18 years of learning

My son turns 18 today. That's monumental. I admit, I am having a hard time with it. He thinks it's because my 'baby' is going to be, at least legally, an adult. In reality, I wonder if we, my husband and I, have really shown him what we need to show him to survive in life. More than fishing and hunting, I hope he learned from his dad the necessity of providing for family, for working for what you want, and enjoying a day in nature ore than a day inside. More than just listening to us reading out loud when he was little, I hope he heard the love in our voices and realizes now, also, how important it really is to have a person who read to him when he was younger. More than throwing a ball, and batting a ball, I hope we have taught him the importance of being with his children, when he has them, and that love doesn't come wrapped under a tree in December, but comes wrapped in sweats with a bad right arm and an even worse catching ability. I know I shouldn't worry - he is pretty deep when he has a conversation with someone - such as the other night when he said he will never understand why the government and people in general continue to send monies to other countries for their poor and homeless and starving children, when we have the same right here. So when he talks, I know he saw, he listened, he observed and made choices. In the long run, I must say, he's made many right choices and only a few bad ones. He has put us through a lot, don't get me wrong, but there was more good - much more good - than bad. But you know, I'm going to miss that boy - that boy who insisted was Tommy the White Power Ranger...or Batman...or Robin....that boy who memorized Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so he didn't "have to watch it anymore." That boy who just so totally stole my heart and who has now become this young man who has dreams and desires that he may pursue elsewhere - someplace that I will only be welcome to visit, but not stay. No, they really don't stay young forever. They really don't - so if you know a little boy who has truly captured that part of your heart you didn't even know existed - take a lot of pictures and truly hold on to every day as if it's the last he will be that age and realize it is. Make a lot of memories and within those memories, teach a lot of lessons. He really will be watching and listening and observing. Even if he is dressed like a superhero.

Thinner Winners - Working on the Chain Gang

"A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes” Wade Boggs We are into week three of a Thinner Winner contest sponsored by Bay Athletic Club. A few co-workers, a niece of a co-worker and I make up Chain Reaction. The contest runs 6 weeks and there are two categories you can win in - most percentage of weight lost per team and most percentage of inches lost per team. Each prize is $1,000. I was surprised when they asked me to join their team but accepted the challenge. Though, I will admit, I was a little hesitant. I've had many starts ... and endings ... to exercise. But, you know, it isn't has bad as I remember it! Really!! I think this is what I've needed. For so long, I have really just walked the thin ice that is dieting. Punishing myself for eating more than I should. Disappointed in my pickings when I did eat what I should. It got to the point where I felt like I was going through the motions! Enter a solid work out in a great facility. And add to that the motivation of other team members/co-workers supporting not only me, but each other. Last night I worked out with another team member and we discussed life after contest. "Will you continue with this?" she asked me - her already a member of Bay. "Yes," I said, without hesitation. "I cannot believe how much better I feel and how much energy I have the morning after a work out." It's true! And mentally, I feel sharper and more in tune to what's going on and more motivated to do things and finish things. To even do Zumba - maybe - this week. I pick up my team shirt today - and that quote at the top of this blog - the one by Wade Boggs - is on the back. It's our team motto - and we really do live up to that. We do create a chain reaction.

My husband bought a bracelet for me over the weekend that caught my eye. The engraving on it says “Embrace the Journey.”
That’s one thing I haven’t been doing, you know. I haven’t really been embracing the life I live daily in the quest for the life I crave. I have been envisioning my current days as being held captive instead of what they really are.
One step. One step to the better on that journey we all take through life. And I know I am not the only one.
Because also this weekend I watched on TV New York City Fireman Matt Long describe going from a fire fighter one day to getting crushed by a bus while riding his bike to work in 2005. He told those watching what his journey had been like. He was not really supposed to survive and if he did, he wouldn’t walk again. He didn’t allow himself to be held captive. So much so that he was able to run in the NY City Marathon I believe it was in 2008. Really. He embraced the journey. He may not have liked it and it may have been painful, but he embraced the journey – he made of it what he needed to be where he is today. Go ahead, search his name and the name of his book, “The Long Run”. You will be amazed at his determination. Really makes anyone else’s journey, including mine, look like a game of Tidddely-Winks.
Also this weekend, my niece, someone else undergoing a journey similar to mine, noted that she had lost 18 sizes. She was buying new clothes for school (she’s a teacher) and was amazed at the amount she’d lost over 2 years. She embraces her journey. She thinks of new ways to make old food better. She lives her days as she did before this journey and doesn’t make it about the trip.
And to think, all this time I believed I wasn’t trying hard enough, in reality, I was trying too hard. Sometimes it really isn’t about not trying hard enough.
So tonight, I will go home, cultivate what is ready in the garden, (rumor has it tomatoes, green beans and cucumbers – the zucchini goes without saying), do my evening things and maybe just sit and read and not worry so much about last month, last week or yesterday.
And certainly not about tomorrow.

