Tag Archives: spirituality

Sealed With A Sunset

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Last week, I had the opportunity (read: I was, as we like to say in the business world, “voluntold”) to attend a conference for work.

The bad news:  The conference was about Worker’s Compensation and Safety.  OSHA and EH&S.  Holy snorefest, Batman.  This conference is clearly the equivalent of the ZONK prize on Let’s Make a Deal:

<cue cheesy game show host>

“Congratulations KATE!  YOU have been chosen for a two-day, two-night all-expense (as long as they’re under our woefully antiquated per diem) paid trip to learn things YOU already know about The.  Most.  Booooooring subject on the planet!

“You will receive flight accommodations on the most economical option available, allowing YOU to spend QUALITY TIME in America’s FINEST airports eating the LOWEST QUALITY FOOD money can buy for under $25 during your extended layovers!  Aaaaaaaaaannnnd NOT ONLY will you arrive exhausted, frustrated, and 17% homicidal, you will, at our leisure, be shoved into a crowded airport shuttle where a driver of questionable skill will terrify you with his bob-and-weave rush-hour traffic skills!  Once you arrive at your hotel, you’ll be greeted by the following:

* A broken elevator!

* A room with PLENTY of Keurig coffee, but NO coffee mugs!  And….

* TWO FULL DAYS OF LECTURES in a fourteen-degree conference hall, where you’ll spend nine hours a day hearing ALL ABOUT workplace safety and OSHA!  Congratulations KATE!!!!!”

The good news?  The conference was being held in San Diego.  I live in the Midwest, and it’s the middle of winter here.  Days where the high is in the double-digits are few and far between until April or May (when it VERY RUDELY has continued to snow – IN MAY – for the past two winters.  Even the diehard Minnesotans and Wisconsinites are growing weary of the seven-month gift from Canada.)  So I figured San Diego HAS to be warmer, and warmer = better.  And the conference hotel was right on the beach.  Even with my “economical” flights, I had a good shot at getting to my hotel before sunset the day before the conference.  I hadn’t been to the beach in…um…(carry the one, subtract…uh…twenty years?  Can that be right?  Wow…yep.  Probably more like twenty-five years.)  Too long, in any case.

So the day before the conference, I spent six (!!) hours on an airplane.  Word to the uninformed:  Work travel is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, glamorous.  If you’ve been on a plane any time in the last ten years, you’ve likely rid yourself of that delusion.  But if you haven’t – just know that it kind of sucks.  You arrive at the airport.  You wait in a long line with people who are grumpy, smelly, whiny, or all three.  You remove any extra layers of clothing. You separate your liquids, electronics, and shoes into bins.  Your personal belongings get scanned.  You wait while the person in front of you – clearly an inexperienced traveler – gets sent back through the X-ray for attempting to smuggle dangerous contraband like a cell phone, water bottle, or <gasp> a jar of peanut butter past security screening.

Eventually, it’s your turn for the X-ray, and YOU get scanned. (Yes, TSA can see an outline of your netherbits.  But it’s not a good picture; your clandestine objects look just like everyone else’s, so try not to think about it.)  You rush to join the logjam on the other side of the scanner and, while the plastic bins are coming out faster than the candy in Lucy’s factory, you do your best to quickly jam your personal belongings back into your one allowed carry-on and your one permitted personal item, wedging them in just so, ensuring that everything will still close and fit in the overhead.  (It’s a good thing I was so good at Tetris back in the day.  I have mad packing skills, yo.)

Mad dash to find your gate.  (This COULD be a leisurely stroll, but I’m a horrible procrastinator, and probably didn’t leave home until the last possible minute.  I guess I like living on the edge….)  Sit and wait.  Find out that flight is delayed.  Wait some more.  Line up by caste ranking, but as close to the front of the line as you can, so you aren’t separated from your carry-on due to full overhead bins.  Get your bar code scanned.  Find your seat.  Buckle up.  Ride to de-icing.  Park.  Wait some more.  Insert a variety of potential delays – flat tire, ground stop, weather, or JUST BECAUSE IT’S TUESDAY, and eventually take off for your next destination – a two-hour layover.

