Me on the outside...

I knew today would come, someday.  Arriving at the day when I was done.  Done with carrying the 50+ lbs on this body and back to good eats and exercise.  May 28th, Memorial Day, is a good one to begin training for another 1/2 marathon.  I'm at such a different place, psychologically, this time than I was 2 years ago. I'm a vastly different person on the inside and I want to honor the hard work and perseverance by giving myself the healthy body representing those changes.  I want to be me on the outside that I am on the inside.

My sugars went out of whack and the doc put me back on Actos+Met, mentally, I knew this was it.  Diabetes is hell.  And scary.  It's scary to think that if I don't do something now, I'll really be in trouble.

Of course, after getting new shoes, digging out my work out clothes, setting my alarm, wouldn't you know I had a crappy night sleeping.  Kept waking up with low blood sugar.  This is the subtle balance a diabetic goes through when the food is good (low sugars/carbs) and my body is used to a constant intake of too much sugar.  I had planned on getting on the Trail by 6:30 but it turned out to be more like 7:30, but success today was measured by simply getting out and logging 35 minutes.

It's true what they say about our bodies 'remembering' the times we exercised.  When I trained for the 1/2 marathon in January of 2010, I struggled just to walk 1/4 of a mile.  Today, the first day, I put in 2 miles.  One of the challenges for my brain is pacing.  I don't do well with it.  For me if 2 is good, then 10 is better, right?  Wrong.  Pushing too hard is a recipe for failure and failure isn't an option.

I found the email schedule my SweetSisterCoach had sent us 2 years ago and am back on that now.  While I'm unsure if I'll actually DO a 1/2 marathon, I am sure I'll train for it.  Summer here in west Texas is brutal, but the mornings are perfect, before the heat gets too high, to get in the mileage.

I plan on writing every day about the training.  Today was a good day.

Bring the smelling salts....

Ha!!!  Yes, I'm posting.  It's hard to believe I've not written for almost 6 months to the day.  If you read blogs, you know its not uncommon for bloggers to drift in and out of season with their writing.  I'm the same.  Writing had to come to the bottom of the priority list and my season was focusing on the things I knew God was disciplining me to do.

It's been a bit scary how fast the months have gone.  Last October I was facing one of the biggest hurdles of my life.  Discovery of my learning disability was a relief, and terrifying.  Since coming back to the university to finish my undergrad passing the two Math classes, literally, kept me up at nights.  Last summer, with two more years to go, I realized I didn't want to wait till the last two semesters to take the classes, so September I signed up for the remedial Math class.  Yeah, the Math class people like me take even before they take the "real" Math class that I have to have to graduate.  And I must say, other than ShortKid being born and the challenges of his disability, and the ending of my marriage, the math class was the most painful experience I've faced.

But God is amazing.  He provided everything....and I mean EVERYTHING I needed for the journey.  It's that phrase that Dave Ramsey says all the time "I'm blessed beyond what I deserve..."  Mostly God walked with me the whole time, never once left my side.  He reminded me every second of his faithfulness and love and that while I couldn't do it, He could.  And he did.  I cried and clawed my way through and passed the class.  It was life changing.  Thats why Julie Moss' video of crawling across the finish line touches my heart so deeply.  I know what thats like to crawl across the finish line.  As well as the flood of emotions when you do it.

I was so afraid I would fail the class and have to repeat it...and still face the second Math class in order to graduate.  But God's plan is perfect and I'm in the last week of the second Math class.  And the most amazing thing of all is I just may get an A!!!  Yep, if I do relatively well on the final next week, I'll pull an A.  And still hold on to my 4.0.

God has over and over reminded me that He doesn't come from the place of 'never'.  And my whole life I've lived in Neverland.  "You'll never do well in school.  You never have, you never will...."  And thats proven to not be true.

I can see the finish line.  I'm close to the end of this part of the journey and to think about it floods me with emotions of thankfulness and deep love for the NewMe who has persevered.  One class this summer and 4 next year.  May '13 will be graduation.  A dream that is a reality....dreams, I'm starting to believe, can come true.

love ya'll
Jae

Facing stuff and all that stuff....

I've not posted in a long time, no time.  No time to read all you wonderful peoples blogs. I miss you guys.  My life is consumed.  If I'm not in class, I'm at work, if not in class or working I'm at my corner in Starbucks, with headphones, writing a billion pages for a billion assignments.  If I'm not in class, working or studying, I'm sleeping.  Even Jesus has taken a couple of backseats.  Only reason I'm writing here this morning is I don't want to do my math homework.  Math is from Satan.  For real.

Facing the facts is hard.  Fact is, I won't have a life until 2014 when I complete the masters program.  Until then, its school, work, study, sleep everyday for the next 3 years.  But it's worth every single second.

