Looking Ahead: 2013

I never used to make resolutions at the New Year.

There were always things I thought I’d do in the upcoming year, and most of the time, it was lose weight.  However, it just seemed as though resolutions never worked for anyone.  They were a source of self-disappointment, something I think most of us could do without.

My attitude on resolutions has changed dramatically (likely due to my new love of goal setting) and while I certainly hope to lose weight this upcoming year, weight loss is not a resolution of mine.

What is?

Exercise.

Plain and simple: Exercise was a pretty big part of my life for a little while there and I’ve never fully come back from my car accident.  Old habits die hard and it was all too easy to fall into laziness again.  Throw in the extra back pain I now have and boy is it ever easy to find a reason not to exercise.

The problem is… I felt better when I exercised with a vengeance.  I felt empowered and alive and at peace with my body.  My body was never perfect, it was always overweight… but I didn’t hate my body… I took pride in it.  Sure it was a work in progress… but I’d made so very much progress!

I want that back.  I want that drive and dedication back.  I want to feel that way about my body again.  I want to climb a mountain one small step at a time.

So there you have it. I resolve to rekindle my love of exercise in 2013.

What’s your resolution?

“Sounds Pretty Typical”

Happy Holidays!

I don’t normally dread Christmas.  In fact, until this year, I really loved it.  I love traditions and so Christmas, with all its traditions, is simply wonderful.  This year, however, was the first time in a long time that I found myself faced with being alone on Christmas morning.  This sort of thing typically would not bother me.  It’s just that my love life isn’t what I want it to be and so I was feeling angsty.

As the day drew near I found myself dreading everyone’s “What are you doing for the holidays?” question.  It’s really invasive if you think about it.  Everyone is anticipating you saying something quaint or family filled.  When you have nothing to say, the question becomes pretty awkward.  I may… at one point… have gone off on my chiropractor when he asked me that very question.  Now mind you, I’ve a great relationship with my chiropractor and by going off I just said “Why does everyone insist on asking me that?”  I call it “going off” though because he was totally taken aback by me saying what I said and I felt like crap for having said it.

So I did the unthinkable.  I decided to spend Christmas Eve night at my Dad’s house.

I don’t have the best relationship with my stepmother and my dad is… distant at best.  However, one of my sisters stays there every year so I thought it would be fine.

The typical family Christmas Eve went down in a display of brimstone and fireworks.  One ill event led to another, and another, and another… until I just really wanted to go home.  I wanted to be anywhere but there.  I wanted to be at home, alone.

Now, I am not one to be a victim of my life.  I don’t cry about crap for days and I don’t always look for sympathy when something goes wrong in my life.  I usually just find the humor in it, share a laugh with a friend or two, and move on.  Christmas Eve had me emotional and so I confided in someone.

Their response?  “Sounds pretty typical.”

Wow.  Thanks.  I feel so much better now.

And, women of the world, you likely already recognize this individual as being male.  Why on Earth do men think the best approach is to trivialize our emotions?  Even if the response IS over something trivial, all we are really looking for is a bit of sympathy, a hug, a word of encouragement… something.

When you give us your idiotic response trivializing it, I’m sure you think you’re doing us a world of good.  You’re showing us that it really isn’t such a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

HEY IDIOT:  We know this.

You think you’re reminding us that everyone has problems.

HEY IDIOT: We know this.

I know it’s not the end of the world.  I also know it won’t do me any good to wallow in my emotions.  I don’t plan on holding up any doomsday signs.  Nor do I plan to stay in bed and cry over this for a week (or even a day, really).  I don’t need you to toughen me up.  I don’t need you to kick my ass back into shape (unless I’ve been crying over something for a week or more).  I need you to listen.  I need you to say “I’m sorry, that really sucks.”

And if you want to throw in a better behaved family while you’re at it… all the better.

I have no title

As I sit here beginning this post, it doesn’t have a title.  Hell, it doesn’t even have a clear direction or content.  I just know it has been absolutely forever since I’ve posted and I also know I have an urge to write something.  Let’s sum up my life:

 

Weight:  Climbing.  I haven’t been able to get it together.  I keep eating whatever, whenever, and not exercising more than 2-3 times a week…. which wouldn’t be so bad if I were really hitting it hard… which I’m not.  As a result I feel fat, I hate all of my clothes, and I want to cut off the fat composing my lower stomach.  I tried on a pair of jeans the other day and it was as if they were designed to accentuate the lower belly flab I have.  Like “Yooo hooo!  Don’t you think this is sexxxsay?”  Seriously, I’ve thought about taking some scissors to it but I’m pretty sure that is not the way to go.

 

Work: I’m busy.  I’m so incredibly busy.  I’m stupidly busy.  And January starts up Academic Bowl season where I will have even more to do.  I’m pretty sure I’m at my limit of things I can handle.  I cannot sign up for any more committees, I cannot spend any more time helping my coworkers problem solve their class issues, I cannot spend any extra time creating new stuff for the class I’ve taught before.  Everything I have second semester will be devoted to staying afloat in the classes which are new, doing work for all these freaking committees I find myself a part of, and trying not to feel overwhelmed with everything I have to do.  There is this huge part of me that just wants to resign from everything extra and enjoy a month or two of being able to go home after work and just… be at home.  No extra meetings before going home… no work to do once I get home…. no stack of papers waiting for me to grade… no last minute tweaks to activities to make them better… no endless searching for cheap supplies to do things with.

 

Love: My love life sucks.  I can’t even talk about it.

 

Extras: I’m having  a hard time connecting with my mom these days.  I’ve always been able to call her up and have a decent conversation but lately, I just haven’t been able to do it.  She’s been annoying me.  I think it has something to do with her living with my sister and all these notions about mom just needing a helping hand to get on her feet evaporating in the wake of it.  My mom will never be able to support herself living on her own.  And worse yet, she’s in such a state of denial about that.  She doesn’t make enough money to pay her bills, she doesn’t tell anyone when she’s in trouble, when she does have money she spends it immediately on crazy, inane shit…. And let’s not get into the hygiene issue.  I don’t know what to do about my mom and I don’t know how to get over the disappointment I feel that she can’t take care of herself.  Even worse, I’m more disappointed that I didn’t see that until now.  She’s always been this way, I’ve just been in denial myself.

I have also taken up cookie decorating.  I say this like I’ve been doing it for ages now but in reality, I’m two batches in to the whole endeavor.  I needed a hobby.  One that wouldn’t make me feel poorly if I didn’t do it for a week or two (like exercise), and one that forced me to slow down and spend some time in the moment… because I haven’t been present in the moment since this school year started… and I used to be pretty good at living in the now while still planning for the future… that is just gone right now and so I needed something.  Plus, someone said to me “You’re only as interesting as your hobbies.”  Now, they weren’t insulting me at the time but I really couldn’t let that statement go because I took a look at my hobbies and found myself lacking one.  I used to be really into jogging but I haven’t been able to get back into it since the accident… and aside from that… my real hobbies are reading books to escape reality and talking to my cat and I realized I am not very interesting by anyone’s standards.  So I got inspired and just dove in to the whole cookie thing.

And that, my friends, pretty much brings you up to date.  I’ll try to write more as blogging USED to be a hobby of mine.