Are we having fun yet?  I think, after flying for so long, I now know how cattle feels.  Except at the end of the trip, I don’t go to slaughter, I go to work.  Not sure who is getting the better deal here.

So I FINALLY get to San Diego.  But as travelers know, the airport isn’t really your final destination. Now you have to find your shuttle, and it’s rush hour (of course.)  It’s another hour before I get to my hotel.  And part of the trip involves high-speed travel over a very long, very narrow, very HIGH bridge.  (This bridge is sometimes called the Suicide Bridge. It’s 2000 feet above the water.  That’s a long, long way down….)  Clearly, our driver has a teenage fantasy about NASCAR, or Bump-N-Jump, or maybe the local ordinance prohibits staying in one lane for more than 500 feet at a time.  It’s a white-knuckler over the span, that’s for sure.  And me without a paper bag to breathe into, or a parachute, just in case.

By the time I get to my hotel, I’ve sailed past grumpy, dashed by cranky, and completely missed irritable.  If I was a cartoon character, you’d see FOUL MOOD in an aura-like cloud radiating off my head like steam.  So I get to my room, unpack…and then have my meltdown.

After about 15 minutes of an unspecified rant of I HATE EVERYTHING <stomp stomp stomp> I take a deep breath and notice that there’s still daylight.  I wander down to the beach.

Sunset1

Aaaaaahhhhh.

I kick off my shoes and roll up my yoga pants and head to the shore.  I climb out on the rocks.  I watch the surf.

I breathe.  For maybe the first time all day.  I breathe in, I breathe out, and I just soak in the calm and the beauty.

I spend the next hour or so walking up and down the shoreline, marveling at every shell, rock, and hunk of seaweed.  I stick my toes in the cold surf and let the sand ease away all the baggage I’d been carrying around in my head.  I sit on the rocks, dangerously close to the icy, crashing waves.  And I breathe.

And then…I see it.  I SEE IT.  I cannot believe what I am seeing:

ZOMG SEAL1 Is…is that what I think it is?

SEAL!  SEAL!  ZOMG A LEGIT ACTUAL SEAL IN REAL LIFE!!!!

ZOMG SEAL2I’m awestruck at this little dude, and watch him for a few minutes as he flops up on shore, barks as the bewildered tourists, and then casually heads back out to sea.

And then:

Sunset2

It’s getting colder, but I just can’t tear myself away from this.  The sky lights up in pink and periwinkle and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

And as the sun continues to set, I receive the most fantastic gift as the sky explodes in color:

Sunset3

I’ve never seen anything like this.  It’s indescribably beautiful.

I’m overwhelmed by what I’m feeling.  It’s…peace.  Peace and joy.  I’m refreshed and renewed.  What started out as a boring, frustrating, work-required inconvenience was something I needed badly.  So very badly.  More than I ever knew.

Sometimes, God throws you a small reminder that He’s out there, even when you forget to look.  I’m holding this reminder close to my heart, to remind me that life really can bring joy.

Just keep looking.

This is life’s love letter to me.  Dear Kate, you are loved.  Sealed with a sunset.

Feelin’ Hot, Hot, Hot…Yikes, it’s hot. Did I mention it’s HOT?

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So in my continued effort to find my center, calm the heck down, etc. I got the bright idea to try hot yoga.  (Okay, it wasn’t just for some heightened state of well-being, peace, and light.  We’re doing a wellness program at work where we have to try three new activities in a six-week period.  And since I run the wellness program, I sort of have to set the example….)

So here’s my review of Hot Yoga:

What is it? The facility’s website described the class: “Bikram yoga is a series of 26 Hatha Yoga postures and two Pranayama Breathing exercises designed to provide a challenging, invigorating, rejuvenating and effective yoga experience….(It) is performed in a room warmed to 105 degrees, 50% humidity, is 90 minutes and 26 postures that systematically work every part of the body.”

How was it? I’m a beginner as far as yoga goes. My past yoga experience is limited to what I could do with my Wii Fit, and I’m not very flexible. However, I run a few times a week, so I’m not in bad shape. Besides, I’m always cold, so I figured I’d tolerate the heat pretty well.

