Part Twenty-one
All right, let’s start with this headline: "Caught eating ice cream...but still losing weight?”
Now, some people might say (maybe even those who see me in my day-to-day life), “Homegirl has clearly lost her mind. She’s not losing weight, she’s losing touch with reality.” They might say, “If she’s convinced that she’s more svelte, clearly her adhesion to lucidity has finally broken under all that strain of new stretch marks and cellulite. That’s it! It’s the cellulite that’s corrupting her brain!”
All that may be true, but nonetheless, I find myself looking in the mirror lately and slowly but surely liking what I see more and more. As I said at the outset of this whole thing, my goal is not to be the skinniest I can be. I just want to get to a point where I feel healthier and look the way I’d like - curvy, but not bulging and burdened by my extra mass. Also, I don’t want to give the wrong impression for people reading this perhaps for the first time: Fat is not a bad word. I love voluptuous, junk-in-the-trunk curvaceousness. I’m aiming to keep mine, I just need a little less and need to maintain my personal wellness in a more productive way.
I mean, I occasionally catch glimpses of myself in the odd mirror or store window throughout the day and think (as Cary Elwes says to Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride) “Dear God what is that thing?” and that makes me laugh; but on the whole, the picture has been getting better. I mean, it’s not that bad, and by the way, much of that is in reference to the whole appearance; often with my abysmal hair being the culprit.
Also, more often than not, my motivation for losing weight is less about appearance (although that obviously plays a part, and I don’t deny that) and more about how it makes my body feel. Feeling literally weighed down, stressed and struggling to exist within the boundaries of your clothes on a daily basis (I mean, to actually feel the fabric straining against your stomach, barely being held at bay by the threads - like a sausage ready to burst from its casing) takes its toll (certain garments even as I write this are threatening to cut off my entire air supply).
Also, I am profoundly afraid of death. Chances are that if I continue to put extra stress and strain on my body (both mentally and physically) that I'll not only potentially meet my end sooner than I'd like, but it could mean a worse quality of life for the time I am here. That said, I am perfectly aware of the fact that quality of life can be more affected by worrying and stress, because stress, as we know, tends to exacerbate our problems.
Now everyone is stressed, and many people have every right to be waaay more stressed out than I do. Nonetheless though, I feel stress. All of these health issues I’ve been having can be exponentially worsened by stress - acid reflux, lack of sleep, the weight in my frontal tummy area - but I thought that my stress level was in the normal range.
And then I had to run an errand at lunch the other day.
We’ve all seen these people. We glance at them in that moment when your car passes theirs on your way in or out of a parking lot. They’re going the opposite direction, and you see they appear to be screaming (though you hear no sound because their windows are up) and they are beating their hand, open-fisted on the their steering wheel in a frenzy of hysteria and angst. These are our fellow travelers who are afflicted with road rage, and I am, at times, one of them.
The other day if you were driving past my car while pulling out of the driveway of that particular parking lot, you would have seen me throw the aforementioned tantrum, and if you were able to hear what was going on in my car, the barrage of expletives I uttered would have made your ears ring for days. I also gave the ceiling of my car above my head a walloping right jab (really out of character I might add), much harder than I was expecting to. When I finally pulled into the parking garage and put the car in park, I screamed so loud that when I opened my eyes I saw stars.
Now I am not proud of this, but I admit it to you, dear reader, because it was a moment of awakening for me. I realized then and there just how close to the surface my inner strain was actually bubbling. When you fantasize about shoving people’s faces into their food as you are walking by on the street because you feel cruel and vindictive and you think it would be funny, it’s time to take a step back.
It takes a lot for me to get to that point. I do not fly off the handle easily, and I have never before screamed so loud that I saw stars. I intend to never let myself be worn so thin as to ever let it happen again. Saying that is much easier than doing it though, because how many of us actually can stop all of our stressors? It becomes our responsibility - we are charged with creating and maintaining our own inner harmony. No one is going to do it for us; this is a torch we must carry on our own and keep lit. It comes from the work of learning about ourselves; learning who we really are, learning how to take proper care of ourselves.
