Time to pick up the pieces of a thing called life.

I don't know even where to start this post, what I should say or what I should leave out.  It's been almost four months since my last post and in those days my life has utterly come crashing to the ground and changed around from what it has been. While the daily stuff has stayed the same, so much of it has changed. I deal with it ok most days and some days it's the worst thing in the world.

I kept pushing this post off knowing it was gonna make me cry, and it already has. But sometimes you need to let it go so here it all is. The good the bad, the ugly.

After my last post in August nothing much changed, I finally went on my trip to Colorado that I had booked at the end of the month for about four days. The trip was fantastic, I got to meet my newest second cousin and spend some much needed time with family. I didn't do much but it was a good break to have to quiet my brain or at least turn off my life for a minute and breath.

My mom let me know that my dog was being more lazy then normal and having issues with laying down or would lay one place and not move as much. We contributed most of it to him missing me and that was it.

I got home and usually he would come out to meet me when I get home from these trips, I came up to him in my room and his tail wagged like crazy but he didn't get up. Figured I'd give him few days. His walks got sluggish and he'd stop and lay down in the middle of them at the park and it would take a bit of coaxing to get him back up and home.  Then one day he just wasn't wanting to go for a walk and just laid there and looked at me. I had only been home for about two weeks and felt like my life wasn't my own anymore. Work was more hours with my new promotion and I was coming home, not knowing what was happening with my dog.

So that day he wasn't up for his walk I called the vet and explained what was going on. They told me to go head and bring him in at 3pm. I took him out for short walk just to get him to pee and poop an not in my car which was a struggle as well, he stopped a lot and then we got back inside the apartment and he laid down not far inside and I laid with him and just was there for him. He seemed happy and leaned into me for love and pets, and then I had to fight with him to get him back out to my car. I had tired to use the pet cover in this new car and it fell apart on me so I didn't even bother with putting it up this time. He had gotten so use to it that he leaned his body against the back of the passenger seat, without the support of the cover he slid from the seat his butt headed toward the floor of the car and his body wedge between the seat back and the seat he had been just sitting on.

I panicked for have a second wanting to run around to open the door to the side he was and help him from there but I didn't want him struggling so climbed into the car and helped pull him up back on the seat were he laid on the seat and looked so uncomfortable.

I got him to the vet and when I tried to get him to come out of the car on his own he wouldn't budge, finally with some help I got him out to his hind legs sliding out from under him and kept trying to stand back up and would slid like a seal on the ground which at the time made me not know if I should cry out of sadness or slightly chuckle cause he looked funny doing it.

Thanks to a good man who's wife had seen me struggle to get him up, I could pick him up but I could not carry him. He was too heavy and I was not strong enough to do to both with his 90lbs. I felt like I failure that I could do this. We got him into the vet and they the rushed him in and go him water and were trying to cool his temperature they asked if he had been running or what had happened cause he was running high. They took some x-rays and gave us prescription for antibiotics and one to go get for pain meds.

A few days later at work I had a message from the vet saying I needed to call them back and I did and they told me about what looked like fluid in his chest or abdomen, and they wanted us to take him to a radiologist at another vet. We took him there that evening but they were gone for the day and so I came back with him the next day. I sat there most of the day waiting while the shaved his belly and did an ultrasound. They found he had masses inside all over including his liver, the doc recommended taking him in for observation saying he was probably worse then he looked and that there was possibility of his liver bleeding if we took a sample to try and test for lymphoma which they thought he could have. And the test could come back inconclusive, the money I had even with even opening a care credit account to pay for it wasn't enough to do more then let them do the sample which worked and to give liver pills to help. I couldn't afford to keep him there and I knew with how much he hated the vet or even going to get his nails done that he wouldn't want to be there anyways so I took him home. The doctor did say he seemed more alert once he was back with my mom and I when I asked the doctor to go over everything to make sure we understood it all.

For the next week we didn't take him on walks just to let his hind legs have rest and let him out to pee or poop on the patio and I struggled with feeding him his pills and making sure he ate. Sitting with him on the floor and sometimes spoon feeding him. Soon he's personality was coming back and he was moving around better, slower but better. He'd start to want to hop up on the couch for snuggles and beg for food again like the mooch butt he was. We started to take him on short walks around the complex and he'd still try most days to go the direction that lead us to the park but we knew it was too much for him.  I remember telling him maybe in a few weeks if he kept getting better we could go to the park again one day. (Including the day before)

During this time of him getting better the doctor had called my mom to say the results didn't show conclusively that he had lymphoma and if he was indeed seeming to get better to continue with the pills and then go from there after based on him.

About a month later, I got home from work where I had been gone all day and opened the door to him laying right inside the entry way of the apartment where the kitchen wood ended and the carpet began and he looked up at me panting a bit but seemed so happy to see me. My mom told me she had to fight to get him up for his walk that he didn't seem into it. Got him as far out as the corner of our complex and he laid down, after he did his business. She struggled to get him back inside and then he laid down were he was when I got home. I made him his food after I changed out of my work clothes but he didn't seem interested in it either. I don't remember telling him this but my mom told me that I told him it was ok. I went to my room waiting on dinner and started to try and work on a Halloween makeup idea that I had. My mom called me for dinner and I remember watching him as I ate and he was watching me and his breath was off, I mentioned this to my mom and I don't remember what she even said about it. I tired to give him some of my food, a piece of chicken, some cheese he didn't want it. Didn't even sniff at it really just kept watching me.

