new years eve 2014

new years eve ... a time for reflection on the year that is ending before a new one begins. a time to ponder the events of the year that has passed and to make plans for the coming year. 

i don't make resolutions. they are too easy to break and let yourself down. but i do reflect on the past and the future. i do dream of things to come. 

2014 was a very difficult year for me. if you read through my blog posts from this last year, you can see how much i have changed. 

last year at this time i was barely holding myself together. i was emailing nosy nora (my therapist) pretty much daily just to keep connected to someone who knew that i was falling apart. in january i ended up taking a leave of absence from work. i was off for 6 weeks and spent that time curled up on the couch wrapped in a blanket. unable to do much of anything else. 

when i went back to work, it was only half time. that's all i could manage. 

i cried all the time. i felt like the world was crashing down around me and that i was being crushed underneath it. 

the fall of 2014 brought more sadness and hard times. i was dragging myself into work every day, but barely functioning. i was doing the bare minimum and luckily had GT to pick up the loose ends and keep things running smoothly. thank goodness for GT. 

every day at work i get a 40 minute prep time, where i plan my lessons, photocopy, mark work, etc. but i was using those 40 minutes to curl up in a ball on a dog bed that i had stashed under my desk. when i think of it now, it feels crazy. totally and completely crazy. but at the time it was what i needed to do just to function. i needed to curl up in a ball and close my eyes for those 40 minutes. 

then at lunch time i would eat quickly and head back to my dog bed under my desk for a 15 minute curl up. 

i have come a long way. not only am i now using my prep time to actually prepare things, i have moved the dog bed out from under my desk and i no longer feel the need to curl up in a ball. 

i will admit that part of the change has to do with a change in medications that has really helped me cope with the world. but part of it are the huge changes that i have made over the last year. 

see the following blog posts to read about the changes that i have made. 

http://aprilgigiangels.blogspot.ca/2014/11/changes.html

http://aprilgigiangels.blogspot.ca/2014/11/beads.html

i can honestly say that i feel happiness. i am sitting my couch, listening to christmas music by the tree and thinking about the good things that are to come. 2015 is a mystery. full of potential and adventure. and it will be what we make it. 

i can't talk about new years eve without talking about gigi. 19 years ago today was the last time that i spoke to her. she was trying to convince me to go to a party with her, but i had chosen to babysit. i was miserable that night. grumpy. out of sorts. 

and gigi died at that party. i always wonder how my life would have been different had i been there. for years i believed that i could have changed the outcome. could have noticed earlier. could have called 911 faster. could have saved her. 

i know now that i couldn't. i know now that she came into my life to give me the gift of true friendship. to teach me that i could be loved for who i am, not for who people tried to make me be. and that is a gift i have carried with me all these years. 

i wish you all the best in 2015. i wish you happiness, magic, and adventure. i wish you true friendship and that you can believe that you deserve to be love for who you are. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

unexpected

things don't always go as planned. 

i am a planner. i think things through. i am prepared. i am organized. 

yesterday i was supposed to see a movie and instead ended up with a flat tire. 

today i imagined (worried and stressed about) that i planned to spend the entire day waiting for my tire to get fixed and the mechanic ended up fixing it within an hour. 

nosy nora suggested that i spend my time worrying about things in place of other things. as in, i worry about my car getting a flat tire instead of worrying about important and reasonable things. instead of admitting to myself what i am actually worrying about. i fill my brain with worries that are slightly ridiculous, or at least unimportant. 

today, for example, while talking to nosy nora i was completely distracted thinking about where i parked my car. why? because i had to go in a different entrance and parked in a different spot and was completely convinced that i wasn't going to be able to find my way back and if and when i did find my way back to the car i wasn't going to be able to find my way out of the parking lot. so as we were talking, i kept picturing myself driving around the underground garage in circles for an hour trying to find the exit. 

dude. there are signs that say "exit" and have arrows. and the lot isn't that big. 

but i was totally distracted and my heart was racing. 

so back to my flat tire. i lost it and had a total and complete meltdown over the tire. it was ridiculous. i couldn't stop crying. over a tire. nosy nora says, "it's just a car." and intellectually i know that. but one of my biggest anxieties is about something happening to my car. so getting a flat tire did me in. i just stood there on the side of the road crying and couldn't stop.