Fear and Loathing

Even though I am losing (albeit slowly) weight I am still having a devil of a time being comfortable in my own skin.
I hate the way I look when I see my reflection in a mirror and I envy women who seem to be good with their size.
And I wonder, how do I get there from here?
How do I look like I have confidence when I have oh so little?
How do I look like I'm beautiful when I think that I'm not?
How do I look like my size doesn't bother me when it truly does?
And I'm sure if you ask a large beautiful woman why her weight doesn't bother her, she would probably reply with a question and say "Who says it doesn't?" But again, how do I get there from here?
I cannot blame my husband, I guess, for no longer seeing me as an attractive partner, someone he would like to take out and show off. I guess I can't blame any husband, or wife, who apparently didn't know for better or worse included weight gain. And you know, I just tiptoed around that word - the "O" word... obese. Hate it. I don't see myself or anyone my size as obese.
I have been struggling with the packaging for a lifetime but recently it seems to be the albatross around my neck.
Oh, I have learned a lot about myself along the way. And I've corrected a few things - and continue to learn and grow daily. Though I still have a hard time putting Ann first.
But my new quest is getting there - feeling good about the whole me - from here.
I don't think it's about chosing to wear make up or jewelry or buying nicer clothes. I know it has to come from within.
But I wonder: How much excavation of stuff I don't want to have to deal with do I have to go through to finally find that part of me that is ok with me?
A little bit of a downer blog today, but this is where I'm at. I don't know - maybe it's a good thing.
Anyone have any answers?

weirlosingit@gmail.com

Saying goodbye to Sarah

Sarah came into our lives a little unexpectedly. We were looking for a puppy for our son, who was about 7 at the time, and decided our big yellow lab needed a little black lab for balance.
We were not going to get a dog at the first place we stopped, which was an interesting little house with Rottweilers outside, and inside - the Labs – puppies, mom and dad – in this tiny living room with a tiny makeshift kennel in the corner.
Sara was the runt, getting stepped on, getting pushed out of the way from the milk. My husband looked up at me as if to say ‘We aren’t getting one of these’.
I believe it was my son who picked her up and tried to rescue her from the onslaught of paws. She licked his face. Something she would continue to do for the next 10 years.
I don’t recall seeing an obit for a dog. It’s a shame, really. There are obits for friends and relatives we don’t love near as much who don’t love us half as much as our dogs.
Oh we will miss her.
My son will miss her physical signs of love: those constant, daily morning kisses, her tail wag when she would see him – and let me tell you she was not a gentle tail wagger – she has been known to clear an end table in one sweep. He will miss the space she took up on his bed, in the middle and all over.
My husband will miss her visual signs of love: her pretty girl dance wherein she pranced on her paws in dog ballet for treaties and boney-bones of the Milk bone® variety. He will miss her running to greet him after work and I’m sure as he has slowed over the years in moving from seat to ground, so had she in moving from front door to truck. And of course he will miss the almost nightly rides they took looking for deer and signs of other wildlife while running the back roads. He will do it alone now, and sadder I’m sure. He will return from vacation soon and when he readies for work that first morning, he will miss her prance in front of him squeaky stuffed toy in her mouth ‘squeak squeak squeak’ while he tied his boots.
And I will miss the little things of her - Sarah was not the smartest lab in the world. But she was a charmer. She had a bad habit of eating the bread or getting into the garbage when we left her alone during the day. We learned quickly to close up the trash bags and move the bread far away. If we forgot, we were greeted by a dog whose head was about as low as it would go but who’s tailed wagged like a flag in a windstorm. In other words, she was saying “You aren’t going to be too happy to see me, but I’m really happy to see you!” So, I will miss those mischievous signs of love – and of course the way she came bounding (she wasn’t light on her feet either) into the kitchen at just about 5 because she knew it was dinner time.
We had salad with steak last night. I dropped a piece of cucumber on the floor while tossing. It was there a long 10 seconds before I realized no one was going to tiptoe out and nibble it up.
Ten years is a long time to have a dog – and we have been so fortunate.
While we saved Sarah in the beginning, it was Sarah that saved us in the end. It was certainly she that saved us. Who else but a family dog can truly make you feel so loved on days when you don’t so much?
I will stand in disagreement with any pastor, priest, rabbi or father who would like to tell me dogs have no soul and therefore don’t go to heaven. They are wrong. To them I say, dogs like Sarah are the ones who listened when Jesus said Love One Another. Because, really, who does love us unconditionally here on earth but our dogs? Who else can leave a large hole in your heart when they are gone?
No soul? You could not look into Sarah’s eyes and see no soul. She was full of love. Full of compassion. Full of caring. She was our Sarah Berra. We are going to miss her.

