and produced one child – my son Randy. It was, to say the least, a troubled marriage, with him blaming me for all our problems, particularly the sexual ones. After one particularly bitter scene, he told me that “No man will ever want you – you are repulsive”. I didn’t want to believe him, but I did. To my shock, the marriage finally ended when he confessed that he was gay – had thought he was bi-sexual, but now decided he never wanted to sleep with a woman again. To this day, I don’t know if it was more a shock or a relief.

Through the years, there have been a number of men in my life, but not in the way I wanted. All of them wanted me to be their friend, confidant, sister-confessor, soft shoulder to cry on, etc. None of them wanted to be my lover. The last on-and-off relationship lasted around 10 years. The biggest question I have is this: Why do I put myself through it? I think the answer is that it is still the one thing I want most in life – the one big hole left in the center of me that I can’t stopper up myself. Love – for me, is the most important and most unattainable facet to living.

Don’t get me wrong – I do have friends and family that love me. And in their own way, each of these men I’ve been with has loved me, too – but loved me in the same way as friends and family. Not in the special. “Babe, you’re the one” way I’ve always craved.

There are a number of things that could be the cause of this. The ones that come to mind are:

1. I make bad choices. I choose men who are emotionally unavailable – at least to me
2. My body disqualifies me as a life-mate. Because of my weight, I’m certainly not “arm-candy”, “trophy wife” material. Men simply don't find me "sexy"
3. I'm just unlovable. Period.

These days, I have come to the conclusion that having a life companion is not in the cards for me. I need to try to stop obsessing on it and move on with my life – I have goals to accomplish and improvements to be made. I should stop wasting my energy on something that I can’t MAKE happen. As the old Bonnie Raitt song says, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t; I can’t make your heart feel what it won’t”. But it still leaves me feeling sad. And lonely.

Part 2 – Why I’m a Bitch Sometimes

Overheard at the health club pool: Little girl (about 5 years old) “Mommy, why is her butt so big?” Skinny blonde mom: “Well, sweetie, that’s what happens when you eat too much junk food and don’t exercise”.

Now – the subject of that conversation was me, it happened the evening after I posted my first blog entry, and it happened in a health club. What did she think I was doing there, if I don’t exercise? I confronted the mother with that fact – her response was that she needed to teach her daughter the importance of a healthy lifestyle. I told her that the next time she wants to make me or anyone else into an object lesson, she should also consider the opportunity to teach her child not to be judgmental without the facts – and to act respectfully. As you might guess, she just snorted and turned away.

So – here’s my question – should I have confronted her, or pretended I didn’t hear the exchange? In the past, I definitely would have done the latter. It seems like I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to hide and NOT confront people – from cruel children in the schoolyard to adults on the street. Playing deaf, and crying on the inside – certainly, that wasn’t a healthy scenario for me. As I look back on those days now, I realize that it was lack of self-esteem that caused me to act that way – I thought I deserved all that ridicule. Now, of course, I don’t believe that – but it still hurts to hear it.

I used to wonder why it was that someone would say something insulting about me, but wouldn’t to someone with a different disability. For example, if that mother saw a person with only one arm, would she have said “See dear, that’s what happens when you aren’t careful with farm equipment” or something similar? Of course not. In the same situation, she would have tried to hush her child and hope the disabled person hadn’t heard. The difference is that obese people are blamed for their disability, and therefore it seems perfectly acceptable to subject them to public ridicule.

I could go on at great lengths about the causes of obesity and the failure of the medical profession to develop an effective treatment for it. However, there are plenty of resources available on the web and in your library, so I won’t. If you are really interested, all you have to do is Google “obesity” and you’ll get all you can handle. What I can tell you is that I’ve tried nearly diet I’ve ever heard of, had 2 obesity surgeries, was on several different “fat” pills, lost (and regained) literally hundreds of pounds – not much I’ve missed – and here I am, still fat. I’ve never been a “normal weight” – the least I remember weighing was 185 pounds in 7th grade. So when someone says “Wouldn’t it be nice to be thin again?” I just can’t relate AT ALL.

I think that the worst part of this experience is the scars I will carry forever – the residual sense of shame that enlightenment can’t totally banish; the years of suffering emotional abuse at the hands of other people – some well-meaning, but still wrong, and the opportunities missed because I was afraid that the theater (or airline, or stadium, etc.) seat wouldn’t be large enough. I still remember being on a flight from San Diego to Milwaukee and having the man in the seat beside me INSIST of being moved to a new seat because I was crowding him. Or the cabin attendant on another flight who moved me to a less comfortable seat from an exit row seat because “it was obvious” to her that I could not be responsible for helping others to exit in an emergency.

So – I’m a bitch sometimes because I’m tired of being judged as “less than” by people who don’t begin to understand about obesity and make a whole set of bad judgments due to that ignorance. I’m tired of being underestimated and dismissed as “not suitable” for any number of things – teams, jobs, relationships – because of my weight. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a proponent of being overweight, because it isn’t healthy. That’s why I’m working, once again, to try to conquer the problem or at least minimize it. But even if I succeed in losing weight, I’ll still be who I am today – it won’t make any difference in the core of who I am. Only to the packaging.

In The Beginning....

Hello to all! A little about me to get started: First and foremost, I'm a survivor. Not a cancer survivor, and certainly not one of those reality show survivors - but a life survivor. Someone who has taken a lot of whacks and is still ticking. Second: While most people think that I'm a funny, articulate and intelligent person (I am, actually), what most people don't know is that I'm in a lot of pain - both physical and emotional. More about that later.


I live in Madison, Wisconsin - by most people's estimation, a very tolerant city. It's a city full of diversity, a haven for the arts, a college town (primarily UW Madison, my employer), and all-in-all a great place to live. Sure, we have our share of crime - who doesn't, in this day and age - but overall, it's a place I'm proud to call home.


However, having said all that, there is one more thing that you need to know about me - I am obese. I've been obese all my life, or at least for as long as I can remember. I've lost more pounds over the years than most people will ever weigh - even me! I'm not a little chubby - I'm very heavy. I've had two (yes, two) gastric surgeries and everything that comes along with that. I'm not a big eater, and I exercise frequently - but I'm still way overweight.


So - that brings me to my final point. In a world full of political correctness, when making a nasty crack about someones race, hair color, physical disability, sexual orientation or age is unforgiveable, it is apparently still perfectly fine to say anything you want about or to an obese person. People who have never had a weight problem make a whole set of (usually incorrect) assumptions about obese people (and yes, I'm using the word "obese", which I abhor), including:

• They are too lazy to exercise


• They eat too much - they need to just push back from the table


• They are unclean


• They are jolly, happy souls


• They don't know they are fat (so you feel an obligation to tell them)


• They're too stupid to know better


• They aren't trying - if they'd try, they wouldn't be fat

These people have no idea who I am, what I am, or what I've done in my life. All they see is my fat. They are missing something extraordinary when they do that. I've given up making excuses for myself, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt!

That's enough for now - I'll write more later this week.