Month: November 2014

Let’s see… I am supposed to be thinking of all the things for which I am grateful, right?  How sweet.

But we all know the real goal of Thanksgiving: overindulging in foods we don’t normally eat or cook.

That was certainly what it meant to me for many years.  In the days leading up to Thanksgiving I would worry that I was: A. prepared for my part in the feast;  B. psyched up and out about what I could and could not eat.  I even did the weight watchers thing where you visualize your plate as 3/4 full of veggie and one quarter full of goodies.

The weight watchers idea is a good one but I always took it too far.  I worried about the shape of the plate: width and diameter.  And it didn’t matter in the end what shape the plate was or how well I had done, I always, always, felt defeated.

Food has been my nemesis for as long as I can remember.

I suppose that is why Thanksgiving is just not my favorite holiday.  I eat a restricted diet now, with no gluten, low fat and very little meat, but I still have trouble with my weight..  I have spoken to many doctors and the honest ones have told me that all the medications I have had to take the last few years have severely messed up my ability to metabolize calories; something I was never stellar at to begin with.

So, I am locked in a war with myself. It seems I cannot accept this version of me.  Being this heavy, for whatever reason, means I am a failure.

I have spoken with several of my doctors about some sort of bariatric surgery and most have told me that my crappy immune system will not do well and I will create a monster that could infect and kill me.

That makes me mad.

So what to do besides trying to eat well and exercise, which I do most of the time.

I am back to the grateful thing.

I think my relationship with myself requires that I finally accept me the way I am… even now.  I tend to talk to myself in pretty nasty terms.  I have been pretty irritated with my body, especially the last few years. On top of everything else, I am overweight and feel really, really bad about it.  So, I berate myself and punish myself and think about how hellish I look.

What is really going on is a bid for control of my body.  The body that is sick and hurts all the time and is fatigued and doesn’t do what I want it to.

Plus, I thought if your health was less that ideal,  you were supposed to look all frail and thin:) Not Me!

I have decide to start loving myself by eating what I need and what is healthy and no more.  I am not going to use food as a weapon against myself.

I am also going to work on being grateful for this body I have;  all of it.  I have to accept the shape that I am and love it or I will never love myself in other shapes.

Oh, but it is hard!!!

Mirrors and photos are the pits but I am trying to remember: grateful, grateful.

If I wake up and I am not in the hospital and I am able to get out of bed; it s a good day.

So, this Thanksgiving, as I cook the turkey and make the stuffing, I am going to try and be grateful I am able to stand up and get the job done.  I will reward myself by being kind to myself and dressing nice, putting on my make-up and eating what I need and no more.

That is the best I can do.

I will be grateful for the health and the body G–D has given me and I will be grateful for all the wonderful things in this world: None of which have to do with the size of my butt!

 

(My boob is fine. In case you are interested…)

My big Golden Retriever, Rufus McDufus the Third, hums when he is trying to get his point across or when he is getting a particularly nice belly rub.  Sometimes, he just stares at you while you are eating and hums.

We think he must have a lot of room in is doggy sinus cavity.  Perhaps this is the sort of noise the dinosaurs made.  (Don’t worry, I am going somewhere with this).

I use to be a really good hummer myself.  I could sing, hum, chirp and fa la la with the best of them.  But in the last few years I seem to have lost my mojo in that department.  I can’t get enough breath control to really sing the way I once did.  I also keep having more grief from my off-operated on sinuses.

Is this an excuse?  I don’t know.

I miss choir and I miss singing like crazy.  It feels like a whole half of me is shut down.  I figure I am using my creative parts in other ways.

I write this blog.

I try to work on my novel.

I am trying to teach and raise my son… who, believe me, requires creative techniques.

But, Oh! The music!  I weep when I hear it.  I literally cannot listen.

I am trying to hold the faith that in the next few years my time will free up and my body will cooperate and will again find a place to sing.

It may not be like before;   I will never be the chirping bird I was.

I guess that will just have to be ok.

I know what I want to sing.  I want to learn all the music that goes down in Temple.  I want to learn everything that they sing there for High Holy days.  I want to learn all the Hebrew responses.

I have a whole world of new liturgy and tunes to learn.

That makes my heart leap with joy.  (I am weird.)

But all the liturgical music of my Christian past is still with me.  I know so much of it:

The chants: how I love them.

The hymns: I love them too.

The canticles and rounds and the early music, Palestrina and Bach and Mozart and Verdi’s Requiem.

Everyone’s Requiem.

I don’t want to lose those.

I think I am overwhelmed just thinking of all the music that is already in me and all of the music left to come.

Maybe Blah Humdog is not the right title for this little ditty.  Perhaps it is better to say: (See, I don’t know what to write here… )

Maybe I should just call this, “Hummmmm”

Or, “Blaaaaaah”

Make it a vocal exercise.  I could use one  of those.

In the meantime, I think it is time to learn how to download music to my I-phone so I can listen in the car.  I have not done that yet.  Either there is a teenager who wants me to hear their music, or the news, or I bliss out in the utter silence of being alone for a few minutes.

Maybe I will start humming new tunes….

Maybe that will chase the Blahs away………

Or maybe I will just chant “Blah, Humdog” over and over until my stress and my over active imagination give way to a blessed unity with the One who makes the music.

For that is what I seek, after all, blessed unity and calm with the Blah, Humdog that is sitting, looking at me with soulful eyes, at the very center of my being.

 

 

October is breast cancer awareness month.  It is pink and boobies all over.  I think that is great.  We all need to be reminded of the presence of our breasts.

Personally, I tend to notice mine a lot.  Really; they are lumpy and they scare me.  My mom died of not one, but two kinds of breast cancer.  Her mom, my grandma, also had breast cancer, before she had a few other cancers.  Both of them lived until their late 70’s.

So, I am a good girl and I put the twins in the booby smasher every year and get them checked.  I have been doing this since my twenties.  I have had biopsies done before; one in my late twenties and one in my mid thirties.

I think I am about to get another.  My mammogram came back ‘inconclusive’ and the doctor wants me to go in for an ultrasound and a diagnostic mammogram.  When she did my exam the other day, she kept saying, “hmmmmmm, ohhh, and hmmmm.”

This has me feeling kind of reflective and weird.  I have known I had a new lump but I did not really want to report it for a few months.  Why did I do that?

I have felt overwhelmed.  I have been thinking, illogically, that I cannot have something else.

That is of course, stupid. A. I probably don’t. B. If I do, it is likely curable; just nasty.

So, here I am in no girl’s land: waiting for the next step.  I have to make my mind go blank.  I cannot go around thinking about my boob.  I cannot contemplate the fact that people with my host of immune and autoimmune disease are much more likely to have cancer…

I want to run to the radiology place and say, “Here I am.  Look at my boob right now and tell me what the deal is!  I will not wait!”

But they don’t actually have an appointment for a couple of weeks.  I will try tomorrow to move things up.

The deal is I should know this game by heart now: NO CONTROL.

Life just veers around and takes you along for the ride.  Maybe life takes your boob because your cells do something weird in your body and it is called cancer and that sucks.  I don’t know.

Maybe you miss that bullet and you wait until the booby smasher comes around again next year.

I dunno.

To Breast or not to Breast?  That is a silly question.

Think of all the weight I could lose if I got rid of ’em?

Ha! Take that you stupid, lumpy boobies!