Filed under: Photos, holidays, love, memories | Tags: flower, love, photograph, pink, rose, valentine, Valentine's Day
Filed under: Fun, Good day, Odd Random Stuff Day, happy, love | Tags: happiness, happy, hugs, love, Odd Random Stuff Day, strangers, Work
Filed under: Commentary, Etsy, Food, Living, love, soapbox | Tags: anorexia, eating disorder, Etsy, love, the storque
This is my blog so I can say whatever I want, yes? Sure, I’m not going to come on here and insult anyone or anything like that, I wasn’t raised that way. Am I too PC? Nope. I was labeled that in high school but really I was just quiet… if those people knew what I was really thinking! But that’s the point, there are things you should say and there are things you shouldn’t say, sometimes in the privacy of a personal conversation we say things we would never say to a group of strangers, and then there are things that we should never say especially in a public forum.
Some random Etsy admin posted this article * in the Storque today (the sites blog full of various “all things handmade”). And it hit a cord.
A few years back I was anorexic. I did not eat to punish myself because I had layers of unresolved issues, none of them being about my weight, ironically. I was estranged from college life, had little love in my life, little hope of happiness and involved myself with less than favorable people. I was at my low, drugs, drinking and smoking, that was pretty much it. I trained myself not to eat for three days straight because the one thing I did discover was that people really liked me skinny. Attention, that was something now wasn’t it? I wasn’t used to that. Something else I really took to was that I didn’t look like myself anymore, not recognizing myself made it easier to live with myself and my pain. What a bonus! I got myself down to 89 pounds. Was I happy? No.
I was lost but I knew that I had to mend so many parts of my life before I could tackle my weight. I had to get my head on straight, cut ties with bad influences and enablers, and remember who I really was and get in touch with her again. Of course having Mike intersect with my life at that point was a saving grace. The healing was a hard pill to swallow and stepping through that door for the first time is the hardest part. The recovery is life long but it is so important to keep striving for more, for better, for the best for yourself. I was never taught to take care of me first and that doesn’t mean to become selfish, but it means to preserve your spirit, care for your body and be kind to your heart.
I later found out in life that perhaps delving deep I indeed did have some body issues. When Mike and I got back together I was thin, very thin. Was I beautiful? He’ll tell you I was, but ask him the same question today and he’ll tell you the same thing. He truly loves me for me, maybe not the same way he loved me in high school when he was throwing paper in my hair and flirting with other girls. But of course that love has grown. He does not judge me and that is the same for how I look, what shape and size my body is… I am beautiful no matter what. Do I believe the same thing myself? Most days, yeah. And I mean most days, like 364 days a year, there may be one that I’m feeling not so pretty. Is that conceit? Nope, that’s being happy.
I’ve always said that I wasn’t bothered by being a bigger size so long as I was healthy and active. I have a great cholesterol level and I do like to stay active. I remember to throw in a fruit and a vegetable when appropriate to keep things balanced. And no, I know cake really isn’t a food group. A few months before Mike and I eloped I did exercise regularly and I lost a few pounds to fit into a dress I found and had to have. That was one of those things people do sometimes. I didn’t feel obligated or that I had to do to it to make that day happier, it was really freakin’ awesome anyway and it had nothing to do with my size, the dress I was wearing or anything as silly as that… seriously, all you DO need is love!
I look back and I remember how I looked at my lowest point and it troubles me. Thin is beautiful, as is every shape, but for me it was ugly. It was ugly because it wasn’t a reward, like eating right, exercising, being healthy. It was ugly because it was punishment, alienation from myself, detachment from reality and the farthest from my true self I had ever been. Weight is a battle for so many for so many reasons, as many reasons as there are people in the world. My history with weight is unique but is shared with countless others, as their battles were and are unique. There is no set path for recovery, but there are ways out: you can find the strength within and if those around us are there to help us, take it and don’t deny yourself the support. Remember that you are beautiful because you are. Remember that you are important because you have a path to walk and this world would never quite be a complete place without you.
