Not Trying

So apparently the way you lose weight is go through a break-up, a horribly heart-wrenching and inexplicable break-up, have no communication with the person who broke up with you without a viable explanation, and spend your days wondering what happened, and not eating.

That works wonders for your waistline. The good jeans fit. The other good jeans fit even better. I'm trying to eat - that's the thing. I'm not trying to starve myself. I am eating when I am hungry, but I can only think about stomaching a very limited number of things, and that makes it complicated. If something is there, and it's not exactly what I want, I just don't eat. I can't tolerate a lot of foods, for some reason. I don't know if the stress has brought out the gallbladder symptoms again, but rich foods are completely off the radar right now. Soup is a stretch, although I've had some chicken soup this week. I've eaten out, but it has mostly been chicken sandwiches.

I know this is a really boring blog, and you're tired of my chicken, bread, fruit, wine (whine) routine, but that's the way it is right now. I'm beginning to feel better in other ways. I'm taking pictures again, which is marvellous and I am really excited about the revitalization of my creative juices, but the appetite has just not come back. For someone who loves her food, this is somewhat disquieting, and I am afraid of the effect it is having on my health, as my diet is ridiculously unbalanced, but losing weight might outweigh that. Anyway I have given up worrying about it. I'm going to try and eat more fruit tomorrow and leave it at that.

Renewal

So, today I was stuck at home, apart from a short walk to the Piggly Wiggly, which was, I hate to admit, to buy a Vitamin Water and a pack of Camel Crush. The weather outside was beautiful, and I spent much of it sunning myself outside on my front porch, in between bouts of coordinating recommendation letters, CV, and cleaning and laundry.

I spent much of the day on the phone, to people who I talk to often, and to some people I don't. I had a long long talk today with an ex-boyfriend and once great love, who knows me well enough and has been through enough with me and since me to give me an excellent perspective on my current situation. It's good to hear from someone who has been in a relationship with you and loved you how you will recover and what you deserve in life. I can't quite articulate what makes that different from talking to just friends, but it's something about the shared intimacy and knowledge of how you are within that particular realm of relationships that no one else really has. He told me some things about myself that others haven't really picked up on and I am grateful for his bluntness (which has been at times a double-edged sword).

A very good friendship of mine has suffered a mutual neglect on behalf of both parties since her move up north, but today we talked like friends who haven't skipped a beat. It was good to hear a familiar, yet missed voice, especially one so feisty and sunny. I know she too is going through difficulties, so it was good to talk, rant, and catch up.

Tonight I was talking to my pseudo-sister, who doesn't read my blog, but that's not really her bag exactly. We talk all the time, and she is going through a heart-wrenching separation because her boyfriend has gone to South America to make money. She feels as though money is the mistress, and she has been abandoned for its siren call. I feel like crap, and I'm struggling to deal with what happened, so it is good to talk to others and hear what they are going through.

I haven't written the particulars of what happened after the breakup. I didn't really get an explanation apart from "we don't work as a couple," which to me seems like a lame cop-out excuse, almost like the famous post-it note breakup from Sex and the City. I guess he chose to deliver that verbal post-it note in person and that makes him feel better about himself - nothing like getting dumped in your own living room. It's a cop out because we did work, on many many levels, but I'm not going to get into that. He also apparently didn't take it lightly.

Flash forward. Three days later: I am devastated, driving home from my parents' house, where I had just collapsed in a crying fit on their kitchen floor; I'm smoking in the car, which I don't normally do,and remembering I had told my friend I would go out with her that night. Every bone in my body wanted not to, to just go home, get under the covers and make it all go away. But, I called her back, still crying and still a mess. She said, "oh honey, he's not worth it." "Yes, yes he is," I said. She then revealed to me that on the dating website she had recently joined, he had come up the day before as her top match. Two days. I drank a Guinness that night at an Irish bar, and it slowly sank into my body, my body that hadn't eaten for close to three days. It's taken a little longer for reality to start to sink in.

I don't want to date anyone. The thought makes me feel ill, but I have a friend who says that in times like this, you should do something that makes you feel uncomfortable every day. I had a profile on the aforementioned dating website, and going on there to see for my own eyes meant reactivating it, and once I did, I couldn't deactivate it for a week. Well today I got sick of seeing him come up as a match for me, especially since I've tried to hide him and it doesn't take, so I decided to try searching another site, just to see if it was the same set of dufusses (sp?) on there, and sure enough, up he comes again. I got angry because it said he was active during the last 30 days, which could mean after, or perhaps before we broke up.I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but you know, I did that for a couple of months and I'm a little tired of that approach.

So those of you who know me know I have this weirdo mystical astrology loving, tarot card reading side. I was angry and emotional and decided to do a reading, just out of anger and a need for some clarity, whether imagined or real. Sometimes you just need a touchstone.

Here's what it said. We're going with traditional Celtic Cross reading, which if you're curious, you can find an explanation of the layout here.

