Wanting to look good vs. Vanity....

As I grow up and try to fully connect with myself and lose the extra weight I've notice that my appearance is something that is lacking and while with some right outfits and good hair days and a couple swipes of makeup I can feel pretty good I still don't feel quite comfortable in the skin I was born in.

Most of my life I could take it or leave it, I remember as all little girls I use to play with my moms makeup growing up and at times she would give me stuff she didn't want to use but always in the hands of her or my father to watch me with when I asked to use it. It was all for play, I out grew it when I think the more I tried  out stuff that was girly the more it seemed I was converting to what the girls, I at least deem popular  in Elementary school were doing/acting/"into". I was scared that it seemed like I was doing more things to fit in than just because I liked them. Plus when I figured that was how it worked and tired to get into their cliche and started to become so embarrassed of myself and the things I did, well more of the things I asked them to help me do (lose weight mostly, run me like gym class at recess) just to be like them. I mean for Christ's Sake one of the girls in the group said to be part of their group to be their friends we all had to be wearing bras, this was fourth/fifth grade folks.

As I decided to just be myself and be me my distance from them came from natural course though we still talked in class and were friendly enough. It was soon after I started to go through my tomboy phase, and I'll admit it back than I wouldn't bath unless I felt I needed it. Gross, but hey I was a kid and I was in the whole I wanted to be a boy I want to be manly I guess mind frame and that's how I saw it was to be in my way of being at the time. I don't know if my want to be a tomboy came from my need or fear of trying to get as far away from the whole situation above or not but it did some how in a strange way strike a cord with me when it comes to a lot of things girly.

I've gone back and forth on the issues of all things girly related since I can remember. I also remember the first day of my period even when we went to the store after school I just had to get nail polish and some girly magazine because hey if I was gonna be a "girl" for real now and soon a women I needed to do this stuff right? I'm thinking that's what I thought, I'm not at all sure. I think I also ended up using that nail polish to use as painted on clothes for a barbie I had just recently cut off all her hair.  As time has went as I grew up, I fought the whole bra thing I wore sports bras for the longest time because I just couldn't get use to the underwire for the life of me. But its my saving grace in the boob department now, believe me. I went through the whole I want to wear make up I don't want to wear makeup. Than the whole CRAP I don't know how to do makeup, having a friend of a friend do a make over which was really wash my hair and dry it and do spotty foundation on my face that wasn't even my color to begin with.

I remember walking home that day thinking, this is what all the guys want? We do this for them? Why? And in my 12-13 year old mind I said, Screw it. I ain't wearing it, I'm not gonna try and some guy will come around and if he likes me for that than he's the one. Which in theory is smart for that age, but also kinda totally wrong because in that instant I think I gave up. I gave up caring I gave up because I wanted someone to like me for me, but I was so afraid of being labeled as something else that I started to make myself into pretty much a blank canvas unless talking with certain people. I've learnt lots about broad topics and things because of this, which is cool but any event.

 I didn't want to be vain, I didn't want to be anything but me. But I also shut down any thing I found interesting that either was too out there for people to accept of me for who I thought they thought I was for someone who didn't care of such things. Someone who was so above the system and her own person that I didn't want to be this hypocrite of a person doing something totally not me. That when I acted myself at times I did it anyways because your true personality shows despite the clothes you wear and the color of your hair and all the above.

I have done so much protective damage control against the outside world that I judge myself based on how I think others might see me most of the time than how I see myself, so I can't get hurt. That suppressed a lot when I do that and in turn I turned to food and at my lowest I've turn to sleeping the days away so I'll  only have to deal with point whatever hours of myself and the world. I know it sounds like I'm depressed, but I'm not, I'm just scared. Just trying to be myself in a world so full of what you should do and be's for every age group your in or gender your are.