This far into my writing and reflecting Etsy pulled the article and all traces of it are gone forever. The Etsy admin perhaps needs a little more life experience and needs to realize that the words we choose to share in a public forum may not be the best ones, especially when it is now reflective of the entire site simply by being posted on the site. I’ve got a sense of humor, for days and days. I’ve got a thick skin too. But I’m not heartless and in all of my travels I have discovered that it is best to feel and to express. The article was misguided in it’s “celebration of plump”. Yeah. It started off with a glib statement by this seemingly below averaged weight gal in Etsy admin (only speculating this by what you can see of her in her tiny avatar and taking into account the average sized woman in the US is a size 14, thus making her below average.) She was babbling about something like she needed to lose some of her holiday snacking weight, yada yada, but that YOU should be PROUD if YOU’RE fat. Or you should comment on the article if you’re “plump” and proud.
I put the word plump in quotes because she actually did use the word plump. Unfortunately there was a lovely photograph from an Etsian at the top of the article, of a girl, looked to be my size, in a wonderful sexy get-up but tastefully done. And then farther down, after the admin’s dribble was a treasury of sorts of various “plump” things. The “plus-sized” clothing was just fine, good handmade products and even some nice vintage finds, but there were also two listings of scales and one listing for candy. Now of course I have no issues with the mastery of the artwork and the candy seller happens to be in my favorites because I plan on purchasing from her one day. But these messages coming at me all mixed up together… plump, feel proud, “I should shed some of this weight I put on over the holidays…”, plus-sized, scales, you don’t know my pain, candy… exposed.
I suppose I was left feeling hurt and I know I wasn’t alone, before the article was deleted by someone who got the message others also expressed how unhappy they were. I believe there is a time and a place for everything. Of course I don’t believe in censorship, that’s just ludicrous. But what was the point to that article in the first place? Was there really one to begin with? It read like something you had all semester to do and you threw together in the car ride over to class. It was so unintelligent and aimless. I am “plump” and I am “proud” but when you mix that in with negative imagery I’m left feeling not so proud. Did I take this too personal? Sure I did, that’s the point, it is a personal subject that should be shared and supported but not mocked. It’s nice that this gal needs to lose a couple of pounds and it’s nice that her weight doesn’t control her or make her hurt herself. It’s nice that she is stable enough to not to want to kill herself with starvation or binging. It’s nice that she appointed herself the spokeswoman for “plump and proud”. Thanks, but no thanks. You’re not invited to the party.
And I do hope that she never has to endure a hardship in her life, I do, but it is in those experiences that we learn so much more about ourselves and about the world around us. It is what humbles us and creates compassion.
Filed under: Emotions, blogging, love, marriage, memories | Tags: 2001, blogging, love, marriage, september 11th
September 11th, 2008
(How petty are my problems on an anniversary such as this.)
But that’s life and everyday problems don’t go away, it doesn’t take away the loss we all felt on that day, but again, many buildings will fall in the course of our lifetimes, hopefully all of them being only representations of our own relationships.
I tried to make my blog private last night but I lack any kind of administrator savvy and really cannot figure out the right way to invite you to read and comment on it, feedback was that you couldn’t even log in. Well that isn’t helpful so f*ck it, it’s back. Funny thing, I never had a problem with the anonymous world reading my thoughts, never really thought that too much of that anonymous world was really reading it (stats showed otherwise though). There is only one reader I don’t want here anymore but again, trying to privatize my blog is like trying to keep quiet or trying to be someone I’m not and that is the very struggle I am dealing with right now. So read on, read on, I don’t care. I was mainly irritated because said person has privatized all of their internet offerings and I was trying to level the playing field, again, I don’t care ultimately. It’s a “I was here first kind of thing” anyway. Free speech and open expression was my MO first, so have fun with yours.
With that said I want to be open and carefree with what I post here. I always know when I want to say something big, I end up not posting for days, here it’s been a couple of days and the posts are busting out of my head making it hurt… I’ve got to make room and I’m going to. It’s September and I’ve posted now 252 times and I find I still have to remind myself of why I’m here… for me and that is the only reason.
So I think of the state of the nation on that day seven years ago and I think of the state of my marriage seven years ago and can make so many metaphors and correlations. I’m not talking about the actions of the terrorists or trivializing the extreme loss of life, I am only speaking of the place that I was with Mike and where we went from there. On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and stopped the world from spinning on its axis and 3 days later we left all we knew for a new life here. Did we lose each other on the way, or was there nothing there in the first place? Did we change that day, did we all change that day?
When do we stop changing?
Filed under: love, memories, poetry | Tags: bad poetry, crappy poetry, love
August 14th, 2008
The dishes rest on their shelves untouched, the front door shut and bolted,
No sound.
