C is for CHRISTINE

My theme for A to Z this year is a wildly different, but very exciting, HERE'S TO YOU all month long. 26 posts to be precise. The most difficult part was narrowing down the 26. All of you deserve your own post. What you will find here is a post by the featured blogger, with traveling music chosen by me that complements said post, and two links. One will link back to the original post and the other to the main page. This year's A to Z is all about making new friends! 


Christine pens the inspiring blog A Deliberate Life. Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about this blog. This blog started out as a weight loss blog and turned into a life blog. Overeating is just a symptom of a life that is not working. Digging out the chicken coop that is your life experience, belief system, your Spirit is hard work. It requires self examination. It requires looking at the crap. It changes your life from something to get through to a wonderful journey to be embraced. As her header says, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived..." ~ Thoreau. These are the woods, my friends...

And the traveling music:


fat is the symptom - love is the cure by Christine
3/14/14


I would say the majority of morbidly obese people are that way because they are dealing with serious shit.
And instead of drinking, or doing drugs...they eat.

Why would I eat instead of deal with my life?

It was easier.

there...I said it.
It is EASIER.
not in the long run of course..

But in the short run....you bet your ass.

For me, food did indeed taste better than thin felt.
I am one of those unfortunate (or fortunate) women who does not give a shit if a man thinks my ass is wide.
Don't like it, lump it.

Well, that just left ME to care.
and I didn't.
Not for the longest time.
I cared about getting through each day.
Because I was miserable without knowing I was miserable.
YOu may think that is an impossibility..
But all my life,  my mentality was "Life is tough....no one wants to hear you bitch...so suck it up."
So I did.
I learned to effectively mask all my feelings by eating them.
It started around the age of twelve and continued til about five years ago.
Until I stopped eating them....
I thought I was a very even keeled person.
Water off a duck's back and all that.
lolololol..
When I stopped eating..
I started noticing things.
Things like how my husband talked to me.
(keep in mind my husband is a sober alcoholic...and how he talked to me is undoubtedly how he talks to himself in his own mind.)
How I spoke to myself in my own mind.
How others looked at and treated me because of my size.

The day I looked up and really saw myself at build a bear...
it was like waking up from a coma.
That awakening was not magic..
It was a long process.
A process which began at a karate class.
I know...it's labyrinthine...this story of mine.
But I am an examiner by nature..
I need the whys and hows....it is how I am made.
but back to awakening.
I had thought, up to that point...til the age of 35...that I was merely philosophical about my childhood...
And when I stopped eating..
and stopped masking..
I felt this weird pressure in my chest that kept growing and growing.
and growing.
And It was rage
sorry..
IT WAS RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE.

up till that point..
I had lived with a low level depression that I masked with apathy and eating.
and Not Thinking About It.

Once I confronted the state my body was in...270 pounds on a 5'3 frame...and the state my mind was in....and I would lay awake at night reliving parts of my childhood while trying to sleep...
...the rage would grow...
And I threw myself into weight loss.
I used the rage to my advantage...
And it really propelled me down the scale.

Then, at around 156 pounds (a weight I maintained through high school, something to think about later I suppose)
I hit a new emotion.
FEAR.
I was also molested by my stepfather's father.
he touched me inappropriately.
And I never told anyone until I was 19.
He called me his 'petite princess" and  would try and tickle me and put me on his lap..
and then one night...he laid down next to me and touched me.
and I rolled over and he left.
And I never went near him again.
But it colored the way I saw my body.
I felt dirty.
Every man I had met until I was 15 had been abusive, or perverted.
I hated men.
except my brother.
which was my saving grace..
In the time since...I have met men who aren't abusive.
Who are very good men...
My mom's fourth husband is a good man.
preachers and so fourth..
and my husband...while struggling with his own issues..is at his core, a good man..
so back to the fear.
The readers who have been here a while remember my fainting goat post.
A man tried to flirt with me at the mall..
and I was so afraid, I had to sit down before I fell out.
I was afraid to be 'petite'....or vulnerable.
There are a lot of reasons why I chose food.
It's easy,
IT's available.
IT doesn't judge.
It is legal.
and it worked.
But it kept me from feeling...and that is no way to go through life.
IT kept me from confronting the people who needed to be confronted, facing the issues in my mind that needed to be faced...It kept me dead inside.
Waking up from that was like the feeling your hand gets when you lie on it all night, and you have cut off your blood supply.
It is painful.
It can feel easier to revert.
or bury it in shit..
or spray some garden fresh spray.
or whatever euphemism makes it easier to live a lie than face a hard truth.

who wants to live a lie?
not me.

These last six months...the last of my fantasy land wishes were stripped away..
And everything I had hoped would be true about me if faced with bad circumstances..
I found to be true.
There is Nothing like a real trial by fire to show you who you are..
And If I hadn't been doing what I had been for the last 5 years..
I never would have been ready for the last six months.
And who knows...maybe six months ago never would have happened, If I hadn't become who I have become?
so it goes....
in any case:
I have become so solid in the knowledge of who I am..and what I am capable of...that I was able to find my feet in short order.
even as I have remained overweight...
I lay in bed one night a few months back, and accepted every pound on my body...not as some symbol of failure..
but as an acknowledgement that I am here...and the space I occupy and my body
is mine..
mine to cherish or abuse.
Mine.
I own it...all of it.
And I love it and am grateful for it..
old, overweight, stretched out....one weak knee..
I am here.
I love my body...it has carried me through.
Now I want to show myself what I am capable of..
I want to feel energetic and full of possibility.
And that means keeping my body in good shape.
For me.
God willing, I have a full life to live..people to meet and enjoy..
a world to see.
So why would I allow my body to be hindered.
when there is so much to do?
I have eaten under 1800 this whole week...
and exercised every day..
next week I will up my exercise and take another 100 calories off the plate...
not because I am disgusted with myself..
But because I have a goal to reach and things to do.
Anger will propel you.
Love will free you.
Chris out.