Its hard to figure yourself out and just be a kid at the same time, but it also is hard to find a life direction when your still stuck back there trying to grow up and become yourself  that in some way you've forgot how cause you've hid from the things you've wanted to try and suppressed the want to do this or wear that or whatever that your scared to admit to the things in case of the judgement you spent your life trying to block yourself from.  But in the end the only one truly judging you that matters when you fall asleep at night is you.

Now I'm just trying to cope with letting myself be, but also not come across as vain, but also that I still care about how I look and how I feel, because you can't love anyone else if you can't first love yourself. If anything of that makes sense at all.

Walls of Life- A Short Story.

I wrote this a couple weeks ago and posted it on my facebook and didn't know if I wanted to post it here, but here it is. Enjoy!
    


   The wall that I've hit and also hid from has become my new set back, my feeling of lack of trying or not caring that I know this thing I do this action I take or dont take doesnt benefit me. But it makes life easy, it make me live without fear, without doubt without, anything. I've hit this wall telling it I know what I'm doing now break down and let me through, let me move on from this point and get to where I want to be.

This wall asks me, "What is that? What is it that you want to be."
 "I want to be thin, I want to be healthy, I want to live my life," the wall agrees and than asks me another question,
 "What is your life? what do you plan to do that I must fall apart where I'm quite content to stand forever."
'I want to do all the things I want do in life my life", I told the wall but its slient. "I want to do the things I want to do in my life," I say again.
The wall remains still." Look," I tell it  "I have already figured out the reasons why I have been where I have been. I'm changing things to go there", I say pointing past the wall.  "Really?" It questions me. "Yes, really." I say.

"Than push me and I shall fall," it tells me and I do but I feel no give and the hard I push the harder I try the stronger the wall seems.
The more I back of and ignore the wall and try to live within the space I have been given. But to go anywhere I have to face this wall that seems not to move. "Why wont you move!" I tell it, and it doesnt speak. I take a breath and I clear my head and look out at my world as it is, I see things and people and sometimes if i listen close enough I hear the wall shake but it doesn't not fall.

"How have I gotten this far but some how can't seem to go no further, I can go easily back to the way things use to be, but not further ahead". "What happened that I got stuck here." 
"You gave up trying," I hear the wall say.
 "I did not I still get up every morning I still live I still do things I need to do every day."  "ALL THINGS" it questions me.
"Well to a point," I say with a shrug.
It is than that it says, "You are not living a life you say you wish to live." 
"Well no, I haven't gotten to that point yet, I have to reach that like everyone else."
 "Why must you wait to live your life?" it questions me. 

"Thats how life works you work towards your goals and your life and everything else follow." I tell the wall but it becomes slient again, almost as if this a slience has become its way of saying NO I disagree, I start to think.

"I need to work towards the things I want to get the things I want in life to make my life the way I want it."
 "You still have not shared this life with me," it replies.
 "Why should I, this is my life to live not yours, your just a road block in my way!"
 " No, I'm not a road block I am not anything of that sort."
 "Your a wall," I tell it.
"To you maybe," it replies.

"Oh shut up, you just wish me not to be happy," I tell it with a roll of my eyes and turn around but than I realize looking ahead its still there, I turn around again and again and I shout, "AM I GOING CRAZY OR ARE YOU EVERYWHERE!"

"I am no where," it says and makes me raise my brow but it says no more. I take a breath and focus on something else and the room I seem to become incased in dissapears till the wall is alone again.  I remember what it said, I no where.
 "How can you be no where," I ask.
 "Because I am nothing,"
"How can you be nothing," I ask.  It doesnt reply.
"WALL ANSWER ME!"

"I am not a wall," it tells me.  I roll my eyes and run a hand through my hair with a frustrated sigh.

"Than what are you?" I ask.
"I am cannot tell, you must see," It tells me.

"SEE WHAT!" I ask with a shriek as maddening start to seep into my brains.
"You will see when you are ready," it says and goes slient once again.

