Recommitted

Yesterday's calories: 2500

No exercise

I think we have or hopefully, had, (emphasis on past tense) some kind of virus yesterday. So we didn't accomplish much. Kevin and I both felt kind of tired and torpid the whole day and aside from getting some chores done, we didn't do much else. Total pajama day.

But today, well, I have big plans for today. I want to take Skittles to the park and toss her ball and then come back and do a kettellbell workout.

Before I start getting all "planny" though and mapping out my day in detail, I need to share more about this recommitment.

In early August, I have scheduled a lap band surgery. I did the research and I have waited for two years for the gastric bypass as my back-up and this year, having gained back 20 lbs due to compulsive eating (exercise is on target) I feel like I am at a cross roads. I could wait another two years for a bypass, I could continue to try and get to the root of the compulsive eating and "stem the tide" or I could take more drastic steps. Trust me, I don't like the idea of taking drastic steps (and yet I kind of do, for their definitiveness) but either way I just need this to end, soon.

Gaining back 20lbs has been hard. I know it's attributable in no small part to the situation at ABC and how betrayed I felt. I know NN's behavior made me feel unsafe, I know my new job contributed to my sense of "there has to be something wrong with me" and all of that resulted in a lot of turmoil. And that turmoil got to be unbearable, especially after I started the new job and felt that the red mark against me had followed me, because "there's obviously something wrong with me."

So I ate. My portion control slipped away, many of the habits I had developed were tested to their limits, pushed past effectiveness and then just dropped altogether. The new ingrained habits with food that I thought would be with me forever morphed back into my old habits. So subtly. I still use skim milk, but I used to avoid all processed foods and sugars, (even fake sugar), now I'll dump a splenda in my coffee and when things are feeling a little crappy I'll get a muffin- even though I have a healthy snack back at the office.

I was still exercising (I did go through a period of inactivity, too). But the exercise couldn't take the brunt of the overeating and just ameliorate it. So even though I am fit, I am getting fatter and it's hurting my joints A LOT to be working out as much as I do, with 20 extra pounds. It's almost as if I have the fitness capacity of someone who is a very fit 250 lbs (unusually fit for that size, not bragging, but I do workout 3-5x a week for 1.5 hrs) with 20 extra lbs strapped on my back at all times. My knees are especially feeling it.

That and there's the matter of clothing. I don't know what size I am. I do know that it's not the size of most of the clothes hanging in my fucking closet, that's for sure. It is beyond upsetting to get ready in the morning and realize my boobs don't fit into my bra, they're spilling over and if I tuck them in to avoid spillage, my nipples are in a weird spot. So I have the unenviable decision to make: nipples very askew, or check throughout the day for spillage and adjust as needed. Yes, I could get a new bra, get fitted and try to make this work, but here's the thing I learned when I weighed less: There comes a point where my bra size gets so big that comfort, support, control, shaping are no longer options- when they're this big a bra just serves to contain them, it can't really deliver on all those other things most women take for granted with their bras. (I have ordered new bras, but since I am so large busted they have to be ordered via the internet and they're on back order- oh, and they're expensive). But when I weighed 250 lbs I did have those options and I felt so feminine and refined, and I miss that so much. I miss slipping on a bra and watching my boobs take on the classic feminine shape of breasts. (They're so big they sag without support, even at 250).

But getting back to clothes. My clothes don't fit. I have a camel toe once again because my pants are all too tight. A lot of the stuff I had from Ricki's, my cute sweaters, don't fit anymore. My tummy is much too big, it muffins up and spills out way too much. I am so depressed about it I don't feel like going out and getting new pants and tops. I am mad, I had finally started amassing a wardrobe I liked and was proud of and now I can't wear it. I can only wear the weird clothes on the margins. Great.

When I weighed less, for the first time in my life I felt like I was part of the "girl world". I took pleasure in finding clothes and dressing up. I felt pretty for the first time. I knew that people thought I was fat, very fat, but I felt as if I'd accomplished something and for the first time I had a sense of confidence and "okayness" that I thought no one could take away. Sadly no one did take it away, I mean no one outside of me. I took what happened at ABC as a confirmation of my secret fear that there was, is, and always will be, something that is very wrong with me. I know this belief is a direct result of all the sexual abuse I lived through as a child and when you add in the sexual issues of the situation, it, of course, makes a lot of sense I would feel as unraveled, exposed and unsafe as I did. In other words, betrayed and used.

When I look back on it now I see their machinations as plain as day, and I see my own culpability and humanness (Oh no, I called my boss a useless pants load in an e-mail, evil!!!! And I took a day off during the sexual harassment investigation and lied and said I had a stomach flu, gee, that's just totally inexplicable, couldn't imagine a person feeling stressed that their co-worker had said some disgusting shit to them, lied about it and was being investigated and the other person [me] needed a day away from the office!) but man, they knew exactly how to push my buttons and manipulate me. My fear of authority, my need to be accepted and loved, my desire for validation- exploited.