My card: 4 of wands - marriage, party, celebration of things well done
Crossing: Wheel of Fortune - letting the world turn, achieving balance between love and hate
Subconscious: The Star - a time of healing and hope, things will start to go right
Conscious: The 2 of Cups - love, union - the Romeo and Juliet card
Recent Past: Queen of Wands - getting what you want, finding your true nature (I am a redheaded Aries, so this is my card)
Near Future: Ten of Pentacles - the good life, financial security and a sense of happy well-being
Present Situation: King of Pentacles - man involved with money, steady, fastidious, or acting that way
Surrounding: Magician - someone using power, good or evil, getting in tune with your own powers, can mean trickery and secrets
Hopes and Fears: Judgement - change and renewal, reaping the seeds of your actions, a resurrection of sorts
Outcome: The Tower - sudden and forced change, something will happen to force me out of stagnation, usually it will cause chaos and trauma, but it is usually for the best, the stripping down of old and outworn structures.

I do readings fairly often, and I regularly do them for other people, but I did this one is such a state of emotion and I was really passionate about it, that it came out as feeling somehow profound and right and I should pay attention, plus the cards I got seemed right and seemed to be telling me something. They are all very powerful, not messing around cards. The Tower card is seen as the most frightening card in the deck, but I am relieved to get it because I feel in such a state of stagnation, on such a mental merry-go-round, that I really need something to force some change in my life.

Now, when that happens, remind me I said that.

Well, goodnight, I must go to bed because I have to get up in five and a half hours, even though these days I am almost never tired enough.

Off to Work We Go

I talked to a friend I haven't talked to in way too long today. She knows who she is, and she's a reader, so here's a shout out to you. It was good for my soul.

I've been cleaning the house all day, and I should have done more than I did, but the important thing is that the laundry is done, I have clean clothes for tomorrow, and fresh sheets. Fresh sheets were needed for my emotional house-cleaning as well as for general hygiene.

I'm still not eating. I tried today and managed a vitamin water, a ciabatta roll, and half a bowl of soup, plus several cups of tea, some decaf as the day wore on. I've been stuck here all day, except for my little walk to the Piggly Wiggly (yes we still have one of those out here). I'm not too worried about the eating though, because I don't feel ill or weak like I did last week, and I'm trying to make sure I get some protein and some fruit to go along with the bread. I'm being pretty balanced even if I'm not eating much. I plan to try and eat some fruit before I go to bed.

I think I've just got used to not eating anything, so my stomach has shrunk and I just can't eat anything much, which is not altogether a bad thing as I think I've lost about 12 pounds in the past two weeks. I had no idea what I weighed before and I don't have a clue now either.

I'm planning to take lunch to work tomorrow. I've been taking it and not eating it, but I intend to at least try tomorrow. Anyway, I'm rambling and need to go to bed.

The Past Year

Much has happened in the past year. My healthy eating apparently came as a shock to my poor body, whose gallbladder decided to rebel and create gallstones and a horrible infection. Surgery and no gallbladder later, I felt much better. For a while after surgery, I couldn't eat normally and had to reduce my fat intake quite considerably, but after a while, my body got used to it, and I returned to bad habits of eating, although I was never quite as bad as the period before I originally started writing this blog.

Over the past couple of months, I started watching what I ate again, and I was walking all the time in a genuine effort to become more healthy. However, events of the last couple of weeks have upset my eating routine all over again.

It seems that when I am upset, the first part of my body to notice and react is my stomach. My stomach is miles ahead of my head and my heart, and shuts down immediately. I was very suddenly and cruelly broken up with by a man whom I had truly fallen in love with, and my stomach knew the truth first.

It's been two weeks, and I still can't really eat. Everything tastes like cardboard, except for chicken (specifically grilled chicken) and bread. I can tolerate fruit o.k. when I think about it. I've drank gallons of tea, some wine (you'll be shocked to know) and the odd Guinness here and there, but the number of calories I'm actually remembering to ingest has drastically diminished.

I'm starting to feel a little better, not because I'm really any more at peace with what happened, but because I am the sort of person who really can't put up with herself feeling rotten for too long, but my appetite has not returned, and the thought of most foods turns my stomach. I smell things, and they smell good, but then I think about eating them and feel nauseous. I am sure this will go away eventually.

I hate to say it, but it's making me look hot. I've lost a bunch of weight in the past couple of weeks, and I'm not sorry about that part of it, but I'd really like to relish my food again.

Quotes from Persuasion

You can always trust Jane Austin to say it so succinctly. Here are some quotes from her last and darkest novel, Persuasion, from its sensible and quiet heroine, Ann Elliott:

"Once there were no two hearts so open, no feelings so in harmony, but now we are strangers, worse than strangers; it is perpetual estrangement."

"The one claim I shall make for my own sex is that we love longest, when all hope is gone"

"Time is a great healer, or so at least I am told."

Feeling Good

The job search is proving fruitful. I have two recommendation letters in hand, and promises of at least three more, so I am sitting in good shape. It feels good to have accomplished something today. And to those of you who said I burnt my bridges, I say, my bridges are in very good operational state, thank you very much, and the flow of traffic is steady. That's bitchy, but I just have to get it out there. The two recommendations I have so far are probably more glowing than I think I deserve, and I am grateful to my former professors for helping me out so quickly. Two of the jobs were just posted the other day and have a deadline of March 31st, so it doesn't give me much time to get it all together, considering getting recommendations is usually like herding cats, and went disastrously the last time I attempted it. However I have asked many more people than I need, so I should have the basics covered.

