On the last leg of the journey they started a long time ago………………

So here is where we find ourselves on a bright but coolish day when everything has (more or less) fallen into place as far as life is concerned, and we just hover here, really, treading water for the most part, awaiting the next bit of excitement, the next crisis or triumph or diversion or distraction or whatever…because having lived a fairly decent amount of time (time, time is on my side…yes it is) and experienced a fairly decent (or indecent, as the case may be) number of experiences, our conclusions are that life (tah- dah!!!!) HAS ITS UPS AND DOWNS! That’s right. I sincerely hope you weren’t anticipating some esoteric philosophy leading to enlightenment, although this really is enlightening enough when you come right down (or look right UP at) it, don’t you think?

Now I sometimes (and this is absolutely factual) have great difficulty determining which spot I’m in or what station I’ve arrived at. (packed bag resting solidly at my feet, but who knows if it’s even MY bag…considering that they make so damned many that look exactly alike? I USED to have a pink bandana tied on the handle so I wouldn’t have any trouble finding it on the baggage turntable at airports, but then my son borrowed it and removed the pink bandana. I told him that if he was secure in his own masculinity, a pink bandana wouldn’t have bothered him. Ah, he’s young. They get past this sort of thing. Well, some of them do. Others never do. MY son should - I certainly worked hard enough at making him comfortable in his own lovely skin.) But back to my uncertainty regarding ownership of MY baggage: I’m sure, in fact, that it can’t be ALL mine…some has to have been picked up from friends and strangers along the way, don’t you think? Oh. The weight. On me, I mean…not my baggage. Well, the weight IS my baggage, of course - nobody else’s - but why, do you suppose, I have allowed it? I mean, aren’t there weight LIMITS? Something to do with set-points and biological patterning? But wait! Am I UP or down? Is this a high - or low - spot in my life? (Digressing from the weight thing, here.) And how do you know the difference? Well, that depends. I mean, there are some spots that on the surface, it seems indisputable that they’re either high or low - a joyful, or conversely, mournful turn of events, while if you “look through the cracks”, or dig a little deeper, or, as is most often the case, you consider the whole thing in retrospect, and from the safe distance of a few years after the fact, it can sometimes be a little discombobulating, so to speak, because what may have seemed wonderful at the time (marriage, say) has turned out to be pure-D KRAP, and you’re either divorced or planning to BE divorced, while something terrible (he didn’t call again?) is GREAT, because you hear he just got arrested for assault & battery on his current girlfriend.

Interesting to think about, anyway. Maybe everything in our lives is just meant to present us with choices, and we make them, and then later we get to add up our scores and see how we did. I mean, most people would probably think of that as an end-of-life exercise - like a final judgment or something - but it occurs to me that we really DO have the chance to grade ourselves on a pretty regular basis. If we live long enough. I mean, if I walk out into the street and get hit by a bus tomorrow, chances are I won’t be correcting the quiz I took last year (or last month). BUT, for the most part, we DO get an opportunity to evaluate and, if neccessary, redirect ourselves. And maybe if we do this over a period of years, and RECOGNIZE that we’re doing it, we could maybe learn to make better - or more productive - choices the first time out, assuming that we haven’t always done that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This IS about losing weight…of course it is. I’m re-evaluating that hot fudge sundae I ate two years ago. Seriously. Okay maybe not serious-seriously, but half-way seriously, okay? Mostly, I’m trying to remember - and thus evaluate - what I ate yesterday. Oh, that’s not true, either! I know what I ate yesterday, right down to the last Weight Watcher’s point even though I’m not doing Weight Watchers (but might do it starting Monday).  The trouble here is that I haven’t been out of the house since Thursday, and my house only has DIET-appropriate food in it! I HATE it when I can’t even CHEAT on my diet in a big way. Oh, alright. To relieve some boredom last night I ate a few cherries too many. Fresh cherries. I probably overdid by seven or eight. Such boldness! Such daring! I’m just one of those people who likes to live on the EDGE, you know? A big risk-taker, that’s me!

Okay, enough boring monologue from THIS fat chick….Cluck, cluck, cluck…

 I think I’ll go stir things up a bit with DH; he’s been altogether too quiet for the past hour or so. One can only imagine what risque and/or tittilating thoughts might be percolating around in his head…(Eeek!)

Yours ever so truly,

E!