When Will It Be Enough?

As I look down upon these unfortunate folds under my clothes, the spots, the tiny misplaced hairs I cannot help but thrust judgment. An endless barge of criticism and insults spit from my mind. Somehow the amazing deal on the skirt I purchased is overshadowed by the number on the tag. By hanging it next to dozens of much smaller numbers that cannot be worn. How is it that I have found myself in this place? How can a former bulimic stand upon a scale and have these number show?

Undetectably, I find myself scanning other women around me. Sizing up the other mothers as we walked through the zoo today. Are her shoes nicer than mine? Her waist smaller? Her hair shinier? This constant judgement and assessment. Cataloging each one and scoring myself against them, it’s so ingrained in my mind. Buy why? There’s beauty in our soft spots, in our fuzzy ones, in bumps and moles and imperfections that make us mothers and women.

My children couldn’t possibly care less what size is on my pants or number on the scale. Bella finds great pleasure in pressing my belly button and laughing as she slaps my belly and makes silly noises. She lifts her shirt and giggles for me to do the same. These are the things that should matter. Her smile. Bear’s first wiggling tooth. These moments, not the mother next to me at the zoo in her size 2 jeans. Does she size herself up, glancing my way and desiring my purse? My cellphone? There is always something someone has. Physical. Material. All so ephemeral.

What will it take for us to stop comparing, criticizing, coveting?

To not define ourselves by numbers. To not limit our happiness by marketing ploys. When will being a woman, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a mother be enough?

I hope I figure it out before my daughter is old enough to ask herself these questions.

Linked with Just Be Enough.

Insatiable

I have two other posts in draft that I ought to publish because the topic is better, but they feel flat to me. Perhaps because this is the post that is entangled in my mind. Lately, I’ve felt this insatiable hunger. (If you follow me on twitter you would have heard all about it, in fact you should be following me on twitter.) No matter what I eat I feel unfulfilled. I said to E the other day that I’m trying to eat my feelings. He asked which feelings. Good Question.

I don’t know.

There is obviously something wrong, but unlike usual I cannot pinpoint it. On paper everything is great. Even if you add up all the wrong pieces together, string them up and bind them, there is not enough for this. This appetite that cannot be suppressed. This cold ambivalence. I feel stagnant. Stuck in this mud of life and I don’t even have the energy to try and pull myself out, so I’m wallowing.

I think it’s my job. I think it’s spending so many hours here, my brain on pause. The boredom stifling me to the point where I don’t even want to read the endless amount of blogs that sit unread in my reader. I am still so disappointed that the job didn’t work out. I will try again in December with an email to the one, and then an email to the other perhaps in February. I will wave my hand saying, “I’m still interested! Pick me!” Maybe I’ll go through one more conference and then leave altogether. The problem is, I don’t want to start at the bottom and I don’t want to do fundraising anymore. I want to do consulting for the product I love so much.

There’s of course money too. I posted about my take on Occupy Wall Street, but I didn’t get into the details. I try not think about it, brush it under the rug. How much worse it really is than it seems. Just in time for the holidays.

Then well the insatiable appetite has led to even less clothing that could fit me. I went to Target and bought clothes there for the first time on Monday. Big Girl clothes. Spanx and their friends. Bras that could fit my face. Jeans in sizes that should only describe men’s shoes. When did this happen?

I would like to be pregnant again. It tugs at me, this longing. It scares me. This would be the last time. I want it, but I don’t want it to be the last time. Like when I first read the Harry Potter series I read so slowly, I couldn’t wait to get to the next page, but I didn’t want it to be over yet.

These are the things that are in my mind. Swirling together, but their mass doesn’t amount to whatever is going on. It’s not depression, at least not one I’ve ever known. Its indifference.

When did I become so indifferent in my life?

And…. Fail.

For the last two (three, four?) weeks I’ve just dropped the ball. On a lot. Mostly I’ve been frantically busy at work thus not giving me the time to balance my checkbook anally like a normally do. And there was Easter which interrupted my recording of what I eat, and exercising. Or did I stop the latter before that?