it was so embarrassing. 

so the question becomes, what was i really crying about? was it my car? was it my tire? or was that just the tipping point in my stressful life? 

what does my anxiety cover up? what space does it replace in my brain. 

in case you're wondering, my uncle came and changed my tire to the spare. my aunt made me sugary tea and gave me a long hug. we drove home on the highway very slowly and then i took the car in this morning to the mechanic. the rim was bent and apparently that makes the tire leak. totally don't get it. but i don't need to. that's what mechanics and uncles are for. 

another major anxiety of mine is the dentist. i'm terrified that i will go to the dentist, and s/he will clean my teeth and my front tooth will fall out. 

crazy. 

i know i'm crazy. 

i think about it all the time. i am completely convinced that my front tooth is going to fall out. which if i don't get myself to a dentist could actually happen. but i'm too scared to go to the dentist. 

PP says that if my tooth falls out at the dentist i would have all sorts of blog stories to tell ... 

... 

things don't always go the way you expect them to. you can't plan for everything. you can't always be prepared. 

my car has a spare tire, jack, and wrench. i worry about flat tires all the time. i was completely prepared to have a flat and had a way to deal with it. i also have CAA (that's like AAA if you're reading this from the states. it's a car service if you're reading this from another country). but i wasn't emotionally prepared for the flat tire. it was completely unexpected. 

if we spend our time preparing for the worst, we won't be able to enjoy our lives. you can't plan life. life unfolds. you can't control anything that happens to you or what other people do, think, or feel. the only thing you can control is your reaction to the unexpected. or in my case, the reaction to the reaction. 

i need to forgive myself for sobbing about a flat tire. i need to forgive myself for needing my uncle to fix the problem instead of dealing with it myself. and i need to forgive myself for struggling to face the unexpected. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

Saturday morning

It's early Saturday morning and I'm sitting in Starbucks with my love, waiting for the mechanic to put on snow tires. I couldn't sleep last night. Probably worrying about the process of putting on snow tires,  dumb I know. I can't help my worries. I worry about everything. Even on this mild Saturday morning with the snow melting. 

Saturdays used to be my favourite day of the week when I was a kid. I would wake up early and watch tv. That show where they dumped green goop on peoples heads. Anyway. My mom would call me for ballet class and we would head out along the danforth.  I loved ballet class. Even though I was a terrible dancer. My mom never let me forget that I wasn't very good. But I danced with all my heart, which made up for my lack of grace and beauty. 

After ballet we would go to a greasy spoon and order vanilla cokes and vanilla danish. My mom would order fries with gravy which I thought was disgusting but I've since grown to love. 

As I grew older and my inability to dance resulted in no more ballet lessons, Saturday morning became grocery shopping day.  I would go with my mom early in the morning to loblaws. After shopping we would either go to the zellers restaurant or to mcdonalds. We would share a meal. And at zellers we would have to hide behind a post so no one saw us, my mom is a bit of a snob ... Ok, not just a bit of a snob. After our brunch we would go to the library where I would sneakily borrow slightly veiled lesbian themed books. 

I loved those Saturday mornings. These days I sleep through them. But not today. 

Today I am enjoying the early morning as I write at Starbucks sipping an earl grey tea. 

I should mention that despite my lack of coordination and grace, after I left ballet I took jazz and tap and musical theatre dance classes until I was 19. I loved the feeling of moving my body, even knowing that I had no talent. I loved to dance. 

I still love to watch dance. My best friend Gigi was a dancer, a good one. A beautiful dancer. I just lack the talent in that area.  

I'm sure you are thinking that I am being hard on myself. But I assure you I am not. Have you ever seen the Alistor sims version of a Christmas carol? Well at the end he dances the polka. Badly. My mom once told me I polka like him with my legs flailing around. And one year my ballet teacher held me back and I had to dance a second year with the level fours while all my friends moved on to level five. And she held me back from doing the exams. That was embarrassing. I think that was my last year of ballet.  At least dancing it, not watching it. 

But back to Saturdays ... 

... It's nice to be up and about instead of lying in bed pretending to be asleep. Or trying to sleep. Or drifting in an out of sleep. 