I know that was long and I looked for what to excerpt and couldn't find anything that wasn't essential. So, thank you for accepting that some truths take a certain amount of space to tell. If you aren't reading Christine's blog, you are missing out on something special. Robin out.

B IS FOR BACK IN THE USSR

My theme for A to Z this year is a wildly different, but very exciting, HERE'S TO YOU all month long. 26 posts to be precise. The most difficult part was narrowing down the 26. All of you deserve your own post. What you will find here is a post by the featured blogger, with traveling music chosen by me that complements said post, and two links. One will link back to the original post and the other to the main page. This year's A to Z is all about making new friends!  


BACK IN THE USSR is written by Larry or LC, who also writes DiscConnected, a blog that addresses all things music. BACK IN THE USSR is a politically incorrect forum (my favorite kind), in which various policies of the government are examined under the microscope. As LC says in his header: "On this blog, I'm going to leave the CD's on the shelf and vent my frustrations with the current state of political affairs. Our country has problems. Our tax burden is worse than our founding fathers fought a revolution over. Our Federal government has grown into a monstrosity that would make Paul Revere start riding again. We're back...in the United States' Socialist Republic!"

And your traveling music:



SEBELIUS UNDER FIRE by DiscConnected
11/6/13

 In an exchange with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas., Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated Wednesday that it was possible convicted felons could be hired as ObamaCare ‘navigators,’ giving them access to personal information like Social Security numbers and addresses of anyone signing up for the program.

Sebelius made the admission during a Senate Finance Committee hearing, the second time in a week she was on Capitol Hill, forced to defend the problem-plagued ObamaCare website.

“Isn’t it true that there is no federal requirement for navigators to undergo a criminal background check,” Cornyn asked her.

“That is true,” Sebelius answered. “States could add in additional background checks and other features, but it is not part of the federal requirement.”

Cornyn pressed, “So a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information from an individual unbeknownst to them?”

Sebelius answered, “This is possible.”

The last time Sebelius testified before a House committee, she fell on the sword, personally apologizing for the failures.

“Hold me accountable for the debacle,” she said. “I’m responsible.”

Lawmakers from both parties have harshly criticized the health insurance exchange website rollout and her agency’s lack of foresight about the massive problems.
 

Kansas Republican Senator Pat Roberts called for her resignation. He spoke at length during the hearing, expressing his disappointment at the lack of information provided to Congress throughout the website’s development – including some warnings of problems ahead by government investigators.

“In short, Madam Secretary, I believe you were given advice, counsel and warning from experts inside your agency and out that the health care exchanges were not going to be ready. Furthermore, I believe to protect the administration, you chose to ignore these warnings, and as a result, you have put our entire health care system and one-sixth of our economy in jeopardy.”

“You have said America should hold you for — accountable, which is why today, Madam Secretary, I repeat my request for you to resign,” he said.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the abrupt retirement of the chief information officer, in the first high-level departure since the botched HealthCare.gov launch last month.

In my opinion, the computer glitches should not be the focus.

In the past, I’d have said the focus should be the constitutionality of the bill, but quite frankly, today’s admission concerns me.

The idea that my employer is required by the federal government to perform background checks on all employees who handle personal health information (we subcontract with Medicare health plans), but the federal government does not impose the same requirement on their own employees is one I find very alarming.

With identity theft as rampant as it is, we're not going to screen who we allow to access our citizen's personal information?

Doesn't that seem a little short-sighted?

Can't this administration do anything right the first time?

 

"Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.” ~Ron Paul

 If you are interested in another viewpoint on what is happening in this country, I encourage you to visit BACK IN THE USSR. 

A IS FOR ALEX J. CAVANAUGH

My theme for A to Z this year is a wildly different, but very exciting, HERE'S TO YOU all month long. 26 posts to be precise. The most difficult part was narrowing down the 26. All of you deserve your own post. What you will find here is a post by the featured blogger, with traveling music chosen by me that complements said post, and two links. One will link back to the original post and the other to the main page. This year's A to Z is all about making new friends!

A is for Alex J. Cavanaugh, Ninja Captain, Founder of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, or as I like to call him The News. If you want to know what is going on in the book world, Alex KNOWS. He is also a wonderful commenter (he has clones), a supportive friend, and a Man of Mystery. No one, other than his wife, knows what the guy looks like. He offers us this insight with Mini-Alex:

Let's bring on the traveling music:



Some Resolutions by Alex J. Cavanaugh
January 2, 2010

Okay, I'm not really one for New Year's resolutions. But since this will be a big year for me, and after a day of lazy overindulgence, thought I should set some.

First, I need to spend my computer time a little more productively. Less computer games, more time online. Still working on this blogging thing, but I think a set schedule of five times a week might help me out.

Since my first book is tentatively scheduled for October, I need to work on a second one!

More time for reading. I picked up several new books last month and there's several series I want to start.

And a fun personal goal - I want to become proficient on the guitar. Been playing for three years now and I practice every day. But I'd like to get through a whole song without a mistake!

There's my goals and resolutions for this coming year. Going to dive right into the blogging one tomorrow, too. Anyone else starting the new year with a resolution?

I like this post because Alex, who is a huge force in the blogging world, was just starting out (like all of us at one time) and has all of *four* comments on this post - other than his own. Four! And now he has 2,000+ followers. This post reminds me that anything is possible if you keep at it! I hope you go visit Alex if you haven't already!!!