After dinner I walked by him and since he was in the way of the hallway I stepped over him and wiggled my legs against his body before I went back to my room to continue to work on the Halloween idea (my bathroom is just inside my room where I was). I remember wanting something to drink and remembering my drink from dinner was still on the table and thought about going to get it. But I didn't. My mom called me at 8 when Once Upon a Time came on to ask if I was coming out to watch it, or if she could watch it with me. My makeup wasn't really turning out like I thought it would and I thought about saying give me a minute and wash it off to come out there. But I didn't, instead I said go ahead and watch it don't delete it. I wanted to see if I could make it look better, I got to the point of putting the wig on that had inspired the idea (Blue wig: Corpse Bride) and was still not loving the look, instead of washing it off and calling it quits and going out to join my mom or even check on Him I went to trying some of my paints (not face paint) to make it work.

It wasn't much after 9pm when my mom called and said you might wanna come out here I think he's passed. I came out and as much as your heart couldn't understand it or want to, your brain was telling you yes he was. His paws were cold, his eye glazed over and his body was still.

We found the address place we had took him to just a month ago that had done the ultrasounds on him and mom had asked  (at that time) if they did take passed dogs in and they said yes for a fee. So my mom pulled the car around, I remember prior to that trying to close his eyes like they do to dead people in movies to close them but his didn't close. I wrapped him in a blanket and tried to pick him up with my mom to take him to the car but had to stop it was all too clear he had passed the weight was just different in his body now from when it was trying to pick him up when we were outside my car that day just a month or so ago.  We got him to the car and me being the morbid person that I am asked my mom, how to do people do it? and she asked do what? I said carry dead bodies around when we can barley even get a 90lb dog to the car without struggling. (Hi I'm Chandler from friends, I make bad jokes or comments and inappropriate times to help deal)

The place we took him to had actually closed down, they merged with another one further up the street. My mom went in and I stayed out with him but not in the car outside it near the back where he was. My mom came back out saying they needed me to make decisions.

I came in and they were showing me prices of cremation and getting his ashes back, or just a group cremation and never getting them back. I couldn't afford the first and my mom mentioned putting on my care credit card and they said I could. But I did not want to be paying for his death for months on in. So I decided a group one, when I was looking at these options my mom went out with the vets and the gurney they had brought out and let them take him around back. Part of me wishes I could have said goodbye at the car before they did but I did give him a butt rub for the road as I waited for my mom to bring the car around earlier.

The rest of the night was quiet and we watched or rather I half watched the rest of our shows after a shower and then went to bed. Before I went to sleep I looked over at the spot he usually laid and saw the mark he had made in the carpet and remembered my post I made when I had come back from Colorado saying tomorrow this will be your view as you go to bed not suitcases and realized it would never be my view again. I lost it then for a good while trying to be semi quiet not to wake my mom or anyone else.

The first few weeks were so strange and horrible, I'd be ok for a few and then not the next. Coming home late or going to bed without him was the worst and still is most nights (more tired with my crazy work hours lately its not as noticeable most nights) and so is leaving most days for work because the apartment is so empty and I was so use to saying good bye to him before I left and I don't anymore its strange. I keep thinking I need to get a new dog, and that it will help my stress and loneliness. But I'm stilling paying Care Credit off or rather the vet for the ultra sound stuff from when they did the test and then our usual vet we had him on a health plan but its for a year and if we try to close it now we'd be paying out of pocket what they covered so I'm still paying that till May/June next year. So I think I'll wait till then to seriously start looking, as much as I'd love one for Christmas.

I feel direct-less most days, my work and stress get to me a lot the other day I just laid on his pillow I still haven't gotten rid of yet; the space is just too empty in my room to do so at the moment. and opened up to the stuffing area ( I had just washed the cover the day before) to smell him and just lay there and try to refocus on the moment. When I dream of him it helps but those dreams are sometimes far and few between.

My word on the outside hasn't really changed, but my life has completely flipped upside down from where it was back four months ago, hell three months ago when I was just fighting him to take his pills. Or the days before when we were sharing bell peppers and jicama and watching Billy Madison  ( I almost lost it when I saw those in the fridge a few days after, still love them but don't eat them as often now).

I remember my brain trying to come to grips with the idea of it being real, I remember back when it all started to happened I had said I didn't think he'd making it through the year. I didn't wanna be right though, I remember asking my mom if we were sure he was dead two nights after and went to explain that I wasn't there when they took him. She reassured me she asked and they checked for a pulse and noticed his eyes were glazed over and yes he was indeed gone. I felt guilty for asking the vet to put his shots together back in Aug before I left for my dad's my mom had to console me on that one reminding me that they wouldn't have done that if they couldn't. I remember thinking every time the house phone rang there would a message from the vet saying hey he was just sick he's alive here's the bill. I wanted that outcome over reality.

There was a moment or day rather a few days after it all happened that I was out and a quote on a sign at Ross made me think he was talking to me and then at Albertson's a song. I remember the night he passed I posted an Instagram photo of him and tagged it "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, forever my baby you'll be." The song was that came on the radio I looked up once I got the car its called:  "Love you Forever," by Ryan Houston. I had never heard the song in my life. But the song speaks so much about him and me and it's silly since most would say he's just a dog but he was my friend, my partner in crime my fur baby even if I didn't like that name. The Chorus spoke the most since it goes "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, for always together we'll be."

