my weekend – my evening – my health.
1) J was gone this weekend. I thought it would be nice. She’s younger, less independent, a little more needy. I thought it would be a break. It wasn’t. It was a hole. I missed her. I worried about her – camping with the girl scouts in shitty weather.
And I didn’t feel good. My stomach hurt. As tends to be a constant lately. It’s getting on my nerves.
2) This evening, I took E for her first appointment with a counselor. It went well. She was a little tentative, but she warmed up toward the end, and I think she’ll do well with me out of the room, which starts next week. I was thinking very much that my daughter is stellar and has no Issues and did not need to be in that Room, and then her father came up, and the summer. Then I ended up thinking I needed to get J in that room as well as E, since J had her first “I cannot go there this summer” tantrum last night.
And then tonight …. times 10. which is why the evening was crap. She cried and thrashed and held my face in her hands telling me “I CANNOT GO THERE!”
It’s so hard. Hard to know when she needs advocating, and when she needs pushing out of her comfort zone. The past few times she’s come home, she’s been happy and good. But now she’s repulsed by the idea of seven weeks in the Middle of the Country, and is miserable over it. She wanted me to write the following: “Dear [ex]: J has decided she is unable to travel to ____ this summer due to her own emotional considerations.” But then she realized that he would be MAD at her, and feared he would take it out on her. So we re-wrote it. I wrote this: J feels like the summer has shaped up to be too long. The girls request the following ….” [insert 3 week visit followed by 3 weeks at home before the blasted cruise.]
But then I had to freak out, because even though I needed to respond to my kid’s anguish … uh – I work full time (pesky job). Beloved is in school. What are we going to do with the CHILDREN??
But as usual, Beloved saved the day. Yeah, he’s in school, but he’s not IN SCHOOL. he’s doing school work at home. He said he is happy to balance the school work and the children, and will look forward to being sure that they’re kept track of and fed and healthy and happy.
So now I hope the ex says “uhhhh, okay.”
3) I never feel good anymore. I constantly feel like my intestines are trying to process lead boulders. Sometimes the scale says I’m 16 pounds up from the fall … other times 6 pounds up. The 10 pounds are there when I feel like crap, but not when I don’t. I don’t know what’s going on. I have excellent insurance, but not insurance that makes me anything but a new patient at any non-law-school provider, and so I can’t get in to see a doctor for another month. I feel like the things I’m feeling are just exacerbations of things I’ve dealt with since at least high school on a low level, and it is just starting to be constant and to affect my life.
I’ve hugely altered my diet. I’m currently (for 2 weeks now) trying a gluten-free diet, and I’m also (less strictly) restricting myself from all white carbs. I am considering going lactose-free, and sugar free, and perhaps – eventually – solids-free. I feel like everything – even innocuous things (hello? apples?) – hurt my belly.
I am unhappy, and I think that something’s wrong. I hate that I’ve gained weight while eating almost nothing. I hate the feeling of discouragement I have every time that I look at weight loss programs, and they’re all focused on reducing appetites … I have no appetite. Food hurts my stomach. I never want to eat. Yet I gain weight.
I look at these f’ing magazines with their “tips to incorporate exercise in your every day life.” Take the stairs; leave the car home; get off the train a few stops early and walk. I don’t have a fucking car. I walk to work rather than make train connections. I take a LOT of stairs. I lug groceries around town by foot. I walk EVERYWHERE. Constantly. Up hills, down hills, downtown, through windy paths.
No – I haven’t made it to the gym, but is it really right that I have to exercise up to 3 hours a day in order to NOT GAIN weight? When I eat very little, and very wisely? When I lead a far-from-sedentary life? I’m sure I walk an hour a day – if not more.
Crap.
I can’t believe I just wrote such a whiny post when, honestly, there’s so much good in my life.
Balance of Power 