Either way what happened is simple. It’s what always happens. I’ve eaten too much, exercised none and spent lots. New news? Hardly. Theme that’s lost it charm? Definitely.

Ugh, even I don’t care anymore. I’m sick of writing the same old news, the same old failures. I’m bored with it. I’m over it. I can’t imagine how you feel about it.

I’m trying to be on the whole, “today is a new day” bandwagon, but I”m not feeling it. Fundamentally, I sort of don’t care.

I don’t care if I can’t afford to buy it.

I don’t care if I shouldn’t eat it.

I don’t care if I should exercise, my clothes don’t fit, I’m going to be a contestant on the Biggest Loser instead of watching it.

It’s not a priority for me.

I realize that I should really rearrange that sentence to say, I’m not a priority.

A part of me wonders if the reason I was so successful the last time I tried to lose weight and was so successful saving money and paying off debt before is that both occurred while I was in therapy. And both stopped occurring when I stopped therapy (well and also had a baby). I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of therapy. I could talk to a friend for a $25 co-pay a month. There was nothing wrong, everything was fine, it was just talking about my day. But maybe on some level something else was happening? Something else was working on my sub conscious?

I’m self-sufficient (right word?) enough to believe that I should be able to do this on my own. Which is why all those years that I should have been in therapy because there was something wrong I wasn’t. So why go when everything is honky dory? I think its the plague of all mothers that we always put ourselves last. There are so many other things, there are the kids, and the house and the husband, and the school forms, and the yard, and the dogs, and the dishwasher, and the garage door is broken, and we need diapers and we’re out of milk, the bike tires need air, have you called the plumber, when is there time for me amongst all that? (Also, all of the above sentences are true things I’ve got currently floating in my head.)

I can’t justify spending time exercising when there is so much that needs to be done around the house. I can’t justify not buying something for my kids because I know they would love it so much and/or need it. (Though while I needed a new stroller, I probably didn’t need to buy a Maclaren this weekend! But it provides me a very large amount of joy!) I can’t stop myself from going out to lunch because I love spending time with my co-workers and need out of this super hostile environment.

Sigh. I’m going to try again. Because like I’m always telling Bear, you have to at least try. So I will try and start small again. Not look back at the times I’ve failed or even when I succeeded, but focus instead on now and not then. (Also, remember Now & Then? What a great movie.) So as I drink my 240 calorie coke that I just bought for a dollar I will focus instead on good things I’ll do after I finish my coke.

Something went Awry

Let me paint you a picture:

Black flats from Target, red & white snowflake fuzzy socks from Bath & Body Works, white and black snowflake pj bottoms, white and blue Columbia jacket. Broken glasses (Bear broke one of the sides last year), newly highlighted and cut hair in a ponytail. Glass of Riesling, cigarette, sitting on my porch step looking at my two dogs, a yard full of leaves, sticks and dog poop.

How did I get here?

This morning I woke up earlier than I usually do on Mondays, my proverbial “day off”, and was highly productive. By 9 am all the laundry was sorted, the dishwasher loaded and on, Bella fed & medicined and down for a nap, Bear and I had breakfast, a to do list was made, eggs were cooking for dyeing.

Then something happened. Something went awry and sent me off kilter and I’ve been struggling to get back since.

I can’t quite figure out what it was. Was it that when I went to do the laundry I realized that the H had put a load of sheets in on Friday and they were still wet in the washer never being put in the dryer? Was it that when I incesentally called Athens he didn’t come and I thought he had jumped the fence? Was it that I stupidly checked my emailing awaiting the Prof’s response to the mistake I realized I had made end of the day Friday?

One of these things or all of these things sent me into my bed with chocolate and Desperate Housewives. Then I got a little of my mojo back. I got some laundry done, we finished our pirate easter eggs, the house was vacuumed, the fridge cleaned, the dishwasher unloaded, the kitchen counters cleaned. Then Bear went down for his nap, but Bella wouldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to sit, she didn’t want to play, she tugged on her ears and squirmed in my arms only wanting to stand.

