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.