The facility’s web site gave a few pointers for beginners – and they were very helpful. I was instructed to bring a yoga mat and a couple of towels, and plenty of water. I was also told that the goal for the first class is to just stay in the room the entire time, and “be prepared to sweat, stretch, laugh” – that sounded to me like beginners would be welcome!

What I liked/what you might like: When I arrived, the staff – and other class members – were VERY welcoming. They want you to have a great experience, so they gave me pointers before class started and showed me a couple of the poses. They suggested I place my mat in the back of the room, so I could watch other participants, but somewhere I had a clear view of the mirror so I could check my form.

The yoga poses were varied and not overly intimidating – no headstands, no impossible contortions. Most of them could be done by most people, and there are modifications if you can’t quite stretch or bend that way. It really was a good class for beginners – it wasn’t easy, but it was easy to follow.

One thing I didn’t expect – the instructor/leader talks the entire time. Throughout the class, you’re coached as you go – they walk you through each pose, they suggest corrections if they see you’re not quite in the pose the rest of the class is doing, and they encourage you the entire time to do the best you can!

What I didn’t like/what you might not like: Let’s be honest here – if you’re in a 105-degree room, people are going to sweat, and sweat a lot. The person beside me had an admirable amount of liquid just pouring off her – I legit thought she was melting. It’s been said you can sweat off 3-5 pounds in one class session – that is a LOT OF SWEAT. Suffice it to say that it doesn’t smell like roses (at least, not roses I would send a loved one for Valentine’s Day. Maybe to my ex. But I digress.) By the time the class was over, you could have wrung out my beach towel – and I used the other one to sit on in the car on the way home. I was THAT sweaty.

The classroom isn’t very big, and you take the class barefoot. If you’re a germaphobe, this might be a little much for you – you’re sweating REALLY closely to the person next to you. (Did I mention you sweat a LOT? Like rivers? Because you do.)

Also note that it’s hot. Really hot. Like the Deep South in August. I did OK with this – I didn’t think the temperature was overwhelmingly bad, but some people really have a low tolerance for heat. If you wilt in the summer, you probably won’t love this class. You really have to be careful to know your limits, be well-hydrated, and have a snack an hour or so before class. No one in my class fainted or got sick – but I’m sure that does happen on occasion.

Note also that this is a long class – 90 minutes. It’s hard to focus on exercise for that long (well, at least for me; it’s hard to focus on ANYTHING for that long. I have the attention span of a hyperactive 4-year-old.) At the one-hour mark I was ready to be done, but the class kept going.

Would you do it again? After the class was over, and I had a chance to go home and shower – I actually felt pretty good. Relaxed, refreshed, and well-stretched. I’m not sure I LOVE hot yoga, but I did enjoy it, for the most part. It really felt like a good workout, and is a nice change-up from running. I’m planning to attend another class when I can.

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Follow-up:  I attended another class last weekend.  This session was a little more crowded – and consequently, it was EVEN HOTTER.  I arrived about 15 seconds before class started (why do I do this?  I am ALWAYS LATE; it’s a sickness, I swear.  I think it’s my brain’s way of reminding me that I’m not REALLY in charge, and it can distract me from the goal of getting out the door AT ANY TIME) and the only space for my mat was next to this…really, REALLY fit dude…wearing a SPEEDO.  A legit Speedo.  Remember, this is yoga, where you twist and contort and bend in all directions.  I was worried about…things…popping out…. <averts eyes and fans delicate-flower virgin countenance>

I didn’t need to worry.  After 20 minutes, SuperFit was a literal sweat volcano, and there was AN ACTUAL PUDDLE OF SWEAT 12″ ACROSS ON THE CARPET in front of his face.  About five minutes later, he had to fold and tap out.  I didn’t see him again until class was over.

The nice thing about being this sweaty, though – you are so hot you really don’t care too much about extra skin and fat and folds that don’t lay quite right.  You have to concentrate just to remember to breathe.  It was also nice that the class wasn’t full of perfect, pert little bodies – there were all shapes and sizes there.  (And one particularly enviable man who was wisp-thin and as flexible as a rubber band.  He finished the class by casually performing a few handstands and then turning himself into a twisted loop that I’m sure most mortals with actual bones just canNOT physically contort into.)