Weir Losing It: The Ties that Bind

My 17 year old son had a big first last night.
He got his first tattoo. This came as no surprise to us, as he had our permission - something, thankfully for a lot of parents, that is required by the state for minors.
He started planning when he was 2 and drew all over himself. He graduated to gum machine tats and then the spray on kind that the nail place at our local mall creates. When he was 15 we told him when he was 16, the legal age at which a minor can get one even with parental consent, he could get one for his birthday.
He is just 4 months shy of 18 and he finally decided. And, if I can figure out how to download it, you'll see a tattoo he created of an anchor with a ribbon through it with the dates of his grandfather's life. He loved his grandfather and was devestated when he died. Since he was 12, he's planned for this tattoo - he just wasn't quite sure if what type of anchor he wanted. Till, one day, last summer, he drew it out himself.
I'm going to take heat from assorted in-laws and out-laws and friends. I may even be asked what type of mother allows this.
Well, I'll tell you - my son, this son, has always marched to the beat of a different drummer. This is a choice made, not off the cuff, but was years in coming.
He asked me prior, what do you think grandpa would say if I got this tattoo (with the anchor). To be honest, I think he would be grateful that his grandson, this grandson, who marches to the beat of a different drummer, thought to honor him in such a permanent public way.
I get kind of weepy, you know, thinking... 4 months ... an adult. But, I think he'll be fine.

Weir Losing It: Holding On

Let me explain.
I am letting go of things that I have worn like a second skin sometimes more often than not. And I've let these things, depending on how the day went, eat at me.
Sometimes it's OK to go back and wonder "What if?" I'm not talking about those place.
I'm talking about the places that weren't so good that some hold on to and refuse to let go.
Sometimes we don't realize we are hanging on to anything till we have a bad day, or something reminds us, and we start to feel a bit unnerved.
Sometimes we refuse to let go because it gives us a reason: reason to eat, reason to drink, reason to drug, reason to do whatever it is we do that we think medicates us. What we think makes us feel better.
So - I refuse to hold on anymore to school mates that made me feel bad about myself. Yea, it wasn't nice. Yea, it could have been handled differently, but yea, we were kids. And I highly doubt that any of them would be the same to me today. Good-bye, so long, see ya.
Also going going gone are regrets over jobs left and jobs not gotten. Because, I have a great job now with a great company. I don't need to look back on those times with anything other than that they were learning experiences.
And you know there are things we hold onto that are concrete that can put us in a tailspin. I thought of that yesterday when I threw out a few older Christmas decorations that were my mom's. I hesitated for half a minute before I pitched them. She doesn't need them (she's deceased), I don't want them as they are cracked or chipped or with pieces missing. And she doesn't exist in it. They are now in the dumpster.
And, unfortunately, I think there will be a person or two I stand back from. You know kind, whether friend or family, they only show up when they want something but don't really give much in return with the exception of a quick thanks and an even quicker goodbye.
I don't have time for that, for those, for them. And neither do you.
Start letting go ... even if it's something as simple as tossing an old Christmas decoration.
I know change cannot be done in a week, a month, even a year sometimes. But change is coming. It's coming.

weirlosingit@gmail.com