You grow, You Roar...Make your voice break, Sing it out..Music

Since I first produced vibrations in my vocal cords, I have been singing.  I was in the church, elementary, middle and high school choirs, select choirs and have been honored with some tremendous opportunities with music. I sang Handel's complete Messiah at the age of nine, and every year thereafter for ten more years.  I made some attempts to go further with music but once I hit about 21 years old and my self-doubt took over completely, I backed away from singing in public.  Don't get me wrong, I sing almost everywhere: at home, in the car, in the shower, at work when no one is around, at work when others are around, when I am walking my dog, when I am in the elevator by myself, etc.  Music to me is like a movie montage where a character opens the door to her home and sees her version of heaven outside.  Majestic fields await a blissful, carefree day of galavanting through fields and picnicking by a beautiful body of water, shaded from the hot sun by the most glorious oak tree.

What is it about music that opens this door?

Sometimes I have a vision of myself peeking through the sound hole of a cello, hearing my own perfect symphony and being swallowed up by its sound, which at the same time fills me with vivid colors, shapes and light all of which move the way I conduct them to.  It is as if music can speak, and I am directing its speech.  I have always wanted to crack open the whole front of this instrument, dive into the swimming pool of beautiful sounds and submerge myself in the whirling passages of light that accompany the threads of sound.  I hear Beethoven and Mozart competing for my notice, Brahms softly embracing my dreams, Vivaldi flirting with my desires, Tchaikovsky demanding my attention.  I close my eyes and I hear beautiful synchronized music; classical music brushes against the most bare fibers of my soul.

Twelve years ago I discovered a band who provides for me the experience of being swallowed up into an alternate state of mind where I can be free.  With their music, I find myself dreaming like never before.  My classical composers seem to stare in shock as I look at them through a glass wall; my attention cannot be theirs, for it belongs to this band which captivated me in 2001 and again and again each time they come out with a new album.  Their mellifluous melodies intertwine with rich harmonies, whilst all but enveloping my soul. When I listen to their music, in a sudden dream I find myself yearning for my future, O how glorious it could be!  My senses are flown to their furthest peaks and I am left suspended over mountains, valleys and beautiful bodies of water, which cannot be described as anything other than what I would call utter perfection.

In music it does not matter if I am single, married, tall, short, fat, slim, unhealthy, healthy.  I can be broken and still be a part of a beautifully constructed composition of notes, webbed together to tell me that everything is going to be alright.  Imperfection is respected, cherished.  I can have a bad day and find a musician who once did, but who is able to tell me in song that this too shall pass, but who won't demand that I accept that this very minute.  I can be ethereally happy and have someone proclaim this through a sweet melody and a beautifully haunting harmony.  Music guides me, it pulls my senses and desires, begging them to step outside of this box in which I have hidden from the world.  My mood can often be changed by the softest chord, or most severe demand on my attention that an organ can provide (thanks Beethoven).

I would like to find myself lost in music again the way I was when I was younger. I would like to find myself in an opportunity where music can be my career, and not just my most lovely hobby. I accept my career and life for what they are right now, and escape only when I can find the fantastic escape that music can offer.  I vow to take control of my life bits at a time, and draw on music to keep me walking down a path that I want to go down.  The paths are never perfect, never straight, flecked with sunshine, riddled with diversions, but nearly always in my control.

To Sigur Rós and separately to Jónsi, both of whom whose music I have been listening to for the last few hours (and decade), and who will most likely never read this, I'll never be able to repay you for the years of rescue, refuge and solace you all have offered me.  Your sounds are the perfect mix of classical music, and sensory experience, and... 'je ne sais pas.'  It is soul and awe-inspiring. And I thank you...

I'm off to dream, good night.

I need a makeover

I don't know what is WRONG with me.  I fix a problem for someone at work and I have to hold back tears because of feeling good and knowing that I made their day better. I watch the Biggest Loser and I cry.  I tell a sweet story about someone and surprise! I tear up.  I watch a video or a commercial that's touching and freaking bloody surprise!!! I cry like a baby. Every single couple I see I feel like punching in the stomach with my green fist filled with envy.  On the flip side, I see a good looking guy, or a tall guy around my age who isn't wearing a wedding ring and my thoughts in this order are: "Oooh, no ring. How YOU doin'?  Who are you kidding, you're fat he'd never go for you. Moving right along... Stop self, don't tear up, C'MON!!!"  It's almost as if my brain is shouting out "I'm not happy, so you shouldn't be either!!!!!!!!" I'm just so worn out all of the time. 