And like other times life goes on and the wall becomes a thought nothing more but I get no where but where I've been. The wall only appears when I question it when I ask myself where do I want to go in life why does it seem I can't even get to the half way point of this journey I've started. But it seems its tired of my answers tired of playing games.

It has become a slient wall that I have tired to dig under or through. I've tried many attempts to change its position in my life yet there it stands.
"Why wont you go away?: I question it sure it wont answer.

"Because you dont want me to," it says shocking me.
"I do want you to go away, do you not see me trying to get away from you."
"Why would you want to do that?" it questions.

"SO I can live my life," I tell it.
"Life is already in progress right now," it tells me.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I shrug it off ignoring the settement that I have always found interesting in the past.

"Let me live my life!" I tell it and shrinks and I think I'm starting to win and it grows back up again.
"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" I shout and it shrinks again to nothing but knee high, I try to step over it thinking i've won when it with a force I'm on my back staring at the wall again, and now it seems taller, wider and stronger than before.

"Ignore me all you wish, this is what you've always done," it starts to say when I start to think of other things.
"What else can I do!" I ask it.
"Face me". it says and I roll my eyes
"But your a wall!"  I tell it

"Never a wall," it responds
"Always a wall," I argue!

"Only to you."

"Why only to me!" I ask not quite sure what it's getting at.
"You see me as a wall, you think me as a wall because you want to get past me you want to ignore me, you want to escape me but you can't."

"But you are the only thing in my way," I tell it.
"True, that part I will agree with," it says making me shake my head with a chuckle.

"What should I see you as if not a wall," I ask it.
"That I can not tell you," is all it says.
Rubbing my eyes I dont think I don't do anything but breath.

"Be aware," it whispers.
"Of what!" I ask with a whisper of a yell looking towards the floor.
It doesnt speak  I look up and the wall is no longer there but I also feel as I can not move my feet.

Be aware I hear this time in my head.
I try to be aware of my thoughts but there are none.
I try to be aware of the people around me, I have more happy moments with them but I still feel stuck in place.
I try to be aware of my actions but yet nothing changes.

"If I could be the where I want to be I'm sure I could move I'm sure I wouldnt be here," I say outloud.

"Are you sure about that," I hear a voice as feet step toes to match mine.
I start to look up but feels like I shouldnt so I stop.

"I'm sure if I had everything I needed, the ducks in a row as they call it I'd be fine."
"Really, and what are these ducks?" This voice asks that sounds much like the wall but not really at all.

"Happy life, with all the things I want to do and be." I say watching the person in front of me toe's wiggle
"You listen well to others but not to yourself" it tells me.

"Maybe I dont take my own advice as much as I should," I say but I hear them sigh in frustration.
"You arent aware are you, maybe I should go," they tells me.

I start to look up but they put their hand on my shoulder.
"Dont look up quite yet." they say and the voice no longer sounds like the wall's ever did.

"But I want to know who you are," I tell them.
"You already do, you just arent aware of it yet." it says.

"Huh" I ask as my head snaps up but I forget what is said  when I stare back at myself.

"You look like me but, but..." I start to lose focus on my thoughts.
"I look like how you always imagined yourself to be in that pretty little head of yours," she says back with a chuckle.

"Hey don't use our wit against me." I say but smile.
"How." I ask and see her face fall or would it be my face fall.

We stand in slience till I start to focus on other things problems and I see her dissapear and the wall start to build up again.
"Wait come back!" I say but the wall is slient.

"I just wanted to know how to get there," I say to myself in a whisper.
"By being you." I hear the wall's voice say.

"Huh!?" I say.
"Listen to yourself," it tells me.

I try but again I feel stuck, I start to think of the things in life I like the things in life that are good and things I could do and be and the wall starts to shrink, this time I dont think about winning over it. This time I think about myself and how I am and how that helps or a lot of time doesnt help my sitaution, my life.