When I couldn't get sleep to become my life (Ever since my trip I'm tired by 11-12, am exhausted by 1pm if I fight it and my body is waking me up by 9am most mornings) I let work take over my time. Trying to do stuff to take the focus off him or just keep me away from being home and not having him there. I can't do that anymore. It stresses me out, my life is not my job and as much as I wish I didn't have to deal with his passing to get back to my life I keep being reminded every day or a few times a week by shows or articles on the internet or people about life and as much as I'm scared of the ultimate end I'm even more scared of it if I don't live it for all I've got. I fight with what I believe is waiting on me at the end of this whole thing and some times it paralyzes me in fear. But I know that if I don't live it well, by using the length and the width and making my body better at being able to live it well I'm not doing myself or even this world any favors.

As much as I'm looking forward to saying good bye to this year and starting a new one in a few short weeks. This year and all its craziness will be a favorite because it had him in it as the last 13 years did. I just need to make the ones going forward count too.

Thanks for reading.

Life is funny like that...

Crazy how much can happen and change your plans in life in just a few months time. Saving for my trip from the last post seems miles away from the life I am in this moment.

Side note: I think I need to write more updates.

I was not quite there in savings but I was getting there and in the same instant trying not to stress myself out of not having enough money in time as well as getting back into the healthy life style game.

One was better than the other, the latter not being the winner. Though life likes to remind you sometimes you have no control of the outcomes of your days or weeks and you have to let go and just be and swing with the balls falling at you so speak (I'm horrible at sports metaphors).

My dog ended up having a skin tag on his stomach get infected just by the way it rubbed when he laid on it and it started to swell, our vet recommended taking it off so it wouldn't catch on anything. I admit I wasn't the most proactive about taking care of it, being that he was going on 13 years old and I didn't think he's age would be good to go under for surgery. Well, when it started to swell more and puss and bleed and he started being able to lick at it and make it worse things changed.

We got him antibiotics and cream to treat the infection while waiting on the consultation for the vet that would do the surgery since our normal one was going out for maternity leave. Turns out my dog has a small heart murmur as well and the vet was not comfortable putting him under, though the cream and antibiotic's seemed to shrink the mass down to more than a third of its size it got to and they were able to do non invasive surgery to remove it and test it (skin tag just as we thought). With this all happening my brain was in constant stress mode about the money for paying for it and what it meant for my trip and not being able to deal with just staying in the moment and wanting answers to move along, and everything went out the window health wise as well as trip (money saving went to my dogs needs just to be sure).

After it all settled out and we were reaching 2 weeks out for his post op appt. I rescheduled at least my trip home to see family in Colorado (just enough funds plus a bit extra).  Around the same time I got a promotion at work, YAY! (Still causing stress at the moment with it not unfolding how I though, but I'm trying to be patience with it at the moment anyways.)

Settling back into the every day life I realized I needed to get back in the game plan of my health as well as just in general saving money, and just keeping the idea of my trip for next year or the year after with Boston attached this time if and when I had the money, no set date.

Then life happened once again two weeks later, I was leaving from work and yielding at a light that had just turned green for a SUV to tell me if it was going straight or turning on to the street making their own left as they came off the freeway across the intersection from me. When a white car who didn't see the red light blew through intersection and t-boned the SUV forcing it to flip into my car and land on the front part of my car on the driver side and then hit the ground next to me.

Gratefully everyone walked away from crash the couple in SUV were taken to the hospital with cuts and scrapes but seemed to be ok. Next day I went to the place my car was taken to sign paper work for them to process looking into seeing if it was fixable (which they already said probably not) and then to get a rental.

Within the week we founded out my car was indeed totaled (when SUV hit my car it snapped my suspension  and push my transmission against the asphalt of the road making it look like a dogs chew toy) and after getting through with insurance about payment (loads of hoops) I was told I needed to be out of my rental by end of the week. Mom helped me greatly and talked with the dealership I had gotten my first car at and explained our situation when we got an email with the numbers and we ended up being able to get me a new version of the car I already have in the color that I saw after I had mine and knew if I ever were to update the one I had (the one I wanted to pay off and keep a while) that would the one thing I would change.

Insurance for getting the money to pay off the remainder of my totaled car became more hoops to jump through as well as trying to even get ahold of the insurance of (we believe) the person who caused the accident (who called me and I handed it over to our insurance) to get them to admit to fault etc. was a struggle and still is. And in the end we had to change insurance because for some reason they wanna only allow me to have my own policy and not be with my mom (paying her part of the bill) and pay a 500 dollar down payment to open policy (which today they said wasn't true when my mom cancelled them after we went back the old insurance agency we had) that we didn't have by last sat.

And my healthy lifestyle or weight loss has been worse of all with all the stress eating, taking out food choices and excess amount of soda and snack buying and not bringing lunch at work when I should have. And then sleeping crazy hours or not sleeping good hours at all.

..... but I digress...

The old car has been paid off, the check I got that was over what was owed on it has been used to finish the down payment to my new car. I walked away from accident unharmed with just a day of stiff muscles from the jostle of my car being pushed by the SUV landing almost in my lap. My brain analyzed and still does time to time how that scene could have changed for the worse so easily and in a weird way I'm grateful for it, it helps me remember to stay more aware and (not always) prevents sometimes my road rage when I'm in a rush or starving and tired (cranky) and driving through traffic.