But both times, I’ve left class feeling like I accomplished something.  That’s a big step for me.  My only real goal for my first class was quite simple:  Don’t die.  AND I MADE IT.  I was a beginner and not only did I stick out the entire class without leaving the room, I WASN’T THE WORST IN THE CLASS.  (My high-school gym teacher can stuff it.)  Heck, actually showing up and being willing to do poses in front of 25 other people is a big step for me.  Not sucking is a triumph.  I’ll take it.

Ready Aura Not…Here I Come

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Last Sunday I went to a local “Health and Wellness Expo.”  These are always…interesting.  Largely, they’re an avenue for the local home-based businesses (danger! danger! MLM Vultures Ahead. Do not smell of desperation, gullibility, or financial insolvency!) but occasionally you can find some things worth the price of admission.

(The “price” of admission is officially $6-10, unless you bring a can of food to donate, or a coupon from the internet, or a low-cut blouse and a saucy wink to the lonely guy running ticket booth.  So, these things SHOULD be free; if they’re not, you didn’t try hard enough.)

I wasn’t disappointed by my expectations.  True to form, there were a variety of powder peddlers who were very eager to sell me quick weight loss, more energy, and better health.  (And of course, my first thought as they approach me is “you think I need to lose weight?  GREAT, thanks.”  And then I can’t eat for the rest of the day, unless it’s an entire frozen pizza, a box of cereal, and half a pound of chocolate bars.  Moderation is for other people, I guess.)

Back to the powders.  Normally, I’m not a proponent of manufactured nutrition.  Food should be…well, FOOD.  A tub of chemicals can’t be as good as what God made for us to eat, can it?  All those weird chemical-sounding things make me uneasy.  Besides – I want to CHEW my food.

Okay, I know that this is manufactured self-righteousness.  With all the abuse I’ve dealt my body over the years – gallons of diet soda and boxes of diet pills between bouts of binging, purging, and starvation, I’m going to worry myself over an eight-ounce shake?  I suppose if I’m completely honest with myself, I’m really afraid that I’ll drink the “meal-replacement” and it’ll make absolutely no dent in my appetite…so I’ll have to eat an actual meal anyway.  My waistline does not benefit from drinking my calories.  My brain just doesn’t get that “you’ve BEEN fed, now shut up until lunchtime” when it drank dinner.

I did sample one of the powders.  Why?  Why do I do this?  I KNOW how this is going to go.  It will taste terrible and I’ll stress myself out for the rest of the day wondering 1) how many calories that thing had and 2) what chemicals I drank and if they’ll further eff up my already-craptacular metabolism.  But I do it anyway.

I can’t remember the name of the powder I tried.  I did verify that it was gluten-free (I don’t eat wheat; more on that another time, maybe) before tasting it.  I slowly took a sip…GAK CHOKE BLEAGH WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS AND WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US ALL???  It tasted like a box of chalk and a frosted Pop-Tart had a clandestine night of debauchery and left their love-child on the doorstep of poverty and shame, doomed to sell her body as a form of protein shake in order to survive.  It was cloyingly sweet – and trust me, NEVER in my ENTIRE LIFE have I been the sort of person to complain that something is too sweet.  I’m a frosting junkie who will take the corner piece of a birthday cake just to eat the giant globs of butter and sugar, and at least 14% of the reason I married my husband is because he doesn’t LIKE frosting so when there is cake, I get his frosting too. (Sometimes, I even sneak back at the end of the party to run my fork around the now-empty cake board to finish off those frosting flowers left behind by those less enlightened about the magical awesomeness of SUGAR SUGAR SUGARRRRRRR)

But this?  Couldn’t drink it.

The vendor told me that I probably didn’t like it because it was mixed with vanilla almond milk, and THAT was actually what I was finding too sweet.  (Oooookay.)  She also admitted that they sold a lot more of the stuff when they mixed it with sweet bases like this.  “The American palate has a certain…expectation, you know?  And we have to make things that people can actually see themselves drinking day to day.”  She’s probably right.  I’m sad for America, but she’s right.

