I may be suffering from (yet another) mid-life (okay; late mid-life) crisis. After six years of happiness and contentment with husband # 2, I am feeling distinctly itchy and uncomfortable. Oh, gosh, NO…I’m not looking for a new one (husband, that is): the one I currently have is just fine. For many years now - since reading The Seth Material by Jane Roberts in the seventies - I’ve been a firm believer in the fact that we create our own reality. Where we find ouselves in life, our emotional states, our relationships with others all stem from the personal choices that WE have made, and do make every single day. My body - and the fact that it remains overweight - reflects nothing more than my own choices relative to what I have fueled it with and whether or not I have given it the proper exercise. For EXAMPLE, my reaction to my son’s heading back to the west coast - eating a freaking bagel & cream cheese on top of all the other “slipping off-plan” that I did while he was home - boils down to nothing more than CHOICE. I made it (the choice) and now I have to live with the results, which are that it will take me that much longer to get this last 22 pounds off.  Now I know I look a lot better than I have in a long time, having already lost the first 22, but this morning, I swear to you that even though none of my clothes are fitting tighter as a result of my slippage, I couldn’t find anything I felt good in. I must’ve tried on three - no, four - outfits before I found something I felt even marginally okay about wearing.  It feels oddly like that “glass half-full, or half-empty?” question. Where I am right at this particular point in time is feeling half-empty. I can’t feel good about what I’ve lost because I STILL have that same amount to lose…gotta do it all over again, and then have to keep on doing it so that I don’t gain the weight back again. Well, it’s my choice, of course - I can go ahead and do it, and feel good about how I look, or I can forget about it, and feel not-so-good. For a long time - the past couple of years - I’ve chosen to forget about it (or TRY to forget about it) and ate, drank (not much alcohol, actually…my drink of choice was, believe it or not, that flavored sparkling water) and pretended to be merry. But I wasn’t, of course (merry) and now, I really have very little choice, because I KNOW I can’t live with myself when I am overweight. So, I’ve GOT to follow through with this, and I WILL follow through with it, and I will TRY to be a little more optimistic, although I may yet be a ways off from seeing the glass as half-full.

I’m feeling distinctly dissatisfied about my relationships with my children, too. Again, this may well be about my own perceptions…again, seeing the glass as half-empty when it’s just as valid to see it half-full…but after all those years of his reluctant and downright inadequate parenting, followed by complete inattention and abandonment after our divorce, and with me being the stable parent who maintained a decent home for them, saw to it that they all got decent educations, etc., etc., so on and so forth, now that they are all adults (and supporting themselves) HE’S back on the scene playing the “good ‘ole Dad” and usurping MY time with them. Yes, I KNOW I’m not neccessarily being rational or reasonable about this, and I do not let on to my kids (any more than I can help) that it bothers me as much as it does, but BOY, does it bother me! And it REALLY bothers me when instances arise in which I almost HAVE to be in his company at a family event - or look like the bitter, unforgiving one while he (phony that he is and always has been) says unselfish things to the kids like, “Oh, I don’t have to be there if your mother would rather I wasn’t. I know she has every right to be angry with me…”. Oh, BLAH!!! Then, if I say no, I don’t want him to be there, it’s ME who looks petty and small. And my kids…one of whom is a family therapist, one of whom is a school adjustment counselor, and one of whom is the executive director of a non-profit organization (Thank GAWD that my SON, at least, isn’t psychoanalyzing me) all shake their heads and say to each other, “Poor Mummy…it would be so much better if she could just put the past behind her and move on…”. I HAVE, dang it. AND I’m trying to get PAST my old, bad choices in life.

I will NOT eat another bagel! I won’t do it!

I am SO back to my eating plan! I WILL have a healthy and attractive body, even if my mind is irreparably warped. I CHOOSE to have a decent body again!

DH has a bad chest cold.

The khats got into the cupboard with the catnip in it this morning. When I left for work, both of them were rolling in it and snorting it. I’m glad that SOMEBODY is having a happy day! (Actually, I feel better now that I’ve ranted some).

Best regards,

E!