I watch the Biggest Loser every week and I love the show so much.  I watch Jillian Michaels, Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince train their contestants and I am filled with envy. I want that experience so badly.  I have so far to go: 100-130 pounds until I get to a satisfactory weight.  I haven't seen the dastardly 'one-derland' since I was 14 years old, if not younger.  The thought of it terrifies me, I've spent more than half of my life this way, all of my adulthood. Who would I even be?  I see Danni Allen in this season's BL and I find myself dying to be in her shoes.  I feel like that could be me.  I feel like it should be me (in addition to, not instead of her)...

I've been dieting.  It has been going okay; I lost around 10 pounds in February / first week of March, but I had a weekend away and I'll find out for sure in the morning but I think I've gained a few pounds again.  I feel like crap: emotionally, physically, psychologically.   I need a head to toe makeover, starting with my brain.  I'm so lethargic and never feel like exercising.  For weeks I was making veggie smoothies to take to work and was eating solely at home, but for the past week I just haven't.  I don't know where to begin again.  I hear / read / listen to people say 'start small! positive affirmations!' but any time I have been involved with a person or group who talks about that, I want to curse at them and in plain english say "S.T.F.U."

I have figured out a few of my key issues: 

1. Depressed over a death of a parent (though it was 8 1/2 years ago it still hurts like heck). 

2. Job hatred: I'm WAY underpaid and undervalued; I don't love what I do. 

3. Weight and issues relating to this stemming back to early childhood. 

4. PTSD and PMDD. What a delight having these two together. 

5. Jumpstart motivation: I go so quickly that it's like when you jump too high on a trampoline... You never land just right. Then the landing hurts so I walk away. 

6. Anxiety: I paint pretty pictures of things but can't physically do them, as if a barrier is stopping me. 

7. Money: my devil. 

I take so many things in emotionally. I just watched a video about cage free vs free range vs pasture raised chickens / eggs and I feel like giving up my life for chickens. I watch the BL and I feel like giving up my life and moving to the BL resort to lose the weight I need to lose.  Any and every time I watch TV or movies I regret leaving California (where I once lived) and leaving the industry, because I just love that side of things.  So now I wonder. What do I do?  I'm being encouraged to stay in my job because the benefits are really good.  I'm being encouraged from another person in my life to quit my job, take out loans and go to school full time.  I'm being encouraged to just stay on Weight Watchers and lose weight.  But my head is so full and I'm so confused.  What...do...I...do...????

On the road again..

I'm back.  It's late and so this entry will be short.  I can't believe I haven't blogged in over six months.  I have been cruising down a long road of unhealthy eating and living an inactive lifestyle.  It has to stop. In approximately seven months I will be 30; before this date I have committed to two goals: 

Definite Goal: 
  - to lose 30 pounds by my 30th birthday

Hopeful Goal: 
  - to lose 60 pounds by my 30th birthday. 

Every time I think about weight I get anxiety.  Something small and that I don't even remember now happened earlier today and my immediate thought was 'god I want to house a chocolate bar'.  I haven't binged in a long time (since before I stopped blogging) and I have just spent the last six months eating a lot of mall-type food (food court food etc). 

I also can't believe that I have gained about 13 pounds in six months! I really thought it was only 5 or 6 and it's really stressing me out.  I'm trying to let it go and just move on, but it's stressful...  I re-joined Weight Watchers tonight and am going to start planning and grocery shopping tomorrow and start my fist official full day on Thursday 13 December.  I hope to lose 5 pounds before Christmas. I have a relatively high goal because I know that it's easy to lose a few pounds in your first week.  I'm back up to 279 pounds or so, and I last weighed in here at 266.  Wow.  by the end of January I would like to be around 260-264. 

How have you come back from a long hiatus and succeeded? How have you changed your mindset? I'm kind of desperate for some advice at this point! :/

Ravenous (the book) and weepy (me).

I have been reading a book called 'Ravenous' for the past week or so, by Dayna Macy (see her blog here).  I'll say this, I'm inspired by it.  Her writing style makes me even salivate over olives, and I can tell you right now that if I come across an olive in as much as a tomato sauce I spit it out - I'm not a fan.  She talks about discovering foods by where they come from: Visiting places like an artisan cheese maker, organic farms, and from what I read on the back cover - even a humane slaughterhouse (yikes! I'm a vegetarian!).