After I gave up ballet, I started taking piano lessons on Saturdays after errands. That was yet another endeavour that I didn't fully commit to. I rarely practiced and when I did I wasn't focused. So I never got to be any good. My life is full of half-assed attempts. Flute, violin, drums, piano. I gave up on all of them. 

Recently, on a Saturday, I had coffee with my piano teacher, whom I hadn't seen in twenty-three years. It was actually really nice to get to know her as a person instead of as my crazy piano teacher. 

I first saw the ballet when I was three. It was the nutcracker. And I fell in love with dance and with the story and with the character Clara, I wanted to be Clara and I wanted to be a dancer. That Christmas all I wanted was to be able to dance around the tree like Clara did in the ballet. 

My dad is many things.  He and I don't get along. He pushes my buttons and drives me absolutely insane. He is stingy and grumpy and full of advice. But he also is very proud of me and when I was growing up he would do anything for me. Now it's a chore if I ask for help. But that Christmas he wanted to make my dream come true ... So ... He nailed nails in the walls and the floor and used fishing line to tie the tree in place so that I could dance around it like Clara. I don't remember dancing, but I remember the tree. And I remember the trouble he went to in order to make that happen for me. 

I want to be that for my children. I want to do all that I can to make their dreams come true. Even if that means putting holes in the floor just so that they can dance around the tree. 

I saw the nutcracker a few years ago and they have changed it up. Modernized it. And there was no dancing around the tree. I was very disappointed. 

... Funny ... It's Saturday morning and my mom is texting me from her errands asking me if I need anything. I guess some things change and some things stay the same. 

I hope you have (or had) a glorious Saturday morning. 

Be kind to yourself, 

Xoxo

...

holiday food survival guide

as the holidays approach and parties are thrown, many of us start to worry about all the extra calories we will ingest. 

so i'm here to tell you how to manage your way through holiday foods. 

it all boils down to one word: eat. 

yep, you heard me. eat. once a year, we indulge in our favourite foods. comfort foods, sweet foods, festive foods, traditional foods, yearly foods. for me it's turkey and mashed potatoes and "magic squares" which consist of graham cracker crumbs, coconut, condensed milk, and chocolate chips. 

eat them. 

what the hell is going to happen to you if you eat and enjoy? you might gain a few pounds. it could happen. 

the problem with holiday foods and party foods is that we deny ourselves these foods and then we over do it. the fact is. you can make yourself a turkey whenever you want. you can cook mashed potatoes whenever you want. you don't need to eat the entire pot of mashed potatoes at christmas dinner. there is an abundance of delicious foods in the world and you can make them for yourself whenever you want to. 

so how do you survive the indulgent holiday season? 

you don't survive it. 

you enjoy it. 

you eat. 

eat what you want. eat what tastes good. eat until you feel satisfied and then stop eating. and then eat again when you are hungry again. and enjoy the delicious, the familiar, the comforting, the holiday favourites. 

i know too many people who don't eat at parties. or who stick the the veggie trays. i know too many people who bring diet treats with them to parties and eat their own treats. 

seriously? eat a damn cookie and get over it. you aren't going to gain 20 lbs over a few weeks of parties and special dinners. 

so to sum it up ... over the holidays you can survive the parties and the indulgent foods by eating. 

eat. 

trust me. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

a weighty topic revised

a weighty topic

i want to write about being fat. 

i want to write about how my weight has always been the business of my family, my doctors, and strangers. 

this is a photo of me at age 7. i thought that i was enormously and hideously fat. my food intake was commented on; monitored .... i believed that my stomach was huge. that my thighs were huge. i believed there was no way anyone could every love me. 

i was embarrassed about how fat i was ....