I was one of those kids in elementary school who hated being assigned seats.  I wanted to sit in the back, invisible.  "Leave me the F*^# alone" written all over my face.  I hated, let me scream that.... HATED school.

Everyday, reminded of how stupid I was, and painfully shy so relatively no friends.  I'd beg my mom to let me stay home.  By the time I was in 4th grade with TheBitchFromHell as a teacher, psychologically I was a mess.  I became physically sick, throwing up, bad headaches and stomach aches.  Mom took me to the doctor who told her I was fine.  She then saw it as a ploy to stay home and that was no longer an option.  Back to school,  throwing up every couple of days, hating my life.  And that was only elementary school.

By middle school, I discovered I liked English, did well in History because the teachers were coaches and didn't care what we did in the classroom, and by 9th grade they only made me take one more math class.  High school my folks made me take Voc Ed classes.  "You'll make a great secretary...It'll pay your bills"  Message:  We won't have to support you if you never get married.

I say all that to remember how far God has brought me.  He loves me no matter what.  No matter how fat I am, no matter how stupid I feel, no matter how ugly the mirror says I am, no matter how many times I tell myself I'll start training for another half marathon....no matter how many times I say 'screw it'.  He loves me anyway.  Sure he wishes I'd make different choices of language sometimes, but he understands my frustration and cuts me some slack.

Facing stuff.  Facing the reality that my life, at the age of 53, is nowhere close to what I thought it'd be.  Most of the time, my life is a billion times better than I ever dreamed.  Other times, when I have to do painful self-examination work with FunnyShrinkGuy, my life is excruciatingly painful.

I know the end of the story.  I can finally see the light at the end of this 50 year tunnel.  I'm going to one day stand before an auditorium of women and tell my story of heartbrokeness and redemption.  I'm writing a book and declaring what can become of a little girl, shy and learning disabled, broken and abused from a man seeped in the netherworld of sex addiction who ultimately finds joy, peace and purpose.

Facing stuff...worth every minute.

It looks like this...

It was 1982 and life was good.  I was living on that wonderful cloud of newlyweddedness and blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead.

I've always been intrigued by the mental strength it takes to compete in an Ironman Triathlon.  Flipping channels on that Saturday afternoon, ABCSports was broadcasting a women's triathlon and had found Julie Moss;  as she began to pull away from the pack, we had the honor of witnessing the intimacy of perseverance, self love and sacredness as she crossed the finish line.

I'd forgotten about Julie Moss until today.  I was remembering how far away graduation seemed.  How long I had to go because of needing to work full time.  And here I am.  With only two semesters to go, I can see the finish line.  And I remembered Julie.  How emotional it was to watch her determination, her pain and her victory.

I still cry every time I watch this video.  She's one of my hero's.  

Never, ever let someone steal your dreams.  Crossing the finish line is so much sweeter when you've paid a painful price to get there...

...and then she drove off the cliff

Okay, okay.  Geeze.  I admit it.  I can, at times, be pretty stubborn.  StubbornGirl is good friends with another part of me, PerfectionistGirl and they rarely allow deviation from The Plan of My Life.

There are sub plans in The Plan of My Life, mainly the Go-Back-To-School Plan which has me graduating May of next year.




And in order for Stubborn/PerfectionistGirl to not drive me crazy, the GBTS plan has me taking two classes this summer, 4 classes this fall, 5 in the spring.  Then sit for the GRE (graduate school entrance test) next summer, pray like mad for a 1100+ on the test, and proceed to grad school the fall of 2013.  All of this being done, while simultaneously working full time.  Oh, and I forgot to add....only A's allowed.  No B's, nothing short of a 4.0 is even to be considered.

See?  Stubborn.  As well as a tad bit impractical.  I know where this mindset comes from.  It's rooted in hating school as a kid.  From being stupid, but knowing deep down I wasn't stupid.  But the grades on my report card, which came out EVERY six week (in case I forgot how stupid I was) would reflect how truly inadequate and stupid I was.

So I have a problem with balancing, from keeping my mental pendulum from swinging one extreme to another.  Ditto with GoodEats/BadEats.  Same with Exercising/BeingASlug.  Its been a process of learning balance and to be honest the only way I know I've overdone it was when I'd find myself in meltdown mode, burnout or in extreme cases, under the covers with depression and panic attacks.

"Ooops.  Guess I shouldn't have done that..."

I would keep driving until I drove over the cliff.  Never stopping, never even pulling over to the shoulder.  Just driving 120 mph, not heeding the warning signs.  Nope.  The only option was pushing so hard I had no brakes, only to realize too late I was in a 1,000 foot free fall in failure.