It's smart - she is writing about discovering what food is to her, how specific foods became her downfall and where those foods begin, what life is, etc.  I have been really trying to feel the same things by proxy: I'm trying to figure out why I have specific cravings, and how to handle them.  I recommend this book to any and every one.  I have about 1/2 - 2/3 left, and I'm savoring it as much as possible, so that I can really let it sink in and resonate.  I'd really like to start journaling about food, but I start to write and I just get this immediate 'cease and desist' notice from my brain, causing me to give up... 

After reading this I realize that I'd really like to taste food again, feel the sensual aspects of it (read the chapter of her cooking in a kitchen with a stranger!), and see if I can learn to enjoy it rather than treat it like something I should shovel in, and to use as a barrier between myself and emotions.  My friend and I were joking after we saw someone who is truly fit today: "his body is a temple. we treat ours like trash compactors."  Basically it's true. I shovel crap in and intellectually I see that it's crap.  Emotionally I'd like a connection with what I'm eating, but I don't have one.  It's doing nothing but preventing emotions; almost like a blockade. 

I have to bring this up.  I have been so emotional for the past few months.  If I see someone open the door for someone else or do something equally nice, I feel the slightest amount of tears collecting at the back of my eyes.  If I see something heartwarming on TV I pretty much break down and tear up, while swallowing as quickly as possible to stop the tears.  So help me god if I see a puppy or an adorable baby.  I can't stop these weird outbursts and I can't tell you where they come from.  I'm trying with an educated guess to suggest that it's a subconscious thing with my emotions, food, feeling stress, the inability to get to the gym and desire to go, etc.  But I would love to know how to make it stop.  Or to get it to release! I'm a system with no shut off to my pressure valve, and eventually I'm going to blow!!! 

I've had 3 sessions with a therapist now; she's nice, I like her... But she annoyed me this week by spending 10 minutes lecturing me on food and nutritionists and overeating, like I haven't heard any of that before. I'd like to work on some of the emotional stuff with her, I don't need the "mom" lecture as she called it, from her!! I already get that elsewhere thanks!!!  

When three's not enough but one was too many...

I'm sure you've heard the saying about kids where 'one's not enough but two's too many'...  I've got a different take on it.

Cravings becoming binges.  My cravings are like this moment where I picture"I. O Fortuna" popping into my head and I'm this ballet dancer being pulled from side to side by two male ballet dancers, fighting over me. It's a love vs. hate relationship. Yin vs Yang.  I want it but I hate it.  I succumb.  What it comes down to is a concept that came into my head when I was starting to stuff cookies into my mouth tonight: "Three is not enough, but one was too many." Three doesn't cease your craving, but one is more than you should be eating at that point.  That's when my cravings turn into a binge...

Luckily, that stopped my eating the cookies tonight, and I only ate two.  I know it could have been much worse, so I was grateful to be able to stop.  Thought I'd share.

The girl in the glass bubble.

As obvious as it might be on my most recent attempts at blogging, I'll say this: I'm struggling, I'm always anxious, I'm depressed.  I have become my outward self: "the fat chick who..." and not "the girl/woman who..."  I am stuck in my own head like a bad cassette tape that keeps replaying a five second clip of a song.  "You're fat, you're worthless, you're fat, you're worthless."  Intellectually I know that I'm not worthless, but the emotional side of me has taken over my brain and I'm just in a horrible place.

This week I think I had my first panic attack. I was driving in the most stressful city in the world (DC), and pulled into the parking lot of my new therapist.  Late because of traffic (never going to get used to how bad it is in DC), and there was this guy meandering slowly across the parking lot from my left. I made the decision to park on the right side, so probably left around 5 feet between us and turned / parked. In front of him? Sure, probably.  A risk to him? Not at all.  I've been driving for more than a decade, and I'm not a moron.  He was in no way a risk.

He came up to my car and just started shouting at me about paying attention.  I just flipped him the bird and ignored him.  So he laid into me. "Oh wow fattie, what a real lady you are. Wow chunky puff, really? Big woman, wow! pay attention, or are you too fat to see??" I mean, this man was at my car window. I just kept saying "F--- off a-hole, go away." My years of compounding PTSD set in and it was all I could do.  My seatbelt was still on, and I felt absolutely trapped, filled with rage, angry, sad, disgusted with myself, hating him. Out of control. Who was he to yell at me about my WEIGHT??

He kept threatening to get my car towed, saying that he didn't think I had a parking permit, kept calling me fat and everything like that.  I've never experienced this kind of fat discrimination before, it was always just looks from people.  But this was something else.  I started to get out of my car, because I was honestly going to hit the man.  I'm not a violent person, I've never wanted to physically go crazy and punch people, but this was amazing. As soon as I opened the door he walked away and into the building. I got my stuff and left to go in, and by that time, only seconds after him, he was gone.  He ran away like a b----!!