Incidentally, the vendor had a concentrated tart cherry juice, as well.  That was way more my speed.  It was not unlike wine.  Wine is good and is part of what’s right with the world.  And supposedly, tart cherry juice helps with melatonin production, so could help one sleep.  I’ll have to research that another time, but I’m not terribly optimistic that there’s a fruit on the planet that can silence the voices in my head.

There were some other vendors I visited at the fair.  I sampled a purple tea (yeah, PURPLE, of all things – and it was really good, if you like tea, which I do, and are set up to brew actual leaves, which I am not.)  I skipped past all of the home improvement booths (three window companies – really?  This is wellness HOW, exactly?  Clean window, clean soul?) and browsed a couple of jewelry vendors (because, well, jewelry.  Hi, my name is Kate and I’m a jewelry junkie.  And pretty things ARE good for your soul, so I TOTALLY get the relevance here.  Really.)  I tried the buffalo-style gluten free pretzels.  (Verdict:  Dangerous.  I would’ve polished off the entire bag before I got out of the parking garage. And yeah, they were undoubtedly probably full of those chemicals I was so ready to criticize earlier when they didn’t taste quite so good.  <hangs head sheepishly>)

I spent some time at the crystals booth (yeah, they had jewelry, too, of course.)  This whole arena fascinates me.  I don’t fully understand how crystals work, exactly.  You hold them while you meditate?  Wear them?  (The pretty ones, anyway.)  Place them on your body, or under your bed?  Stare at them and pray?  I truly don’t know.  But I did spend some time reading – this stone is good for relaxation, that one helps release creativity.  The blue one will calm anxiety and the red one will reduce stress.  Now, I do carry a pretty sizable purse, but sadly, I don’t have a bag, nor strong enough shoulders, to carry all the rocks I apparently need.  I’m getting a vision of that dead dude in A Christmas Carol, hauling around those giant chains.  Except mine would be rocks, albeit pretty rocks, and I’d have a much nicer death robe to wear, and totally dope shoes.

So, no crystals for me, at least not today.  But I did walk away with one small piece of enlightenment:  I had my aura read.

The booth was simple and unassuming.  Posters were handmade, and a small man in a white robe staffed the booth.  On the table was a laptop, and a device that had what looked like two metal handprints on it.

The poster told me I could have my aura read for $5 (Normally $15!  Show Special!)  I know the most colorful things about myself are 1) my shoes and 2) my language.  But for $5…why not, right?  Not a bad price for entertainment.

So I entered the booth and the man wiped off the metal handprints.  He instructed me to put my hands on the metal shapes, making full contact with them, and relax….

And in a few moments, this popped up on the screen:

Aura

Well, yay, my soul isn’t black.  That’s good, right?  I mean, I’m mildly disappointed I don’t feel tingly, or see unicorns, but….

The vendor told me that my aura is “mostly green, and some yellow.”  Green represents spirituality, and yellow represents joy.  So mostly spiritual, with a little bit of joy.   “But there is something interesting about you.  Your aura is trapped.  You can see here the colors of your heart.  But you are trapping this with your mind.  You are keeping yourself from who you are to be by thinking too much.”

Well huh.

He went on to tell me that I needed to do some work on listening to my heart and allowing it to speak.  He said that I would too often overthink things, and my mind would talk my heart out of doing what it wanted to do.

Curious.  I’m sure he had no way to know that I keep myself up at night with the thoughts and voices in my head.  He had no way to know that I had just recently committed to getting WELL this year, to work on myself on the inside, and that I trip myself up over and over again.  Or maybe the furrows between my brows and the tension in my shoulders gave him the clues he needed.

Regardless, it was an interesting reading.  And I’ll take the validation.  I like the idea that the work I’ve recently committed to do is in line with what I’m meant to be…that I’m some sort of spiritual butterfly that needs to work on nourishing my soul so I can grow strong wings instead of reminding myself that I can’t possibly ever fly.

I’ve been building this cocoon since I was ten years old.  That’s over thirty years of powerful work to undo.  It’ll take a while, and I suspect that I’ll squint and wince once the first bright light hits my eyes.  It takes time to adjust as you grow.  But I’m looking forward to my first flight; even if I crash-land in epic fashion, it’ll be a heck of a ride while I soar.