My body has also reminded me with all this stress and chaotic sleep how important my health really is for me, or should be.  And not for some hypothetical future or ideal life that could happen from it or within me living said life. ( I tell you, I have a wild imagination some nights before I fall asleep)

I've said it before, but it bears repeating..  I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.
The truth is I know what needs to be done to change it and I just don't do it. The truth is I know the difference in how I feel now and how I did even just 30lbs ago. Let alone the additional 50lbs I lost back when I started the first time hardcore in 2008 (8 years ago today).

There is a lot of things I need to differently, I need to celebrate small victories. I need to make small changes that will add up big when I can't make big changes all the time (like making it to the gym 5 plus days a week) and most of all, realize that as cliché as it sounds the truth is in the saying. This is a lifestyle change, not a diet. Its for life.

So for now, I'm gonna start working on my life in changing the pieces in it to reflect the moment how of how I want it to be and how I can change it, if I hit a speed bump or a time when life says no not yet. I need to see that as a sign to move on from situation for time being and focus on what I can change, or even do to vent the stress or frustration of not being able to go where I wanna go in that situation at the moment. Instead of temporary fixes that in the end lead to other problems down the line.

Remind myself, I'm not saying "no" or "never" (or rather life isn't) I'm saying, not yet or soon. Just be patience even if as my dad would joke, "I'm not a doctor I don't have any."

Back at it again, at this thing called life.

Distractions are inevitable in life, but sometimes they can take all of your focus away from a task or life. Sometimes they're helpful to reduce stress and come to a peace in a time where you need to let go of things and the only way how is to turn your mind off or on to something else.

Or in my case take the last 20-30mins to look at things online instead of coming here to type this post, and then struggle to get comfortable as you type and thinking about moving from the normal laying on the floor with your laptop back to the couch again.. 

 

 

I have been processing this post for awhile now, probably sense my last one, and most of March. Which I guess says a lot since its well, almost May.

 

I felt like when Chandler proposed to Monica on FRIENDS and he was so worried about where he said it, or how it said it, or what he said, that instead he made her believe marriage was the last thing on his mind.

 

My life in a nut shell sometimes. I feel like I've written this post a thousand times, and said this stuff a hundred more times than that. I know what I need to do to make a change in my life for the better, and my choices mostly out of pure laziness seem to have me going down this drain round about cycle of what by definition would be insanity. (Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.)

 

When I start to make plans to visit family I don't feel guilty about making them, but when I decided I'd rather not spend a full week back in Colorado on the twin bed at my Dad's house again and would rather only come out for a few day and then finally make my Boston trip afterword's I start to feel guilty. Guilty that I should be saving for school to go back and get my degree, to finally move out on my own. I should start to take that money and pay off my car or I should help my mom out more than I do. I should, I should, I should.

 

It's tiring really to get into that mind set, and I do it a lot with all the ideas I get in my head, and that's when I really need to disconnect, from the web, from the world, from life. And then guess what happens. I feel guilty for that. Though recently I've gotten so frustrated at myself when I can say I know what I need to do and I know what I want to do in life, and yet I can't quite managed to find that peace and stillness inside myself to handle  the balance of both sets of wants and needs in my life.

 



I've tried to figure out what makes me do this, why I am  this way. I've come to realize there is only habits from lack of knowledge that I let continue.

There is just pure I don't give a shit moments, that turn into days or weeks.

There is my over-analytical brain trying to rationalize every single thought or idea about said situations or the ten to thousand situations or out comes around said issue. 

Most on things that will not come to pass yet, or probably ever will.

So much so that I make my life into this big old waiting game of life that doesn't solve anything. And wonder the constant question, I think a lot of us ask.

When will my life begin?

 

The one thing I've embraced is that I know that this is really a silly question, because your life is happening right now. This all around us. It doesn't wait for some big moment, or some grand scheme of your beautiful mind to come to fore-wishing. It as one of my favorite quotesfrom the movie "A Lot like Love.": Life is all around us happening now, it doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet. (I may be paraphrasing on that bit..)

 

 For some reason even though I knew this and tried my best to live by it, I still felt like I was waiting for that opportune moment, that sign that said hey you ready now, or its time. Perhaps it was even maybe the permission given to me that I needed. But like I've said a lot in life I tend to lived in my head about things, and that includes a major one that is horrible to admit and I know we all do it.

 

I care a little too much about what people think about the things I say or do in my life.

 

Don't get me wrong, if its a strong belief I am a passionate person and I stick with it and deal with it, but I get so stuck in the ability of just analyzing (again) what people may say or think if I say or do the wrong thing.

 

Or perhaps even the right thing, that I start to look outside myself for guidance in life more times than I should. Or in opinions or ideas that while nice to have the outside perspective I tend to jump the gun to even hear if it sounds like a good idea to others instead of just working it out myself and seeing what comes to pass with it and  just letting it be my own thing.

 

After all this is my life, and if I'm only gonna get one shot at it why in the world should I wait for anyone else's permission but my own to live it right.

 

Right now the biggest thing I think I can give myself, is the ability to be ok with not being ok.  To be just fine in the present moment of this is what it is. It's not bad, its not good; its life.

 

Taking a step day by day towards where I will find the most happiness is what I'm after, the most peace where my brain can just go "that's it."

 

There are a few things  I know for sure (yes one of these again)

I need to lose the extra weight, its holding me back plain and simple. I again as I stated above I know what needs to be done do this, and really I just need to stop being so lazy and talking myself out of it, and do those things. It won't always be the thing I want to be doing, but the results will help me far more than just, being confident in how I look. I won't be "literally" weighed down by it in my life anymore.