Quiet, the hum of cars passing disappear, the birds are perched far in the distance,
No song.
Papers, letters, keys and tokens on the table with your things,
No souvenir.
The curtains drawn slightly, shoes and clothes left in a moment,
No season.
In this moment, there is nothing.
August 13th, 2008
F*ck it, the poetry is coming out, there’s no stopping it now and I wouldn’t have known that it was going to be missed so much. Thank you for your support, as always, it is humbling and appreciated. Ignore the time stamps, I just have to keep it up for appearances <Blog 365 et al.>
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In the half light, in your half lies I stand on your good side,
The door is in front of me the one behind me is closing, swinging listlessly in some kind of stagnant ventilated fabricated air.
The fan blades twist in their endless rotation of before and after, again and again, no beginning no ending.
We stand before the apocalypse and the machine inside your heart weakens, you can’t breathe. Only dust to choke and digest.
Swallow.
We saw this coming, but didn’t have the weapons to stop it, or prevent it or slow it down.
The landscape lies in ruins upon the wreckage of what was supposed to be, beautiful and strange.
Metal and earth, one fading into the other, discernible with time and memory.
Fall.
Filed under: Emotions, Introduction, Living, love, marriage | Tags: love, marriage, memories, Mike
July 24th, 2008
You and I aren’t the same people we were when we fell in love.
And how could we be? We were so young and so fearful of what would become of our feelings for each other. We guarded ourselves behind gossamer veils of pretension that meant so little when it came to embracing passion. Giving in to the newness, wanting to make first contact and wanting to freeze every moment in time, forever. How do you hang on to that? And can you, or should you rather? That isn’t a place for permanent residence because other things clamor for attention, like trust and security. But that sense of protection can come quickly, either by choice or by happenstance. And with the latter, you are thankful that you have met your soul mate, lucky that you can stop looking, or better, you have found each other. You hold each other and you can almost see it all laid out before you, as if the future is playing out and someone else is playing the part, someone so much better versed in the script and dialogue. When you embrace you can’t see into that person’s eyes, instead you are looking past them– ironic, because you have never felt closer and there is no where you would rather be. The dark, starless night is bitter cold, dense with lost time and you never want to leave that place, or that memory behind because it is who you are wanting to be and who you remember wanting to be.
Who is with you now? Do you remember the hesitation as you picked up the phone and remembered a lifetime as he spoke those words to you? Trembling inside because the loneliness was washing away, the pain was fleeting. And when he left you after that first reunion, you didn’t touch the ground for weeks, for months, not even now. The coy smiles, the bright eyes, the electric touch of two people finding that connection between heaven and earth and each other. It is the giving in completely to fate, the stripping down to the bone, the unmasking… that is what will let love in. It can’t be scary, it will be blind, or at the very least like searching around in the dark shadows cast by moonlight. It will lead to the brilliant dawn, the cold still bites at your naked body, but the sun will warm you and keep you close, as two hearts now beat as one.
We aren’t the same people we were when we fell in love, but that love is better now, stronger because we made it through the shadows into the light. The expectations of what this love was going to be built from the ground up, deeply rooted in trust and understanding, is something greater now. It isn’t complete yet, and in time it will grow higher towards the sun, and its roots will expand ever deeper into the ground. And the stars start to show through the night’s cover because love is ever changing, always constant and forever. You cannot go back to the person you were when you first fell in love, and why would you want to? You would lose forever the growing, the learning, the memories of an awkward and fledgling romance turned true love. Don’t look to turn back the memories of love, instead look to what you could become, chances are it will become more than you ever dreamed it could.
Filed under: Emotions, Good day, Music, love, marriage | Tags: American Idol, brooke white, chikezie, David Cook, jason castro, love
July 2nd, 2008
I had the best time last night at the American Idol concert and I had no doubt that I would. The things I expected to be great about it were great and the things that I wasn’t expecting to be great were such sweet surprises. It wasn’t as big as I thought it was going to be and that was nice, we were pretty far away but it was all relative because the place wasn’t massive, no arena or football stadium feel. It was intimate, as intimate as you can get with thousands of people. The performers were set really nicely, and I liked the way each singer got to showcase their style and their talent. All top ten performed and each of them sang 3 songs by themselves, with the exception of the top 4 singing 4 songs a piece. For me, the highlights were Chikezie, Jason Castro, Brooke White and of course, David Cook, who looked as if he was a pro. I think the reason why the former stood out for me was because they never sounded that good on the show. They were phenomenal, and I would buy all of their albums right now.