The voice of a flower…

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One of the things I’ve always loved to do is sing.  I sing in a band on occasion, which is a total rush, but I got my start in church choirs.  When I first moved here, I sang with a local church, but my attendance petered out a few years ago.  I was traveling a ton for work, and seeing my family out East a couple times a month, and had an illness that would not go away – so I put the brakes on church so I could rest on Sundays.  Gah, that sounds weak…but sometimes, something has to give.  And that’s simply what gave out at the time.

So, since I’m trying to get healthier overall, I thought going back to church would help.  It’s like exercise, in a way.  Dragging myself out of bed takes a Herculean effort, and when it’s dark and cold and the bed is soft and warm and I’m sleepy I JUST DON’T WANNA. <whine>  But once I get up and get to it, I feel so much better.

I’ve been rehearsing with the choir once a week, and got to sing with them this morning.  The sermon was good, as it usually is, but today’s Children’s Message actually got me thinking after I left the four walls of the church.

(A lot of churches have messages targeted to kids before the actual “adult” sermon.  The Children’s Message is a short message, typically with props to keep it entertaining, and invariably one kid wanders off and spills the Communion juice or pulls his pants down or does something that makes you laugh – and makes you thankful that it wasn’t YOUR kid, this time.  After the message, the kids typically get chased down to the basement so the adults can stick around and really focus on the full sermon without worrying if darling little Brittney has enough crayons and animal crackers to keep her still until 11 AM.)

Today the Children’s Message featured flowers.   As the leader talked, she handed out flowers one at a time to all the kids.  Red and yellow roses, white lilies, pink carnations, magenta Gerber daisies.  The message was about Esther.  Essentially, Esther gets picked out of a whole gaggle of really pretty girls to be queen.  Sounds like it was a year-long beauty contest of sorts – they had a year just to make themselves look good (Extreme Makeover, Egyptian Year-Long Edition.)

Anyway – Esther’s Jewish, and one of the bad guys ordered all the Jews to be killed.  Esther has the opportunity as queen to bend the king’s ear and convince him that this isn’t such a good idea.  (Which was no easy feat, because normally if you approached the king without being invited, he had you killed, even if you were totally hot and queen to boot.  So it was kind of a big deal.)

The leader, after telling this story, showed all of the kids a dead rose.  It had blackened and withered, and the bud drooped lifelessly on its stem.  She reminded them that no matter what the kids did – no matter how careful they were, how much water they used, or how much pizza they gave it – in a couple of weeks, that pretty, pretty flower they were holding would look much like the one she was holding.  As one of the children put it, “It goes rotten!”

Hmm.  It goes rotten.

I worry (or re-center my worry) so, so much on what I eat, and how what I eat manifests itself in unwanted places on my body.  I’ve exhausted myself worrying about the bulges in my stomach and the width of my saddlebags.  I spend more time than I’d like to admit putting on this face cream and coloring this gray hair and trying to blend in that wrinkle and these under-eye bags….

Don’t I have more to offer this world?  SHOULDN’T I offer more?  Why is so much of my focus on something so meaningless and fruitless to preserve?

The pastor, in the adult version of the sermon, talked about “finding your voice.”  She specifically talked about the fate of women in many parts of the world – being no more than property, trinkets for trafficking, having no opportunities for education – and encouraged us to DO something.  Get involved, make a difference, at the very least raise your sons and daughters to CARE.

What’s my voice?

So often (between days of beating myself up over eating YET ANOTHER effing bag of kettle corn) I find myself wondering what the point is to my life.  I exist.  I get up, I work, I come home.  Why bother?  So much work, and eventually I’ll die anyway, right?

I’ve come to realize recently that this is a very selfish viewpoint, and maybe I should try looking at this from a different angle.  Why am I thinking that the world owes me a life?  Shouldn’t I instead be looking at how I can work to make the world better somehow?  Instead of wondering why life isn’t particularly meaningful, I should go out and MAKE it meaningful.

In other words – what can I do for this world?

There are things I can do.  I can volunteer.  I can control my anger and biting sarcasm.  I can treat people with kindness.

I did donate to a couple of charities recently, and I know of some volunteer opportunities locally.  I certainly can extend small kindnesses (especially when I’m driving, ha ha) and I can be a better friend, wife, and mom by being more engaged and mindful with my family.