I fought the urge to scream, “You can’t stand! I’m not going to hold you up all day.” I did however leave her in her room with her tea set and toy cell phone and told her to call someone who cares.

I hate this part of my personality. Something goes wrong, so slightly I can’t even pinpoint it and it spirals me into shutdown mode. Or eat three double stuff oreos and want to cry mode. But no tears come. I’m not a crier.

I drank some of said Riesling, felt stupid about it and dumped half of my glass down the drain. Bella’s sleeping now and so is Bear. I could and should work out. Something I had been so good about until this weekend. Now its been three days since the treadmill and I saw each other and I have no desire to go back to the basement except for another load of laundry.

I want to eat more Oreos or a hamburger, or anything. I want to go to the store and buy something, something/anything to make the children happy and relieve the guilt I feel for so thoroughly not wanting their company right now.

Fucking Prof scheduled me into a meeting at 8:15 am tomorrow to discuss the mistake I made. Really? It can’t wait until later? I’m sorry I relied on an inventory 3 months old. I’m sorry I relied on the Devo Assistant to mention to me that we were out of reply cards, which she didn’t. But is this something we need to talk about at 8:15 AM? Why do I check my work email on my day off? Why when I so passionately hate my place of work currently?

Maybe it was the email from the Dr. of Ops scheduling a lunch meeting with me and our other friends to talk about a big announcement. Maybe its the jealously that she got a promotion? won the lottery? … something I didn’t get.

Something happened and I can’t recover from it, so I’m stagnating.

Anxiety, Overeating and the Fear of Judgement

I know when it happens. When that moment that I want to just devour anything possible happens. It just happened now upon reading the H’s email that the MIL can’t watch the kids early enough for us to be able to see the movie (we already bought living social tickets and need to use soon) before my MN best friend’s birthday party on Friday. Within the same email he mentioned that the garage door is broken, and can’t be fixed but needs to be replaced. I got filled with the desire to eat – anything. And massive quantities of it. Then our IT Asset Manager came by asking me if I still had that loaner laptop. Yes, in fact I use it every single day, all the time, as the primary laptop in our house since my 2003 Apple is quite finicky and slow. They need it back tomorrow. I didn’t have the courage to ask if they would just give it/sell it to me after all he said all they’re going to do is wipe it and recycle it.

My co-worker, the New Mom, was then just telling us a story about how she cried in front of the Prof in a meeting on Monday just because of all the anxiety she had this past weekend. As she was saying that I felt the overwhelming urge to a) start crying b) hug her c) tell her all of my own woes. Instead, since we’re having a hallway conversation at work, I remained composed despite what was going on in my head.

This all happened in a span of five minutes. In those five minutes I went from being “good” and sticking to a reasonable diet all day to falling nearly to shambles. If I had the access I would have eaten three McDonald’s meals already. If I hadn’t spent the entire day in spreadsheets analyzing my budget I’d go home and pick some up for the family for dinner. But honestly we don’t have the $18 that would cost.

I feel like I’m holding in too much. The H falls asleep moments after we get to bed so I can hardly engage him in a conversation. Bear is up until shortly before that so I’m not about to talk in front of him. I don’t want to burden my friends. I always feel like I’m bothering them. It’s something in 26 years I’ve never learned, I can never seem to go to my friends with troubles. How strange, what else are friends supposed to be for? I fear judgment above all else.

While I was just in the pumping room I jotted down a list of things that are currently stressing me out. I had 17 items on the list. I ordered them by how much stress they cause me. #3 was what people think of me only surpassed by money (#1) and my weight (#2). Oddly enough two of three work related ones didn’t show up until numbers 15 and 16.

I can’t psychologically convince myself not to care. Almost all of my worries are in some way correlated to other people’s opinions of me, my family and my home. Only two single worries of the 17 are actually just about me. And one is the Prof. His ineptitude and negative demeanor only affect me, and thus its 16 on the list.  #17 is my back pain (which is directly related to stress). How interesting that of all the things that worry me the last two are the ones that are just affecting me. I’m not even going to list my 17 because of what you the anonymous reader could possibly think about them.