Oh, and of course David Cook was singing to me at one point, not sure if anyone else knew that or not.
The best part about the night was that I got to spend it with Mike. Any time I can spend a whole ten hours with him, holding his hand, laughing, enjoying life, being huggy and remembering that we do love spending time together is a success. At one point in the night I leaned over and I said thank you for this and he leaned back and said that I deserved it. That was the nicest thing next to “I do” that I have ever heard. He’s a sweetie and those are the times I know that what we’re doing here together is the right thing to do.
Now, I just have to hold out until October, that’s only 90 days until David Cook releases his first album…
Filed under: Baby!, Bad Day, Etsy, Food, Good day, Living, Work, love | Tags: Baby!, Etsy, Living, love, SadieAndLeo.etsy.com, Work
June 15th, 2008
I had Nicco’s for dinner, holy goodness from Mexico.
I couldn’t print postage from Paypal tonight for my orders going out tomorrow, so that means right after work tomorrow I must make it to the post office before it closes.
I blurted out the ending to The Happening to Mike and he admitted that he wanted to see it even though it has only received bad reviews.
I forgot my sunglasses at home today so my eyes hurt.
I am so tired I want to cry but we have to try baby making tonight again… this shit’s hard work.
I found out today that I don’t have to go to the store manager’s regional meeting in Texas in a week, thank the gods. We’re down to three part management coverage and it would have been damn near impossible for me to go and for all of us to get our days off too.
iTunes is down.
Someone is getting stronger and finding that he has a voice and that he can use it.
I had a brand new buyer purchase from my jewelry shop today.
(You guess which is good and which is bad.)
Filed under: Commentary, Emotions, Family, love, marriage, soapbox | Tags: Emotions, love, relationships
May 25th, 2008
I know these two people who just ended their relationship. It is sad because they are both dears and who wants to see people go through that time in their life really? I don’t think you ever sat there and routed for someone to end their relationship with a person, aside from say, abuse, cheating and the like. I surely can’t say that I was excited to see this relationship come to an end, but when it comes down to it, who am I to judge anyhow?
I’ve ended many relationships in my life, both romantic and not, and even had some relationships ended for me. Which side is better to be on? In hindsight, it doesn’t matter because both sides have ample and unending lessons to be learned. The one constant, on both sides, is the inevitable feeling that you have lost something. Bad relationships cause you to compromise too much, but when you are giving yourself up at the time it seems worth it, does it not? I’m going to give up the things that make me happy/make me me/make me who I have been identified with my whole life because in this very instant I am accepting this instant gratification of acceptance and wanting. Mistake. If that makes you angry, then you are doing that right now. If you said, “Yup, been there” then you know you’ll never do that again, and if you are giving your computer screen that bewildered look then, watch out.
We will never be in a perfect relationship, as much as we try. But when we have to give up ourselves for the sake of the relationship then that relationship is doomed to fail. Sure there are compromises we always have to make even in our successful relationships. That is sharing and growing and allowing the other person to outshine you now and again. But if we are being out shown we will get hurt and feel lost in a life we didn’t see coming down around us. And if we are burning too brightly we won’t even see the other person in our own shadow. Don’t know which side you are on? Dig deep. And there are no absolutes, you may be a bit of both. I think the mistake I always made was that I thought I was being out shown, I was always the victim of the other person. That was my own demise. I always felt hurt and ignored and I always felt that I was overcompensating in a relationship. Funny thing about the irony there was I was again not thinking of myself, not looking at how I was poisoning the relationship with my inadequacies, my hang-ups. I let my lack of confidence be my own undoing. Was it the other persons fault that I let them over shadow me, or was it my fault all along?
Blame is an ugly weapon and we can’t help ourselves to it, it’s a crutch, a vise, an easy out. Putting blame aside, accusation and anger, what are we left with? What attracted us to that person in the first place? Was it the quest for love, companionship or something else? That something else can be experience and there is honor in that if what we have learned from this love we use to create something better for ourselves in the future. We should never forget the ones we have loved because denying these happy memories is forgetting a part of ourselves. When the dust settles, you will remember the good things about that person and about yourself. It will take time, it always does.