I don’t have any big, lofty goals around this right now, other than to recognize that “just existing” isn’t enough – nor is it the point.  My focus should be on what I can do to make the other flowers here bloom as big and bright as possible.

How can you help someone bloom today?  How can you plant the flowers that make the world more beautiful?

So why am I here?

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Big question with a long answer….

I’m Kate.  I’m in my 40s.  (EARLY forties, thankyouverymuch)

I have happy, smart, well-adjusted kids.  I have a devoted husband. We both have stable, steady jobs that we don’t hate.   No one has a troublesome illness, police record, or embarrassing YouTube videos.  So everything is wonderful…everything should be fine.

But it’s not.  And it’s a shame, because this should be a wonderful life.

Don’t get me wrong – I do appreciate what I have.   How could I not?  But I’d like to enjoy life more.  And I think I COULD, if I could just get rid of all the noise in my head.

So what exactly is the problem here?  I hate to spell it out, because it feels so trivial in black and white.  But I need a safe place to talk some things out and unload the weight of the thoughts that keep me from seeing the sun in all the places it shines.

I want to find my joy, but I struggle.

I struggle with my relationship with food and my weight.   That began when I was ten.  Until that time I had no idea I was fat, or really any sense of how I looked at all.  Until one day, during a school assembly as I sauntered to the front of the gymnasium to accept some geeky award for math or spelling or some such, my brother’s friend told him that I was getting as fat as he was.  And of course my brother told me, and POOF, I was suddenly fat, and have been ever since.  My weight’s gone up and down a number of times since then – I’ve been 65 pounds heavier and 15 pounds lighter – but I’ve always been too fat.

The trouble with food issues is that it really isn’t about the food.  It’s about a convenient thing to be upset about so you don’t have to think about whatever it is that you’re REALLY upset about.  In other words, the size of your thighs can be easier to fret over than the stability of your marriage, or whether your kids love you, or why your mom doesn’t really like you all that much, or when your boss will find out that you’re really a poseur and have NO idea what you are doing, or why the heck you’re on this planet in the first place and is there really any point to life?  (Side note – I’m not in the market to off myself.  Just don’t feel like I’m doing much more than existing sometimes.)

To add to this, my husband has been stretching through some sort of spiritual mid-life crisis.  Spiritually, this has been a challenge.  To be fair, when we met, I knew we approached religion from different angles – I identify with Christianity, while he is agnostic.   This has mostly worked just fine for us, and we’ve explored some ideas together and kept it respectful.

However, as of late, he’s been on a mission – he wants to be the Voice of the People for atheists everywhere.  This has involved ripping apart the Bible and buying in-your-face blasphemous T-shirts.   I’m all for freedom of religious expression, but it’s hard not to find his behavior hurtful.  It’s hard not to take it personally.  Yes, I know a lot of wars have started over religion.  Frankly, I think God hates that.  I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea that everything associated with Christianity is automatically bad.  People can be very bad, religion can be very political, but that’s not its intent.

I could write a lot about that, and I might later.   But that’s one of the things that brought me here – my husband says he loves me, but when he goes on these anti-religion rants, I feel like he’s wrenching my heart out.  I feel like every harsh, angry, derogatory thing he says reflects how he really feels about me.

So it all came to a head last December, when my husband was at his peak vitriol and my dad suddenly had a heart attack and life just got really dark really fast and I no longer wanted to eat anything at all…and I decided that enough was enough and I’d better learn to handle this better.  I decided I needed to attack this thing and address the noises in my head.

I need to cope better and not be so darn hard on myself.  So this year, I’m working on getting well.

I started therapy.  (I’ve only gone once so far.  But making the appointment and actually showing up is a big step.)  I’m trying to learn to meditate.  I’m trying to get regular exercise.  And I’m trying to be gentler with myself.

I’m hoping that getting my thoughts out here will help me better deal with them.  I’m hoping this can be somewhat of an online journal to assist me with the process of therapy.

And maybe if I post things out loud, maybe it’ll help someone else who wrestles with this mess to walk just a little bit closer to wellness.