 

 

I don't want this to be my main struggle in life for the rest of my life. I want it get the weight off and I want to better my health in a way that I can balance the foods that aren't the best for you with the mixture of the ones that are and a workout or activity plan that keeps me at a healthy weight in my life for the future I got in store for me.



I need to do this not for the liking of others or the possible a guy that I could meet, to be honest part of me feels that if I was more ok in how I looked (shallow as it is) that I would be able to come across more  myself than I do now, and people would see that and I could possible attract people differently. (This isn't against anyone this is just my opinion of myself because I do feel so out of place in my body at the weight it's at.)

Its a small piece of the puzzle I know, but when growing up dealing with extra weight to dealing with it as adult, and when it got out of hand and you didn't know any better or I just choose not to see it becoming a problem. But I feel like if I can get a handle of it and not feel all the pressure of my body feeling out of sync with who I am it will only better my life in the long run, both physically and mentally.

Another piece to said  puzzle of life is exploring my world outside the walls and life I've built in California. My life is here because I've made it here, but a lot of the time I feel like perhaps my "home" isn't here. Not to bag on it or say its horrible (minus the CA Summer months; a hot weather girl I am not) but I live here, I play here with my friends, and while I do live with my mother at the moment and I feel at home with her, I don't feel like I've necessarily made California home either and Colorado at the moment doesn't feel much closer to it either.

But like I mentioned above I want to travel and open up my options a bit. I wanna visit family again and meet my newest 2nd cousin. I want to finally cash in (figuratively at the moment) my chips for that Boston trip (Massachusetts/ Concord area really) that I've been planning off and on since 2013-4.

I wanna strengthen my connections to my family, while its been a little over a year since I visited them. I feel more happy since I went with that connection. Though small, and being able to keep in contact on Facebook helps too.

 

Massachusetts has just been a place that the more I hear about it, from the people to the events to the towns themselves to perhaps some apartment kitchen I feel in love with and need to see in person I just wanna go out there and see what it's like. Plus I kinda love the idea of just dropping everything here for a few days and disconnecting in a state where I'm not known, where I can come and go as I please. Make some friends and some stories to tell, or keep all to myself.

 

Perhaps in the long run I might start making this week of Colorado and Boston trip (Four days in each state) a bi-annual thing or whatever works in my budget once I get back into school after I get back from the first one I'm saving and planning for in September.

Scared doesn't even began to define my feelings on these things. I've talked myself in and out of the travel plans many times, I've talked myself in and out of losing weight, of feeling confident in being a curvy girl to feeling bad for being over weight (or fat). And I've gotten down on my self for being lazy about my weight and fitness a number of times and it does no good.

So time to change things up a bit and try to live my life the best way I got.

Ahh... Just Breathe (A Space to Leave it for Awhile)

I have done a lot of these posts in the past of lists of things to look forward to, though I don't think I have every taken some of them apart and explained them like I'm about to do.

I have all this stuff rolling around in my head and I figure if I get this out and written down my brain will quiet down for a bit and I can focus more on being present and working towards
these things in my life the best I can.

So in no real order here are some things I know for sure:

1) there is a point in my life that I wanna live on my own; pay my own bills and live with just me and maybe a dog or two (perhaps a dog and cat) and worry only about that in my life. At least for a year.. just to say I can live on my own two feet, and I have.

2) Go back to school, I spent a good amount of my life trying to figure out what the world wanted to make me into, instead of what I wanted to make myself in. So worried about belonging and also not being able to be stuck in a box I never really went that far. My current job now, has reminded me of a first love of teaching that someone how in the little kid mind of 5 years old I knew I wanted to be right after I started school; it means more to me to teach the kids at my work then any other thing I do there. So I need to get back to classes and get my degree so I can teach my own class.

3) Goal of mine this year is to start to create more, drawling or writing or just making things out of nothing. Its my little niche of quiet that I get when I'm just in the moment writing or painting that I cherish and want more of in my life to help me in the day to day. I got so obsessed with trying to be perfect in both and waiting for inspiration to hit that I never let it just start to come out on its own, and see what happened.

4) I want get back into reading books more currently, I have a stack of borrowed and my own I need to get through and I have already spied so many at the store and have stopped my self from buying them as well. On the flip side of this I have a longer  list of movies I wanna see from the past two years or so. I use to be a Redbox junkie. I have fallen off that bandwagon and I need to catch up.

5) Save money: not just for school but for my future life. Yes its always good to have money for that rainy day as well as I'd like to donate more: not just in funds but in my time as well in doing walks for research or even perhaps one day a run? (not sure on that last part yet)

6) Travel: I wanna see so much of this world around me. Still have Boston on my list as well as New York and many other countries as well. Plus I wanna start taking bi-annual perhaps annual depending on how I can swing it trips to see my family in Colorado again. Keep the connection stronger than I let it become over the years after I graduated high school.

7) Learn: this falls in school category but this part isn't about the teaching degree. I wanna learn languages and an instrument (piano).Plus I wanna be more informed in current events and learn more about the world and what's going on, on all sides of the earth.

8) Random: continue to grow my hair out: I wish it to hit the bottom of my ribs. I want to eat at the blue bayou in Disneyland (perhaps for my 30th birthday). I wanna dance more, get more tattoos (Disney related perhaps), Take more photos that just don't end up as some square on Instagram post. And also see more live theater/musicals and go to more museums.