So to be lax about this sends us (and by us, I mean me and those of us out there who have, admit it, felt this way once or twice) into a disproportionate feeling of rage because there’s a lot of traffic and people are driving as if they are insane. And that is something that happens every day. People drive like maniacs. So, either we find a happy medium like taking the bus (which takes the act of driving completely, sublimely out of our hands), or we learn to do some breathing exercises and teach ourselves to remember what is really important.
In essence, we learn how to cope with our own particular stressors. Obviously, when it comes to road rage, it’s never really about traffic. In my own case, I am learning the important lesson of how to say “no” to the things that I don’t really need to devote time to right now. But in the recent past, my inability to decline any offer of work has left me profoundly overcommitted. There are always additional personal stressors for a myriad of reasons; but as I tell my Mom, “Those will always be there when you get back. Take some time for yourself.”
Stress exacerbates our weaknesses, so it is imperative that while I work toward a healthier body, I also work toward a healthier mind and attempt to rid myself of superfluous worry. Working toward that goal has manifested itself in a few different ways lately:
1. After visiting the book shop subsequent to seeing a bit of the movie adaptation of Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, I bought the book and also his second book, 'Tis, and I now find myself obsessed. After having visited Ireland for the first time (hopefully the first of many times) last May, I felt more drawn to these books than ever. I find myself mentally transported and inspired by these books that are, at the risk of sounding cliché and cheesy at the same time, alive. In fact, on the whole fear-of-death-front (which has been known to wake me in the night), reading McCourt’s words gives me hope that I, too, if I’m lucky and work hard, may continue to live on through my words. While reading my mind is engaged in imaginative learning. For that reason and many others, books are sacred to me.
2. I have been trying to get myself up earlier in the mornings (not too successfully yet) by telling myself, particularly since it is getting warmer, that this is my time. Before the day starts, I can take a walk and read on my way to work, I can fully utilize the Ann Arbor District Library's audio book collection for Agatha Christie mysteries and I can think - unfettered - in the morning before my day begins and the other demands on my time win out.
3. Attempting to garden. Never would anyone accuse me of having a green thumb, but between Andrew and I, we are determined to have some sort of a successful home garden even though we are restricted on space and sunlight. We learned a lot last year from our failures and minor successes to a point where this year, we feel we can order from the seed catalogue with some expectation of success. Last night, when it was beautiful, I went out and tried to pick up where Andrew left off, weeding the front yard and raking the dead leaves. Other than a run-in with some sort of unidentified petrified mammal poop under the house by my lavender bushes (yay for gardening gloves), I was able to clear things out in roughly half the yard relatively quickly. At least it’s to a point now where my terra cotta pots are primed and ready to receive the seedlings we’ll hatch in the house in the coming weeks.
4. On the food front: as I mentioned in the headline, I was caught this week eating ice cream. I say caught, but I don’t deny it or hide it - I wanted ice cream, so I got some. Then a friend came in and saw me eating it and called me on the fact. "Hey! You're eating ice cream!" Later, he said he just wished I had had an extra spoon. I think sharing in the comedy of life is essential. So, friends, now I'll always have an extra spoon.
The Hafla
How did the hafla go? Great. I actually thought it went fabulously. Myrtle (my best friend) feels that the first hafla we did (this being the second) was better, but in my opinion, this one was awesome. We danced to a drum solo, and I really loved the choreography. There was some cute stuff in there: shimmies, hip drops and sassy head slides. It was really fun. Also, this time I was in a much better mood. I looked at myself in the mirror before performing; “Not bad” I thought, "I look all right." My hip scarf couldn’t have slid much farther down on my bum without falling off (those silk ones just slip, it’s hard to keep them up); but that night when I danced, I actually smiled.
In fact, we may be performing the choreography at Detroit Raqs, a local bellydance conference happening in May, because it was so cute. If that happens, you can be sure I’ll tell you all about it right here.
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