I went to my therapist and when she started talking about our last session I looked down at my hands and realized they were literally shaking. Never having experienced this before I did a quick mental check of my body.  My breathing was off and I was absolutely tearing up. Heaving with sobs and losing it in a fit of tears, out came the panic attack.

My therapist seemed surprised. I explained what happened and annoyingly she was calm and tried to ask me to repeat what he said. I wanted to just shout "BE ANGRY WITH ME. SIDE WITH ME. STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS!!!" something.  But nothing came out. She tried to have my do deep breathing, but that kind of relaxing makes me panic. I get angry. I get frustrated and annoyed.  So we changed the subject. It worked within two minutes and I was able to talk about other things.

I got home and surprisingly (as I'd usually just push it down), I told my roommate.  She was angry at him, saying 'What a child! Who does he think he is?' and pretty much defended me.  That was nice.  I actually told another friend and he told me that this man wasn't worth it, because he's clearly not a good person.

When and why did I become 'the fat chick who' instead of just 'the girl/woman'.  When did my physical appearance become my identity?  A few weeks ago I watched a Lifetime movie (yes, I'm that depressed) about a girl who faked a pregnancy in high school for her Senior Project.  One poignant thing at the end of the movie was that people saw her as 'the pregnant girl who COULD have done...' instead of 'the amazingly smart girl who is destined for...'  I feel just like that.  My whole life I have felt like someone who should be able to just unzip this suit and a thin, pretty, happy, innocent again version of myself would just step out. That would be my life.  Problem solved.

My good friend told me today that I need to see 'me' as the person he sees: fun to be around, nice, easy-going, a good listener, funny, charismatic, smart etc. But I see 'the fat chick who has these attributes:.." then they're listed.   I don't know if I learned anything from this panic attack. I never want to see that A-hole again in my entire life though. Ever.  I heard a quote today 'she has the knowledge, but not the understanding', about a little girl who was overweight who knows that her health will be affected if she doesn't keep changing, but doesn't understand all of the exact consequences.

I have the knowledge, understanding, and many resources to make changes. I am fighting this battle where my intellect is going CRAZY inside of a glass bubble. It's like a 'jail cell' and my emotion is the bars, floors, walls and guard, preventing me from making a change.  Keeping me locked up. Keeping me in this "safe" place so that I don't have to live.... Breaking out will make you get cut, hurt, you'll bleed. But I WANT TO!!  How do you break out of this proverbial jail? How do you beat this system? I want all of the stuff on the "outside." I want the health, body, love life, and confidence, however I'm sitting in this emotional jail cell bubble with no way out. I know that once I get there, once I figure out how to break out I'll be unstoppable. But today.. tomorrow... who knows...

Back again... Secret Service Hotties and raw foods.

I took my camera to DC today and SWOON to the Secret Service.  What's up hotties? I mean seriously; I walked for around 20-30 minutes, did a huge perimeter of the White House, and I saw maybe 20 Secret Service guys who were dressed like police (same types of outfits, but they were SS).  I swear to you out of 20, at least 18 were gorgeous, and the others were still good looking, just a little too short for my desires.  In my head I was screaming "What's cookin' good lookin'!?" and hope that it never came out aloud...

Well I'm back (again).  Every time I begin a new diet regiment (or rather re-start a better lifestyle) I become super "cravey."  I suddenly want Mexican food or fast food.  For example, I don't eat fast food (i.e. McDonalds, Burger King or Wendy's), but I've been suddenly craving Taco Bell like crazy. I don't even like Taco Bell!  I have decided that instead of doing calorie counting or Weight Watchers or anything like that, I'm going to try to just eat as many fruits and vegetables as possible in place of the crap foods that I'd usually eat.

I pulled out the almost never-opened Raw Food cookbooks that I have and am going to try to make more raw foods. For breakfast instead of Starbucks I'm going to try to make fruit smoothies and eat a Larabar about an hour after that. Then, instead of fast meals that I can microwave, I'm going to try to make sandwiches with no bread, or eat salads and foods like that.  We'll see how it goes.  I won't go 'cold turkey' into raw foods or anything, because I know that I always have the boomerang effect.  I need to have an egg in the mornings some days, I won't allow myself to feel guilty for it.

I also need to get back to the gym. I wish I liked the gym.  I am going to try to do other things, like hiking, biking, walking the dog etc.  We'll see how it goes!

Have a happy Easter / Passover / Sunday / Day off of work!