9) Need to create a sleeping pattern that is more constant then I have at the moment; Listen more and react less. Do all things more so with good intentions not just because I "should" be more positive and less negative; shh the complaints and celebrate more in life with people the good times and the let go of the stress of things that come to pass that aren't so great, the days that are overwhelming and stressful. Remind myself that adulthood is just a frame of mind we all feel like we have no idea what were doing. We only seem like adults on the outside its all about perspective. I wanna lend a helping had were I can but also balance that with living my life to the fullest I can, and remind myself that while I work on myself not to talk down about myself or others all about body positivity. Plus take the moment to be more in the moment, mediate more. And remind myself to be a little silly and goofy more often as well. Showing I care, or helping those out and being there for others or being sensitive and emotional about things doesn't mean I'm weak either.

10) Weight Loss: Perhaps my biggest hurdle in my life and a constant back and forth yo-yo of a span of the last 7 years of my life (started the big gains and lost back in Aug. 2008) and perhaps reason why I started this post back in January and when I got to this number I stopped and kept coming back to the post after a few days/weeks and re read it all and then would walk away the moment I started to think about what to say here.

In a nut shell I let one of my biggest fears become my actual life. I was so scared of doing anything I was interested in or becoming anything I wanted to become not just in fear of what others may think (because if I believe in something/someone enough or my ability I don't care I go for it) of what that made me or who I was, but in doing said things I'd missed out on other opportunities. Other amazing things or people that life had to offer. That I did nothing I didn't have to do, unless it was extremely necessary or important to me to do so. That way I couldn't regret it, I didn't try and fail I didn't miss out on anything because I wasn't doing anything.

And I would wonder why I would get jealous of others and compare myself to where my life was verses theirs or wonder why I didn't have what they had, and would feel less than, and instead of realizing it was me who needed to change I thought it was me against the world.

I needed to be someone completely different, but yet in the same instant I didn't know how to fake it. Not well enough, not with enough self esteem to not feel see through and silly and stupid for trying and then just giving up and not going anywhere.

I ate to cope, when the world seemed so against me and when I felt like I couldn't belong, I found it in food. And when I finally got the taste for alcohol in 2013 I felt myself use that as well, not too the degree in which I ate, but I had my moments in the last year or so. Drinking isn't an issue for me I can take it or leave it, mostly because unlike food when I eat too much give me an hour or two or let me sleep and I feel better in the morning. Alcohol not so much, I've learnt I enjoy a beer or mix drink or two when having dinner out or at a party with family or friends, what have you. But heavy drinking is not my thing, even moderate drinking isn't my thing either.

But with that in mind I've seen how much the parallels of the worlds of food and drinking can become with your addicted to them, or when you already are to one and see it start to become with the other. My drug of choice ( I say this with serious but humor) is food, and I wanna change it, I believe I went to the other side when trying to be healthy in the last few years and would go to the extremes. Counting every calorie obsessing over the foods I would eat or the amount of workouts I would do.

Any it never seemed to be enough, so I would slip back into old habits of eating what did make it seem ok, because food is good it makes me happy (which I have given too much control over me). I'll never be one who doesn't like to eat and enjoy all the flavors of the world, and try something new.

This time, ( I feel like I should phrase that differently..) I'm going for the balance of the workouts the balance of the good and bad for me foods, perhaps make it so that I'm eating opposite of what I have been, where its mostly junk and a few healthy items thrown in when I feel it's needed. Flip it to mostly healthy with a few junk items thrown in when needed.

I have a time line written out on points I wanna meet along the way instead of just half way and goal esp. since I need to lose about 170lbs. (I'm 334lbs last time I weighed in back in January) I hoping it will help me this time to space out my weight loss progress as well as keep me in check along the way.

In the same token while I'd rather lose it and be done, I know it will take time and I'm ok with that but I want to be in a healthy range which would be 174-164 for me (aka the 170lbs lost) and my goal is to be there by my 30th birthday (I turn 28 in May).

So as the say in Mulan : LETS GET DOWN TO BUSSINESS!

That Spork in the road...

Many times in life we feel like there is an impasse of sorts, a fork or rather spork in the road of what to do in life. I say spork because most times you get three options not like 4-5.

But I've recently (well more then that) noticed that these avenues don't just arrive in big junctures in our life's but in every day, every moment we live our daily lives.

For instance today I was meant to work, but my group cancelled so I got an extra day off, bonus but that also meant I needed to pick up a shift with some days off I requested next week to keep my paycheck quality good. I could have just dealt with it as is.

Or the factor that instead of sitting on the couch typing this I am laying on the floor using Stanley's living room pillow for support slightly cold because I have the patio door open to listen to the rain.
I could a: close the door b: get off said floor and sit on the couch creating distance from the door and cover myself in a blanket. or C: none of the above or all of the above. (Even D: grab mom's blanket off her couch and cover myself up laying here. (the fork)) <= I chose D.

We always feel like some how some choices we make or options in life hold too much value to be so important in our life or be the biggest decisions in our lives. Well when we look back on some choices, we see that they were bigger then we thought, and others that we thought were the life shattering,  plot altering choices to our lives, change little to nothing about it in such a big way.

Life only is as complicated or simple as we make it, I know that sounds like a bunch of baloney when your going through a rough patch. But when your think of you circumstances sometimes life can be a whole lot worse. The whole thing that if everyone stood in a circle and threw their problems into it you'd probably gladly take your own back.

With these forks though sometimes they don't come when you want them to, or as fast. So you figure why bother and you keep heading in the direction you were going or perhaps worse the complete opposite.

