There and Back

I have never seen so much rain in my entire life. Rain is not a big thing in Wyoming. It may rain for a couple of hours but then it is over, and, if you go twenty miles you can drive out of it. Not so on Thursday. We drove in snow and sleet and hail and rain for twelve solid hours. We skirted two tornadoes. Poor Mollie. She hates rain and was forced to get out of the nice warm car at the rest stops to use the "pet area." As were her owners who stood right there beside her. We all smelled like wet dog by the time we got Home.

Home was very much like home. I defied the old saying and did go Home again. It was wonderful. Even the tornado watches and warnings. We sat in the basement listening to the radio just like I remembered doing as a kid. Luckily all the tornadoes went north of us. We went to all the cemeteries and decorated the graves. My mother's stone had come loose from the base so we had to get cement and secure it. Even that was good. Nothing like gluing down a tombstone to ground a person. I sure missed all the people whose graves we visited. But just being there allowed me to reconnect to them through memories. Home is emerald green and full of crops and cows and familiar sights and smells.

Mentor Mary is good. So is her husband. He has had a couple of strokes and requires a lot of care but is cheerful in spite of a lack of short term memory. He forgot I had lost weight. When I greeted him the first thing he said was, "My God you sure are not as fat as you were." Mary almost fell through the floor, but I think this may have been one of the best compliments I've ever received. We had fun with them. Someone gave them a cat a couple of months ago when their dear old cat died. You guessed it. The new cat was pregnant. They now have four kittens living in the clothes closet. Cutest damn cats in the world. It has been years since I have seen kittens. The kitties spent their time nursing, sleeping and making war on Mary's shoes. Before we left they had finally conquered her white terry cloth scuffs. Mark had to physically restrain me from bringing one home. Mollie was a peach the whole time we were gone and Mary's husband said she would make "a fine huntin' dog."

I seem to be having ..."hope surges" for lack of a better description. I noticed it first when we were driving around the countryside after visiting the graves. I was looking at familiar ground and was suddenly feeling the optimism I used to feel as a sixteen year old looking at those same fields and vistas. Feeling like all the world was before me and gobs of wonderful things were awaiting me just around the next corner. Not my usual way of being. These flashes of "happy youth" continue. I noticed this morning that I was excited about the prospect of summer. Sort of like I was expecting a myriad of new fun adventures. Now I am telling you straight out we do not have a fun filled summer planned. Mark has some awful trials coming up, we are too broke to go anywhere and we have to build a deck and paint the garage and shed. But still the notion persists that summer is coming and it it going to be grand. Weird huh?

I just finished "When Food is Love" by Geneen Roth. A ground breaking book for me. It is about abused children and their use of food as an antidote to pain. I now know the difference between a compulsion and an addiction. I have been struggling with this difference for a year. I am a compulsive eater. I am not physically addicted to food. I have choice and there is an end to using food for somatic purposes. If I so choose I can be free. I so choose.

Hope you all had a drier holiday than me. Take care.

Love Bea

Flu and Memorial Day

Still sick, but am better than last week. We are going to my home town for Memorial Day. I will decorate graves. There are a bunch of them. Also going to visit Mentor Mary. I will be soooo glad to see her but I am having very mixed feelings about going Home home.

I have gained some weight since my visit a couple of years ago. I hate that. I went home in triumph last time after having just lost all the weight. Will be painful to have to go back and admit my inability to keep it all off. High ho. So goes life. Also my summer clothes don't fit. Phooey.

I am having a hard time dealing with Mentor Mary's aging. I know she has slipped a lot in the past six months. Kills me to see time sucking away her dignity. She takes it all in stride. Says she has too much pride anyway and this is God's way of getting rid of it. She says all of life is about learning to release. Physical health is just one more in a long line of releases. She is damn amazing.

I will also have to confront scenes of recently unearthed abuse. Phooey, phooey, phooey.

Thank you all for your comments. They helped. My second blog will be called "I Am Born." On it I am going to write my autobiography I guess. I have started the first post. Will publish when I get it finished. Harder than in looks picking out what to write about and what to leave out.