... look again at that photo. look how thin i was! look at my flat stomach. my small thighs.  and i was convinced, by the people around me, that i was fat and ugly and worthless and undeserving.i was convinced that i was fat and ginormous. 

and these feelings became a self-fulfilling prophesy. 

and now, 30 years later, my body continues to be everyone else's business. 

no matter what doctor i go to see. no matter what medical concern i have. the answer i am given is always to "lose weight" as if i haven't tried. 

i have been offered bribes by people who claim to love me, or who are supposed to love me, that if i lose weight they will buy me things. 

radical t said: " I don't think people get that no matter what we [women with PCOS] go to the doctor for, certain doctors will always bring up the weight. it is the last taboo..."

doctors believe the myths about fat people too. 

i want to write about the comments that strangers make. about men bumping into me and telling me "move it fat bitch" or just randomly making comments. yelling "fat ass" at me. i want to write about the time i went into a restaurant and heard some teenagers say "she better only order salad."

i want to write about how i can't eat junk food in front of other people. 

i want to write about the shame i feel when i shop with someone who can go into any store and try on clothes and i can't. i want to write about how embarrassing it is when someone says, "that would look good on you, go try it on!" and i know that it is 4 sizes too small and that it's the biggest size in the store. 

i want to write about trying to squeeze into booths in restaurants. i want to write about the discomfort on an airplane. 

but there are no words for these thoughts and feelings. and i can't write about them. they are self-loathing feelings. they are self-hating thoughts. they are words thrown at myself from all sides. thoughts: fat. ugly. lazy. stupid. being fat means you suck. being fat means you have no willpower. being fat means you sit and eat junk food all day. being fat means that you eat macdonalds every day. being fat means you are lazy. 

WIDELY HELD AND ACCEPTED BELIEFS ABOUT FAT PEOPLE:

• fat people have no willpower
• fat people are sad
• fat people have low self-esteem
• fat people are unhealthy and are going to die young
• fat people eat uncontrollably
• fat people don't know why they are fat
• if fat people really wanted to lose weight they could
• fat people are lonely
• fat people are ugly
• fat people can't find love

the truth is that being fat is an outward expression of my inside wounds. each pound, a story of pain. if i were to keep a food journal and publish it, thin readers would be shocked at what i eat. i LOOK like i eat fried food all day long followed by chips, chocolate, and doughnuts. 

but that isn't what a typical day of food looks like for me. 

i start with a cup of tea. my stomach gurgles and rumbles and wants food. but i punish myself for being fat and i refuse to eat. i like the feeling of control that i have by deciding what goes into me. eventually i give in and i will eat either yogurt and fruit, or toast with peanut butter. then the morning turns to noon and i start to think about the fact that i have to eat some sort of food for lunch. and i practice that messed up control of not eating as my stomach calls out for food. noon becomes 2pm and i start to feel a bit weak and dizzy so i give in and eat something. maybe soup, or salad, or more toast. sometimes i don't give in and i make more tea instead. dinner time comes along and i don't really feel hungry, but SC is hungry so i cook something. maybe chicken and vegetables. maybe some rice. (brown rice for me). at some point in the evening, my stomach begins to yell at me for not feeding it throughout the day. so i have a banana or i cut up and apple. 

once in awhile i will allow myself to have a couple of chocolate mini-eggs. i used to eat the entire bag at once. but since i have given myself permission to eat them, i only need to have 2 or 3 of them because i know i can go back for more another day if i want to. 


Zed read this post for me. i was curious about her thoughts. she said: 

you've hit the nail on the head with how you feel about food and fat. so many people feel the way you do, believe me - WE ALL DO! the self loathing and hatred is a very difficult thing to get over. when I'm out and about, doing errands, shopping whatever - i feel invisible. people can't see me. or they choose not too. most of the times i don't mind, as i have a hard time dealing with strangers as it is. but then i wonder - am i invisible? can people see right thru me? or do they choose not to look at me because looking at me makes them feel disgusted and they feel more worthy than me. am i really less of a person because i am MORE of a person? hard things to deal with. but i try. i make myself go out and be in the world because i matter, no matter what my size is. i dress a certain way because it makes me feel good and attractive and better about myself. and FUCK what everyone else thinks!! i refuse to hide from the world because i don't look like what 'they' or 'society' says i should look like! that's my thoughts on this very contentious issue!

being fat isn't a choice. and i have tried many times to not be fat. but i shouldn't have to. and i face enough hatred and judgment from myself. i don't need to experience it from strangers on the street. 

I leave you with this thought:

be kind to yourself, regardless of your size, regardless of how you see your size ...

xoxo

...