Or perhaps when you look at them to decided where to go next, you spent to much time analyzing how much time and effort it will take and then start to dissect if that is worth it. Which leads into these long lists of life conundrums of where you wanna be, and who you wanna be. When there really are no guarantees in life. Well besides the one where we live and then we die.

Where am I getting at with all of this? Simply put instead of worrying about the outcome of how long it will take or if its a right fit for you life. How bout jumping in or if you not sure enough for that leap dip your toes in and figure it out. Start planning out the steps you wanna take or need to take to get where you want and figure out all the things big in small in life you'd like to achieve.

Instead of getting so wrapped up in worried about life passing me by when exploring the things I wanna try or do, I've realized that was my life that is my life. As a quote from a favorite movie of mine ( A Lot like Love) goes "Life does wait for you to get back on you feet, its happening right now."

You hear that its the winds of change..

Part of me wants to write this be long epic blog post that will inspire myself to get off my ass and change my life, forever. However as inspirational as I can be I will only change when I make the choices different then I have already made,  or have been making lately.

Besides this epic blog post would only be really inspirational in the time I wrote it, meaning it'd probably lose its powers as I slept tonight. I've come to a lot of realizations lately and I've even written them out here in a few paragraphs and deleted them and tried to rewrite them and felt like I was not gonna write this post after all.

I'm not trying to complain and I'm not knocking my child hood but I will say when you grow up middle class and you share to get by or just get by and do a lot of hand me downs and cheap things and not get to experience a lot of things, as getting or even doing you tend to start to crave the want for something of your own. Something that is just "yours" why I figure as I grew up I learnt to hide food or take bigger servings then I needed/wanted to make sure I got as much as I wanted in case I couldn't get more later, because well I may not have always gotten "what" I wanted or "done" what I wanted I was never not fed. Food was always there, regardless if I needed it or not, and I've also some how gotten stuck in the habit (most days) of cleaning your plate method my mom instilled in me even though a puke accident in the back of the car after being sick and told to finish my happy meal even though I said was full didn't end so well.

Perhaps its one of those old habits die hard kind of thing, which in reality as stated above they wont die unless you find a new one to replace it with. Though hiding food or eating more of it became something to do because when families go for seconds you only get what you go after till its gone. So my brain connected get it now or you'll never find it again and I've realized I still struggle with that today; aka last Friday when I felt I had made myself so full to the point I felt I was gonna puke (though I didn't). The feeling of fullness became this unconscious goal to realize I had finally gotten my fill, instead of eating to fuel myself or even say take the edge of the hunger. I've only recently began to realize the full understand of being full. Its more of a satisfied state then a literal sense of the word.

But like I mentioned in I was looking for this thing that was my "own" so when I started to work and make money it became a habit to start getting food I wanted and eating as much of it as I wanted as often or as late as I wanted, and if it wasn't food it was items; clothes, music (especially when I was younger) or even movies as well.

I realized I'm still looking for that thing and its probably a main reason why I wanna live on my own for  year too, to say this is my place and I'm paying my way.

Something else I also realized, I already have something of my own. My body, its no one else's and well I haven't really taken good care of it and its really been letting me know that lately and I think a big thing about that is my weight, I've cared it so long that its probably not only hindered things like my sciatic nerve and my running out of breath after climbing stairs and my menstrual cycle. Its probably physically aged me as well, I probably have the health of someone much older not a 27 year old.

I wanna write all the things I wanna do in here, but I feel like at this point in life actions speak louder then words so its time to get to work. I'll make another post soon.

It never goes according to plan...

The craziness that is the pace that this year has gone by is blowing my mind right now. I realized recently that soon football season is starting again and that means that holidays are coming back soon and 2015 literally winked at me as it flew by.

I feel like I have spent a good 8 months stuck in my own head this year, I started the year off right and had a game plan and like life things changed. I had some moments were I took things to some extremes (food, and well alcohol for hot minute as well) that it took me a bit to get back to center.  And my confidence of where I stood at my work place I feel really was knocked off a big peg more then I originally thought when it all went down. I felt a little ruffle of the feathers and a shot the ego when a promotion opportunity that I felt maybe I was a shoe in for (even if I wouldn't admit it out loud) didn't go as plan, aka I didn't get it.

Though I think all the drama that happened right after really took my already shaky confidence and pushed me over flat on my face. I'll admit I don't think I have fully gotten up and dusted myself off from that whole incident yet. Like I said I have had some moments of extremes since then in different worlds, but I'm sitting up for once look up at the world ready to dust myself up and stand up and move on.

There are days I feel this more and I get the heart and the encouragement to really thrive again, and then there are days I'm thrown off track and I feel back down on the ground and defeated.

Though in that same moment I feel more sure (or at least more connected) to my own self in the mirror then I ever felt in a long time. I guess you can say I may be down, but don't count me out yet.

Through out my life a lot the time I was very quiet (perhaps seemed like a shy person) because I  have since I was really young been very aware of myself and how others see me and how others see each other. How we judge and nit pick at times each other to mostly protect ourselves, from people doing it to us. If we point out someone else faults or issues, perhaps people wont turn and look at us and see what were so desperately trying to make sure they don't see. In the same token we are so consumed with how others see us that really only a select few even do because they are so much more concerned with how you see them.

I think for the longest time I wanted to prove myself as something that couldn't be defined as a label that everyone wants to stick you in as well as at the same time be accepted as some who belonged. So it that I was always fighting back and forth with trying to fit in and blend with a group I was impressed with and tried to impress them and at the same time trying not to fit into the labels or boxes people wanted to put me  into.