"Life is now ain't it." I hear my voice again
Looking again its the me, that I've always thought I could be, nothing more nothing less.

"Your the wall?" I ask.
"When you want me to be." I hear myself say.
It dawns on me than, " I am only stopping myself," I say.

"Yup," She says
"So how do I stop this wall from coming back," I ask.

"Think about it, We both know you got this if you try," She says.
"If I'm aware," I ask with raised eyebrow and sort of worry.

"Its all your doing," I hear her say walking behind me, looking at something with a sad yet understanding face.
"Well not everything," I say thinking of things that are out of my control.

"well no, but your life could have gone a lot differently up till now," she says.
"oh la de dah miss I know how good my life is," I say and she shakes her head.

"I was there," she points at behind me.
Turning I look and see my past. see my life and everything in it.
"I always have been, you just choose to ignore me but now that you want to face it you have to face me too."

"Face myself," I ask slightly confused.
"Let yourself be, stop hiding it. Stop doing things for the sake of others instead of yourself," She says.

"But thats selfish and people will hate me."
"Not like that, I mean in place of others when you need it more," she says turning back to stand next to me looking ahead.

"What will people think," I ask.
Laughing she looks at me, "They always will, why try stop them it wont work."

"Easier said than done," I say.
"Nah, done is done, and being said could make it happen later or hey in most cases not even at all."She places a hand on my shoulder and turns me to look and her.

"Be aware," I question
"Yup, ask yourself whos in your way, if there is something your doing or not doing in your life to not help where you want this to go, change it," she says.

"If I can't at the moment," I ask.
"Than be aware of it till it can be, nothing wrong with being aware and opened minded is there?" she smirks.

"If you dont stand for nothing you fall for anything," I say.
"Even if its just standing up for yourself," she told me.

"When will I look like you," I ask seeing myself for the first time how I always felt I would.
"You'll know it when you see it," she laughed.
I rolled my eyes and suddenly I was alone, well till I saw the small sets of walls off in the distance.
It was in listening to myself that I knew,
Each life moment, has our own self walls that we must stand for or against to have the life where care to lead.

To the elephant in the room, that is emotions.

Late night mind chatter when falling asleep at times can give you the best ideas and sometimes the best insight to who we really are. If we remember these things of course, lately I’ve been stuck in my head of doing anything really. I think I compared it to trying to do the Macarena in a crowded clown car for some odd reason I don’t know, maybe because I couldn’t think of where else it would be hard to actually do it. Anyways, as my thoughts tend to drift about things to do, things I should be doing and could be’s and what if’s as I tried to go to sleep either last night or the nights past I started to think about emotions.

Blame Oprah’s network new show “Addicted to Food” (Monday nights I believe) where they showed words to use in their therapy sessions to help/ control the situation I guess;  and how we sometimes can’t really separate the real emotion from the need to feed ourselves be it with food or whatever else you have found your coping mechanism to be. My mind kept telling me that boredom was my issue that need of finding something else to do. But I know I also eat because of things like stress, of trying to hide from an issue or even because I’m happy and it sounds good because well that treat(food) brings happy feelings too.  That’s when emotions came into play about how I deal with them how I react how I am in fact emotional. 

Not your typical can cry at the simplest thing or at the drop of a hat or anything it’s more of I’m very mellow unless I feel strongly about a certain issue thing or whatever it is. It’s like I guess the best way to explain it would be the bang that comes after the dynamites fuse has worn out. I get so worked up about an issue till I bust and that’s how I feel things. Most people have a degree I guess knob we can call it about how much we care or think about an issue.  People can usually control that, me on the other hand I react to things like the catch phrase “Winning-duh” has caught on by we know who.

When it comes to food part of my emotional stand point I think was to feel that powerful fullness; aka too full really. Or even sometimes that ache of I need to eat in the past came too, but I think a slightly small factor to this was the way my parents worded how we went about seconds in our household. It was always if you want more, than when you’re done you can get more. Not if you’re hungry, plus we also had the whole clean your plate method which we know isn’t the best advice either.

