and then I looked in the mirror

One day without any warning I was old. It really crept up on me. I am one of those people that is obsessed with getting older. I mean what is there to look forward too? Creaking bones, walking hunched. I recently read in one of my diary entries from 23 years ago where I commented about feeling old at turning  21. So I am sure the picture of my mentality is clearer now. I just can't handle time slipping by.

However, I was not ready for this. Around a year ago, after I started some new medication for what they are now calling "bi polar" with very low mania, I looked in the mirror. It seem like it was the first time I had looked in the mirror for a very long time. I can only contribute it to the long struggle over the last couple of years with having a baby and falling in and out of deeper and deeper depressions. There I was old , rather boring and looking like a mother that is been run over a couple of times. It was nothing like the glamorous self I had once been or envision myself being. Now I am also vain . I rightly admit it , it is all I got. However, with the depression came the pounds. I was able to take off baby weight pretty good. On the other hand I was not able to take off the weight I had gained prior to the pregnancy. So this former anorexic /bulimic girl is now about 40 lbs overweight. The weird thing is I have a reverse problem that anorexic people do . They see their image as being too fat . I still feel thinner than I am and then reality slaps me in the face while passing by the store window. In the end it is all called body dimorphism.

Well it is now out there . Now I am on a path of trying to make it work , just like I have made other things work through the mental illness and the other ups and downs. I CAN NOT do anything about getting older, I will keep telling myself but as they say, I won't go down without a fight.

Memories Wrapped Up

When I was younger I learned a saying about memories. Wrap them up and put a ribbon on the good ones and store them away. I long since lost that ability. My mind constantly lives in the past and then I get lost there. I have been trying very hard to work on my attitudes and the way I see things. Sometimes I think I am making considerable progress. Other times I feel I am moving at a snails pace. I know I am going through some life changing experiences for the last 2 years. However, no matter how I try I can not shake the memories I have and the longing and wanting to be there. Ironically they were not all good and my memory plays tricks because many things were not as my mind remembers them. It makes it very difficult to live in the moment.

Mary Oliver Poem

Wild Geese



You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.



from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

The Diet to End All Diets

I use to diet and diet . At one point in my life I was 105lbs and 5 feet 9 inches. I was so proud of myself, but continued to be so obsessed that I missed out on other things in my life. I couldn’t let go of the thinness and unhealthiness. It really all started when I was being abused by my neighbor who I was madly in love with. It was after my father had died and he was an easy segway to gain the attention and love I wanted and needed.  He was 7 years older than me. I was 13 he was 20. Our relationship was tumultuous to say the least and manipulative. One day we went to the movies and I wore this pretty little sundress with purple flowers. Before the movie started he touch my arm and commented on how chunky it was. That was it . Truthfully that is all it took.  However, when you are young and impressionable and striving for love beyond any means this is all it does take. I entered a new realm. I remember I limited myself to 600 calories a day. Six hundred calories is like one McDonald’s Big Mac. I loss weight and my battle with myself began.  Now 33 years later it ccontinues.  It has changed many forms but the core of that initial diet remains the same.

Why do we do it?

Why do woman try with all their might to please men. Why do some men have to be so arrogant? I mean blatantly arrogant. I saw a show about a woman. A beautiful successful woman whose husband was cheating basically because he wasn't getting the attention he felt he deserved in the marriage after the kids were born. Well boo hoo, I get it . I don't do the same things for my husband that I did for him when we were first married. However, you can bet I don't get the things I need and do twice as much now as I did before the marriage. Well then this guy made a list to compare her with the other woman. He gave it to her and she followed it to a "T". What he wanted her to do was get bigger boobs, go blonde blah blah blah. All to save her marriage and she did it!

Moving on.  A while back there was female model that was murdered. Her husband stuffs her in a garbage container and cuts off her fingers and takes out her teeth. This was done so no one would identify her. She was finally identified through her breast implants. Did she really get those implants for herself or for the world to see? The offending husband's ex girlfriend tells a tale of a man beyond arrogance. With an ego so well endowed that there had to be something less endowed.  She mentions that at one point he wanted to marry her only to have an open marriage. Now I am not totally against an open marriage, but I think for the wrong people it can be very illogical, and for that matter why get married at all.   Quite frankly it has to be a truly unique situation. This guy however, only reason I can surmise needed to stroke that ego, and the only way to get that constantly is to drum up new blood. 

In the end it really is all the same. It never seems to work out well when you loose who you are. You die , you kill yourself, you kill someone else, you go to jail etc. etc. etc. ....

I too once had this need to please someone like this. I went as far as loosing weight till I was anorexic, dyeing my hair and anything and everything to please. I quickly realized that it was never going to be good enough for this person. NEVER. I wish in some ways I hadn't wasted my time, but then I would have never known to spot his type a mile away.  

I wish for you is that you to will learn how to spot this species a mile away and then turn around and run the other way.