Last week, that changed.  I quit summer school.  The class was Conflict Management (which still makes me laugh being raised in a home where there was no conflict because an independent thought expressed was quickly punished or ridiculed).  The class was every day, for four hours, Monday - Thursday, for three weeks.  Anywhere from 40-50 pages of reading every night, and a quiz every day.  I lasted for a week and a half.

I woke up at 3 a.m. last Thursday morning and wondered what it'd be like to not drive the car over the cliff?  What if, this time, I actually considered giving myself a break and change The Plan?  I asked myself what, in the long run, did it mean if I decided to do things different?  To not go careening ??

By the time I got to work, I'd decided to withdraw from the class.  Yes, it costs a ton of $$$ and I would get no refund, but at least I'd leave without having a single panic attack.  Well worth the price of the class and peace of mind.

I've always wondered what the mountains look like from here....

3rd and 4th...

July 3rd.  Jae's birthday.  Yesterday was my 53rd and I feel like I'm in my 30's.  Its true what they say about age only being a number.  But that only lasts as long as your body keeps doing what you ask it to do.  I talked to a friend at church yesterday who is about 10 years older than I am, who is struggling with her aging body not doing what she wants it to do.  Talking with her just was another reminder that I should treat my body with good eats and (one day) exercise.

I begin my 4th week of back on program with my foods.  I've not mentioned it to anybody because when I do, people think they own what I eat.  They do all that judging crap.  My mom asks "can you eat that?"  My food has always been on the list of Her Business.  But eating crap all my life and expecting Mom to weigh a billion pounds didn't work.

Food issues are so multifaceted.  How easy it would be if it was one dimensional, only about having the will power to limit bad-for-me foods and portion control with good-for-me-foods.  How nice if Food issues didn't connect to issues with marriage, divorce, sex, childhood, abuse, or love.  How much easier it would be if Food issues weren't complicated by the fact that I'm addicted to sugar.  So much for wishin' things were different.

One thing I've made myself do during this cycle of good eats is to take inventory of where my head was during the cycle of bad eats.  The analytical part of my psyche wants to evaluate and observe to understand.  You can't change what you don't own.  And you can't own until you see the reasons why you're doing bad food.  This time I've discovered I have a major issue with loss, with grieving.  And I use food to not feel the pain of loss.  That was a new one to see.  Linkage of loss with binging.  That's kinda big discovery I think because two weeks ago I ended an 11 year friendship.  Another loss of a friend, even though it was not healthy for either of us to continue it, I still have a lot of sadness over ending it.

But what I didn't do was binge.  I stayed on track and instead of eating through the feelings, I spend time with FunnyShrinkGuy acknowledging how painful it was.

But what I didn't do was binge.....

Perspectives....

I'm fascinated by how people think, how they absorb information, how they analyze, how they come to conclusions, how they judge.  Basically, how they navigate and evolve.  One of the most interesting things about people is vision.  Not the clinical, eye-ball, 20/20 vision, but how certain people have the gift of vision.

By the gift of vision, they see certain things most people don't see.  And I truly believe its a gift.  Take ShortKid for instance.  Most people, until he talks, assumes, because of the wheel chair, that he's mentally challenged as well.  From the first syllable, its apparent he doesn't struggle with intellectual challenges.  As his mom, I never see a wheel chair.  I see legs that look different than most.  I see legs that are round, made of metal, spokes and rubber on the edge.  Legs...but different than mine.  A different perspective.

I'm reading a blog about a dad who has a 3 yr old daughter with spina bifida.  About 4 years ago I set up a Google Alert for 'spina bifida'.  I still remember the day I found his blog.  He and the wife had tried for years to become pregnant.  Lots of miscarriages later, she was pregnant once more but this time, the baby was going to be born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus, club feet, lots of complications...all of them same as ShortKid. 

I read everyday about his journey into the world of a child who will always have special needs.   And how amazing this dad has been.  He has vision.  I've worked with lots and lots of families whose child has spina bifida.  This dad is one with the ability to not see his daughter as spina bifida first, but as a precious 3 yr old little girl who he wants to have as close to a normal life as possible. 

When you deal with such tremendous medical complications as our children have, you're surrounded by therapist, nurses, doctors and teachers who focus on the disability, who see the child as "Spina Bifida named Cotter..."  Don't get me wrong.  That's the reason my family and I have come into contact with them, they are the leading experts at how to make sure ShortKid stays healthy.  But what a blessing to encounter parents who see things that most of the world doesn't see.

Looking at myself differently is a struggle.  My weight, my marriage, my internal sledgehammering doesn't define who I am.  ... Unless I allow it.  I'm seeing the value of not labeling myself as negative but as someone who, for today, is making better choices, and seeing myself differently than I used to.

Life is about the struggle of balance and perspective.  The gift of vision.