When life came into it when thinking about how I feel so lost a lot of the time, when I think about my future and things I want to do. I realize I’m looking for that extreme emotion or connection to what I want to do with my life, that I think others have when they find the thing they want to do. What maybe I’m missing is that this is one of those times they find a peace or a need or pull towards that one thing, more times than other things and not this shouting voice in quiet room saying “BE THIS” or “BE THAT.”  They’ve probably thought about it or it’s just something that makes sense to them because they’ve done it all their life and like doing it. Or when thinking about it, that is where they wanted to help out in the world.

I haven’t found my one path yet and I don’t think I’m meant for one solid path, don’t really think anyone is. It’s about what we see and how we relate to the world, dynamite emotions or not. But it’s helped me realize that just like other things in this world that, I probably share this weird emotional thing too and well that helps. Plus it makes me not worry so much about finding my shouting source of where I’m supposed to be in this world. Maybe after all it’s not a shouting voice it’s just a whisper going, “Hey remember me.”

Thanks for reading.

Actions Speak Louder than words. (Only way to fail is to give up or not to try..)

Yup, I'm a people pleaser. I do things most of the time to be liked as vain as that is, but at the same token I don't go out of my way to be something I'm not to impress or be around people. I've tried though, trust me on that it's not worth it. I've done it and just become ashamed of myself for even doing so, exhausted at myself for trying to put up something that was never there and also in the process blocked/ forgot who I truly was in the first place.

 I've mentioned before that, my person (mentally) and my image in the mirror (physically) don't mesh or connect.  I've come to the point where I don't remember them ever being so. A lot of the time I wish I could step out of myself and see how I come across as a person because as much as I do be myself and just think as me I feel like some how I don't know my true identity. Though maybe I won't truly know that till I'm done with my life, but like most unknown things they scare me and that being so personable and key to me is the scariest I think.

As I lose weight I feel like part of me is even more lost than I was before. Almost as if with the weight I had more of a persona maybe? It confuses me on how to describe where I'm at right now. I'm at the point where I'm almost at the 1/2 point in losing this weight and wanting to get into more stuff that shows more of who I am or at least I'm starting to become as I let this shell of excess weight go and timidly so, stand out as who I am for once and not hide behind things, like I've done.

But like always I meet blockers, the question that comes up are; Am I doing this truly for me? Is it worth it? Am I just trying too hard? Among other things like when I go for trying to wear makeup more or at least learn how to make my apperance something that looks like I care more than I use to seems like crap, am I being vain and shallow? Not to say that those who do care and do it every day are so. For me I dont want to be defined by that so I guess in the way I never put the effort in so I couldnt be. But also in the same boat, I was defined by my lack there of, because well inaction is just as much an action as doing something whatever the cause or siutation may be. Than when I start to get pass that the money issue comes in, like do I really want to spend the money on this? And I'm back at the being defined as someone who cares about her looks, but yea know I sit here and type this and saying it over and over again; "Someone who Cares." It starts to sound silly.

Than I also really read what I just wrote. "Someone who Cares"  .... isn't that what this is all about? Caring about myself more than I have in the past more than what was needed. Case in point, why I got to the weight I was and hid behind it, because well in that small token as much as I dont want to admit it, "I didnt care."  But in reality I did.  I cared too much what others thought, and not what I thought of myself and my actions.

A friend said this a couple days back:

I think that's normal. The more i live, the more i wonder if we're all full of false bravado in order to just make it through the day. I’m getting to the point where i care less and less, though i hate feeling so insecure with myself. Am i just one of many? Perhaps that's why people are so quick to judge others-- it's a momentary comfort. What might seem like an insult is really just a way of relating. It makes you feel better. Not because you're superior, but perhaps because somebody just happens to be a bit like you.