But it was an experience that taught me something very valuable, about myself, about life. And I think only now am I starting to take it to heart and apply it and integrate it into my personal system. Work is not an extended family. Just that. No one there is really your friend, a family member or replacement for those things. Sometimes you'll make true friends, but that's not why you're there. When I started at NIF I told myself I wouldn't get caught up in the social world. I'd keep to myself, and I didn't. I got very close with Ad, Lady and T. And I don't regret that. But because I was still traumatized from ABC I think I turned it into a very co-dependent relationship without healthy boundaries. So when I leave there, I really will follow my own advice and keep a distance between me and my colleagues.

The bad side of that friendship is that I reinforced their emotional struggles with the system, and they did the same for me. We reinforced the belief with each other that there should be some kind of common code of decency, and we waxed in vain about the lack of compassion and respect with which we were treated. We shared our personal humiliations about un-tolerable situations and behavior and comforted one another. And unfortunately, there were so many examples of callous and unthinking behavior we never ran or will run out of material with which to commiserate. Nothing wrong with that, right? No. Not really.

And yet, yes. There is something wrong with it. Because we just spin our wheels. We're powerless, and we know it. And we sit and discuss the things that happen when someone with power wields it over us and we feel shitty as a result.

But there's a freedom in the situation that I hadn't quite grasped until now.

We are powerless. And we know it.

I was always so busy trying to get a little power, so I could insulate myself against other people's power struggles, that I bought into it all. I cared when they swung their dicks around and slapped me across the face. I thought it meant I was weak, and they were demonstrating their power and I could either be a sniveling victim, or swing back (or just lie in wait until I could swing back!).

I'd get stepped on, used and most upsetting for me, anyway, have my time royally wasted (in this job anyway). And I kept trying to make it right. I kept trying to make them see me as a person, I kept trying to stand up to them, I keep trying to do the work the way it should be, thoroughly, I keep trying to own my work, to have integrity and actually teach them to treat me with respect. I kept trying to change the system.

Which is a losing battle. Not to mention arrogant. As if I could change an entire system! As if I could make someone who is 50 years old see me as an expert! What hubris! Who cares. If she wants to burn herself out and take all my decision making, autonomy and "expertise" from me, then so be it. I don't need it. Do I even have expertise? I don't know.

I am powerless. And I know it. And I'm embracing it. I'm not fighting it anymore and I'm not going to try and make them see me as someone who could run with the pack- I don't care if they accept me now and I don't have any desire to get them to ask me to join them, to recognize me as competent.

And it's not coming from a place of malicious obedience (you want a briefing note, I'll give you a fucking briefing note, cuntasauraus). No, I will continue to deliver on responsibilities. I will turn my work in on time and make it as good as I can. But I won't care anymore. And I don't mean "won't care" in the toddler temper tantrum sense. But I won't be attached to the outcome. One thing this position has taught me is humility. Invariably, what I send in will be sent back with 30 incomprehensible changes. One or two may be valid (imho) the rest pretty pointless. And from there on in it will continue, back and forth, back and forth. Late. Out of date. Not timely. And then pushed through into action. And that too, will change again and again and again and so I will spend most of days doing, then undoing the same thing, over and over.

Because the reality is, I am powerless. And I know that trying to change the system is a losing battle. And I don't have the time or energy to wage that war anymore.

Now that I have given up (it's a new thing) I feel better. I have to fight the bad moments, when common sense grips and I wonder why I am doing and then undoing and then redoing the same thing, over and over. But then who cares? None of the stuff we do actually matters. So who cares if one project is particularly shitty over another? It's all just pensionable time!

So what does any of this have to do with my desire to recommit? Everything and nothing. I am ready for a change, I am ready to stop putting energy into my professional life (altho I am taking a certification course next year) and I am ready to take care of myself. I have been avoiding taking care of myself because my thoughts go something like this: if they don't care about me, I will make them care about me, notice me and respect me and when they do, I will, too. That's no way to live. I can't handle that for much longer.

I'm taking matters into my own hands. I am devising a plan. I love plans. I want an electric bike so I can ride to work and get over hills and feel safer in traffic. I want to have that surgery in August. I want to start offering myself some thing soft when I get home from work so I don't feel the need to binge- something pleasurable. I want to make this belly a little smaller so I can fit into the clothes hanging in my closet. I want to have more energy. I want to do that course next year. I want to start trying to have a baby in the new year. I want to enjoy this. I am recommitted to me. And right now, that means exercise and safe, trusting relationship with food.

Plans for today:

Skittles- park

Kettelbell w/o

Look for electric bike or converter kit for my bike

Find nurse who does fills

Hem curtains

Make soup

nails