And in a round about way because that got frustrating and exhausted to fight all the time, I gave up. I found things that worked and were comfy and I liked. Maybe not loved but liked enough to wear, and in the same token found myself a few months in after that looking in my closet feeling defeated because nothing really was "me" and everything was just eh. Though when I tired to go find me, it was intimating to say the least. So I stuck with the known route, the safe route.

I've still struggling with that to this day, more so how to over come the rut instead of route I've taken and become stuck within and find myself again. Perhaps not inside, but out.

 I feel like in the past years I have really come into my own and think a lot of it has to do with one of the roles I do a work where I'm stage, because when I was younger I always dreamed of performing on stage or being in front a crowd or audience.

 I tired out for a few plays in high school (though was never picked) and the thing that was my issue the most was all these battles inside my head these issues I was fighting over labels and boxes and judgment and wanting to belong and be accepted came straight to the forefront of my head before getting on stage and the flight or fight responds would kick in with anxiety and fear and things would never go as plan. I would want to run, or I would be too in my head to make the performance good. I remember having that feeling during training for my role I do on stage/with field trip groups at work and having moments where I felt like I should go up to my manager and back out and say hey um how bout I not do this. I resorted to even writing "Hakuna Matata" on my hand as a reminder to well "have no worries" and calm down.

It had some bumpy starts and some times where I connected to the adults more then the kids, and had to be talked to and asked if I really wanted to stay on with that position. Something inside of me said I needed to see this through, I needed to get to the point where this became almost second nature to be on stage and do these demos and shows. So I worked on it and I still think back to that anxiety feeling I had before (the stage fright) every once and while before I go and do a show or demo for a school group. I've had a day where it came back (esp. if say we do a completely new show) and my shows were off and then I have my moment were I think how far I've come because while there is still a nerves to it because the crowd is always different there is also a familiarity to it as well as a peace of mind that comes with it. In those moments when I can really just be on stage and be in the moment and do the show that may not be one of my favorites having done it thousands of times now (3 years now) there is also a stillness a peace to going through it and interacting with the people and giving them a good show and perhaps teaching them something new.

In being on stage I have found myself, but my inner self still is hiding within a shell. I have realized in the past months (probably longer then that, but never wanted to agree to it) that my weight is a shell, a protection from the outside world. But more then my weight, food (as much as I don't want to admit to this, I know if there is something there when I think about it) has become some what of an addiction for me as well, a coping skill. A security blanket as you will, the thing that doesn't judge or talk back or ridicule me. (I hate this, but I know if I'm having trouble with saying it out loud, or even admitting it to myself it must be true ) When life has been bad, or even good food is something I have turned to just like movies and TV and books.

 A place to escape from my life, this life that is such a magical thing to even get to experience.

I'm getting ahead of myself here, food has been there for me when I needed to talk (when I should have talked) about my anxiety my needing to belong and not being able to find it. I had art and my writing (I wrote songs when I was younger; more like rhythmic poetry) to help me with it, but still it kept it all inside and in turn I would turn to food. I remember even in 3-5th grade staying up late after my family (at my dad's) would go to sleep and eating food and watch television (mostly infomercials or old TV shows from the 50's) and trying to cope with this feeling of who I was and who I wanted to be and the judgment of society and wanting to be accepted and belonging. Maybe I was being a bit melodramatic, but it felt all too serious and real to me. I felt that if I could be anyone else it the world it would be better, there was probably a good solid year I was pray at night to wake up as someone else, to be reborn and be able to start all over again as a baby, I destroyed a lot of pictures of that time frame I took to as I saw it in my eyes help me disappear easier. I never felt like I could be my true self I never felt like I could just be me. I have slowly gotten over that as I've gotten older and gotten tired of trying to make the worlds of not being labeled and boxed in and fitting in and belonging coincide together.

Plus, it also helps to have gained some really awesome friends along the way who know me and accept me for all my greatness to all my well neurosis. As I do the same for them, no questions asked.

Part of my problem when I finally realized where this was all heading when I finally was able to sit up from being knocked down early this year was that I could never get out of my head to see life again in all its glory. I was stuck in the whole system of dates and times and needing to have things figured out by a certain time to make other things work out in my life to make ideas and plans I have for myself go the way I hope the would. But I think we get the picture now, that well life isn't always as we plan it to be, is it?

I have also had a lot of reminders as of late, that though life seems like years and years, it can also be very short. I'm reminded of that in the fact that a coworker's death anniversary is coming up in about two months (and an old friend has been gone for 2 years now), as well as seeing how much of a twist one of my favorite TV shows can shock me with a death of a character unexpectedly. As well hearing my mom come home to tell me she saw a coworker literally take their last breath at work before falling the ground and watching them change colors in font of her face (graphic? sorry.) and how they stabilized the coworker only to get her to the hospital and then she finally passed. And then hearing once again today that a coworker of hers who I met briefly at target randomly when my mom ran into him passed away Monday from his fight with cancer (she has had two people now die from it this year that she knows) and all I can think about is the daughter he had with him when I met them, and hoping her and the family is doing well.

Though in all this sadness I also remember the precious little life that was recently brought into this world by my cousin on my dad's side. This brand new life that knows nothing about life or death right now, but is learning and seeing everything for the first time. And what a magical thing that is, and how simple is it if she could just be her true self and experience it all knowing she only needs to be herself.

How simple it could be if we all could be, and I remember for the first time in a long time, what I want to fight for in this life of mine.