   In life we freak out so much about what other people are thinking about us that we forget that most of the time they really are only worrying about what you think of them. We are all waiting for that moment where we can say, "Oh you too?"  And I think if we focused on that our worlds might be a little bit more peaceful each day.

Take the time on yourself because most the time no one else will, and hey you deserve it. We all do.

THANKS FOR READING.

Weight loss Progress

I have been losing weight since August 12th, 2008. I started at 312.4 lbs and now weight around 256 lbs. I use to have pictures of me at my heaviest but through cleaning out files and thinking I had them saved on photobucket I lost them so the heaviest one I have is from june 2009 when I was about 296 lbs. So there is about 16 lbs missing here but in August when I do another picture post from pictures I took a week into starting this it will show more I think. But if you ask why I don't do those now, I try to make them a yearly thing. Though with the ones I'm posting now, I do it two times a year. Once in January and than once in June. So here is the ones I took in june of 2009 vs. January of 2011.

Shown is a lost of 40lbs I have at this point lost 56 or so pounds. I still have about 12 or so to go before I reach my half way point goal and than another 68 or so pounds more to lose. But I can do it, and hey if I can do it so can you.

As always thanks for reading.

Facing the Issues at hand and info of things to come.

      Unlike our friend Homer here, I dont day dream about Donuts. But I do day dream about my future and my way of life and how that is viewed by others in an unhealthy obession at times. I think that's where my own food coping systems came in to play, I felt bad and I knew that piece of pizza was in the fridge or that whatever have you was in the kitchen or with in asking a parent for dinner something that was I guess a good thing that would balance the scale of how I felt because it took care of the problem. Or so I thought, because it really didn't take care of the problem, it pushed it down under the surface for the time being.


    Like most issues that you deal with; be it boredom, be it depression, be it anger or just feeling like you dont quite match up or meet expections, you can't run from them. You can numb the feeling, escape it with a substance, drug or drink, or in my case food. I've done this for awhile, probably since about 4th grade it could be earlier than that but probably not earlier than third, well maybe.  You see I've done it for so long and like most things its become second nature to me a habit that in the past when I wasn't thinking seemed normal. Only because to me it was, it had become a way of life. I felt bad I ate, I was bored I ate, I was happy... I ate.


    It was something that I did for an activity a lot of the time as well as a coping mechanism. It seemed that with coping with food I lost the ability to cope in a normal way with emotions, or words. I get effended (some times even to this day) easily for the silliest things. I will at times cry when I'm angry or upset at something/ someone, and than I get pissed at my self and well than I would cry more. So in coping with that I turned to writing, and as you can read I may not be the best writer out there but its what worked for me. It helped me get my views and ideas acrossed when I felt like I couldn't speak about what I wanted to say.


   That is in part why I made this blog so that I had a place to just lay it out on the line and share it in a way that maybe helps me because it helps others that I know understand what I'm going through and just can't explain it to (because I'm well, just chicken shit and scared of them judging me or ridculing me for it really). Also it might be helping you guys the readers if hey you relate to anything I have to say here. I Hope it does, because we aren't alone in this world, we all matter and we all have a voice a place to help one another and this world out.


Part of this is to write pieces like this, that talk about personally issues and what I'm going through or have gone through. Another is to write out weightloss progress that I've been doing since about August 2008 till present and still on going. Another is just to write things I'm thinking about; be it doing in my life/ planning for future/ ideas I've had or really just opinions on issues. You may or may not like everything I post and that's fine, your intitled to that just as I am intitled to write what I want on my blog.

... if your liking what you've read so far I hope you keep reading, I'm not sure how often I'll post but I'll try to do a weight loss post a least once this month if not by the first of the month.

As always thank you for reading.
D.

New things to come.

I figured that I need to write in here if I have this, so I decided to take the time and the research to make it what I want it to look like. So right now this isn't a true update but it is a notice of a change of the layout and of things to come.

Thank you for reading.