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.