Off to clean the whole darn house so the cat sitters will not think I am a slob. Have a great Holiday.

Love Bea

P.S. When my twin nieces were tiny I urged their mother to call them Bertha Maude and Blanche Myrtle. When they got older I became Beula Mae. And so I am.

Flu and the Past

I am sick as a dog. It has been a long time since I have had bronchitis. I HATE IT. My energy level was low and blammo, the bug got me. Much going on with me right now. A paradigm shift.

I had a crisis of faith as a result of reading that darn "Making Peace With Your Thighs." Much in there about child sexual abuse. I keep thinking I have resolved and been delivered from all of that and then more surfaces. Tooey. Have been having flashbacks. A face appeared I never expected to see in that context. Shocked me and put another tear in my already well rent heart. That is now six people who sexually abused me before I hit fourth grade. I hope like hell I don't remember any more.

Okay, so on to God. I choose to believe God loved and loves me. Do I feel it? Depends. After the last flashback I hated God with all my heart. I felt like I had been betrayed by the God of my understanding, again. And therein lies the rub, "Of my understanding." My whole concept of God's love is skewed from years of abuse. I am worlds better than in years past. Mark has helped with that. He has shown me what unconditional love can be. But, I am still unable to incorporate God's love into my soul because I was not shown a model of parental love as a child. I keep thinking I'll get over this and move on to my "normal life." I keep believing I will be delivered from this heavy baggage and live the lighter life God meant for me to have. Yes I notice the weight references.

The wrong building. (see last post) I have believed God would deliver me from the after effects of the abuse and I would be "clean." I would be as well adjusted as someone who had good enough parents. I would not need to waste my entire life learning to overcome. I would be healed.

My lady preacher says "let you mess become your message." I have obviously been fighting this idea. To do that seems to me to choose perpetual victim hood. I hate that. But...I have not been delivered from the after effects of a less than perfect past. So I can only surmise that God intends to somehow use all this stuff for His purpose. I will write about my past. Here.

Maybe all of you can love the dear child into wholeness. Thanks in advance.

My name is Lynn.

Purpose

I am reading "Making Peace With Your Thighs" by Linda Mintle. I am about half way through the book. Her premise seems to be that God has a higher purpose for Us than obsessing over our perceived defects. Also that body dissatisfaction is a result of Original Sin! (Remember the fig leaves and shame over nakedness.)

Verrrry interesting reading. What if my purpose on earth had nothing to do with my size? What if my ability to give love were the important thing? How much time have I now wasted worrying about my fat when I could have been smiling at, being kind to and encouraging people? I always figured my fat got in the way of my reason for being. What if I have had my ladder leaned up against the wrong building this whole time? Must give us pause.

Happy Mother's Day and take care of your dear selves. Love Bea

I need a new plan Stan.

Vickie's post nearly knocked my socks off. The only thing permanent is change.

I am trying to do the same things diet wise I did in 2006 and get the same results in 2008. And it is not working. You know why, because two flipping years have passed and things change. I have been refusing to give up and move on.

I plateaued a year ago at 181 pounds. This morning I weighed 190. I have been steadily gaining for a year. I am scared spitless. (I don't mean spitless but am trying to cut down on the swearing.) You have all seen me floundering around trying to figure out how to stop the relapsette.

I am sick of Kay Shepard's food plan (or any food plan.) But I am scared to abandon it as it was so successful for me. I believe Intuitive Eating is the way to go but feel I am not strong enough to do it. So I flip flop around trying to do some fruitcake combination of both. I have a foot in each camp and it is stressing me out. I eat when I am stressed out. Phooey.

Vickie's post made me realize I need to move on in spite of my fear. I will take all the wonderful stuff I learned on Kay Shepard's plan and apply it to healthy intuitive eating. And on that note I have subscribed to a new discussion group about normal eating. I will let you all know how it goes and the link for the site next week.

Keep me in your prayers and wish me luck.

Take care. Love Bea

P.S. Markovian theory of road rage. All men have invisible testosterone fields/shields around them. Personal space is based on the strength of the shield. If a man with a big shield gets into a small car his shield is crushed. Hence: road rage. I guess size does matter.