Still can't eat anything, but I think today that's because I am excited about the prospect of finding a new job. I should perhaps think about doing that soon before I make myself sick from too much tea drinking.

Better Day

Today was a little better. I'm getting there, although tonight I'm exhausted and ready to go to bed. Friends said I looked more like myself again, like the spark is coming back, and it is, bit by bit. Same story tonight though with the food - came home, ate chicken, now I feel sick. I'm sure that will change eventually and I will enjoy food again.

I'm sure I must have to go through this for a reason, that there is a meaning to finding such happiness and losing it inexplicably and suddenly. What that meaning is, right now, I don't have a clue, but I have to believe it leads to better things. I have to believe that. If I don't, I will just cry, and I don't want any more of that going on tonight.

Thank God for Pandora. I can't listen to anything on my itunes. I can't even look at itunes right now, so Pandora is the only thing that I don't have to think about, but will play (mostly) music that is just pure me, and that is what I need right now. I have to be thankful for the little things: Pandora, cat curled up on feet, two confirmed recommendation letters, and hopefully more to come, a job well done today, and more to do tomorrow, good friends and family who are working diligently to stitch me back up again.

Tomorrow is laundry and cleaning the hell out of the house. I think it will do me good. I can't go anywhere because I don't have a car, so I have to stay here and get things done, but at least I don't have to go to work.

On another note, maybe things are going right in the world because healthcare reform passed today. I'm glad. I hope it will save some lives, and soon. Working in healthcare has clued me in even more to the sad realization of the price arbitrarily put on people's health, well-being, and even lives. It really does sicken me and I hope to be out of it soon. I can go to bed happy about that.

Bad day

Apparently that's what I get when I get near a computer and still have the ability to type drunk. Today has been a pretty awful day. Nothing bad has happened, but I have been in a rotten, inconsolable mood all day. I've tried to dispel it with no success. I need something else to focus on, but I don't have anything. I lie - I can distract myself by applying for jobs there's actually a good chance I can get, and I think that will be my focus tomorrow. Today is just a wash. I basically came home, ate chicken, and cried. I was actually hungry - that's happened occasionally during the past two weeks - but I'm not eating habitually, so when I do, it makes me feel nauseous, and my stomach is not the most sane of creatures at the best of times. However, my skinnier jeans fit, quite well now, and I guess I'm on my way to the much skinnier 2006 jeans, which I have of course, kept. Peeking silver lining.

My car is still dead too, so I have a week or so of essentially being stranded at my house, which is good for the cat, but terrible for me. Well maybe not. I've tried to go out this week and distract myself. I went to Flying Saucer's trivia night, and I even ventured out for a Guinness on St. Patrick's, although that was a mistake because I just had a rotten time.

Tomorrow night's plan of action is to ask for recommendation letters for three jobs I'm applying for, fill out the applications, and sort out my CV so it looks as good as the resume I did last week. I'm quite proud of my resume now. On Tuesday, it looks like I will be stuck here, so I plan to clean the house, listen to music loudly, and sort out my head. I was supposed to have an appointment with the head of graduate studies, but I have to postpone because I have no way to get out there. I guess I just have to listen to my mother and place distractions in my head, even if it doesn't seem like they will actually distract me. At least they will fill the time and prevent my mind from racing around in circles.

Anyway, I'll quit moaning, take some IB Profen PM, knock myself out, and get up and go to work tomorrow. One foot in front of the other. I think about What About Bob: "baby steps to the car."

It's been a year since I've posted on this blog. Am I resurrecting something that's already dead? If so, perhaps that's a theme in my life. Perhaps I am an emotional Frankenstein's monster. You knew it was the monster and not Frankenstein himself, right?

Well that's what you get when you can drink a litre bottle of Gruner Vetleiner and still be conscious. I have to work tomorrow too.

This used to be my Myspace blog. Do you remember Myspace? I remember that it was what the Facebook is now. I wonder what the new Facebook will be. In truth, I'm really sick of it all right now, but I need an outlet to write something, as my friends either are, or soon will be, sick of dealing with me.

I just went through a break-up, and to use cricket terminology, it's knocked me for six. Considering the large amount of wine I have drank and the food I haven't eaten for the past two weeks, I don't want to get into it. I could, but anyone who cares is tired of hearing about it, perhaps even me. I just need to listen to more Snow Patrol, smoke more cigarettes I shouldn't, drink some more Guinness, and eat more chicken and bread, which are the only things that don't taste like cardboard right now. I'm writing this to try to make sense of the whole thing, but even in a drunken state, it doesn't seem like a worthy endevour.

I should just go to bed and go to sleep. I have to get up and work a pointless job tomorrow, so I should be responsible against the odds. Last week I took two days off for a stomach virus. I think I had one, but it could have just been heartache, as I still feel the same and I can't eat. My friends are trying to feed me and I am not interested.