I don’t really eat at fast food restaurants, I don’t eat desserts every night.. or even on a semi-regular basis. I am not on a bunch of medications or really any medications that cause weight gain as a side effect. I drink water (I could drink more), and I work full-time.  This keeps me at a weight of 195 lbs .  I despise it. I hate the bulges and extra baggage I carry. The shape of my face, the big belly pouch and soft inner thigh pockets of fat, distress me as I walk, sit or see myself in the mirror.

When I had more money and was trying very hard to lose weight, following strict serving sizes and such I was able to get down to 175 lbs. Not nearly the weight or size I used to be, when I was what I felt was desirable. I am not sure I will ever be able to get down to 145 lbs. without constant and strenuous effort.

I look forward to the summer, when my boyfriend/fiance is working more and I will have the cash to eat healthier. To the summer when there isn’t snow and ice and terrible weather covering the state of Alaska. I look forward to buying a bicycle and riding the shit out of it. I want to be healthy, feel healthy and not be disgusted when I look at photos of myself.

I wish I could love myself. I wish I could accept me for me. I can’t. And most likely, won’t.

Sometimes, well most of the time I don’t know where to start when writing in my diary. I often start with an idea but then when I start typing it all changes. Perhaps it’s supposed to. I’ve been thinking about logging in and typing a bit lately, but until tonight it hasn’t happened. And then, sometimes I think I need to change it all. My WordPress theme, the blog address… etc and that helps me put off expressing my thoughts that longer.

So here is a quick (hopefully) run down on all the things that have gone on in my life causing issues/situations/stress and such.

1. My daughter never visited me or the great state of Alaska. Which made me feel guilty about taking any of the time off that I requested. It also made me feel embarrassed that I told so many people and then felt suddenly let down and kind of jilted.
2. My boyfriend, cat and I moved into the larger apartment a couple of doors down. That’s what I used my time off on. It was hard on the family. We are moved, but nothing is really organized or homey about the place, yet.
3. I have had a variety of small health issues. I learned today I had eczema on my arms, neck and back. I also had my Mirena IUD re-implanted. Yesterday, I ate a bad tuna fish sandwich from a local gas station and gave myself a mild case of food poisoning.

Perhaps, now with all of this stuff I have thought out-of-the-way; I might actually write something about my real feelings and thoughts? Sooner or later.

We are waiting on our “new” larger apartment to become empty so that we may finally get all of our crap into it. It’s been a long tedious task of waiting, and we are still waiting. It’s been fairly frustrating on top of things because we have tried to speed the process up so that my daughter and her boyfriend could crash on the couch. Now, it might not have been necessary to put all that extra stress on ourselves and the apartment manager. We are still moving and tired of this tiny apartment and bumping into each other trying to get to from one side to the other; so it wasn’t a complete waste if it helps us get into it faster.

I was also really looking forward to taking some time off from work. I need two days off together and just some time to think about a career and not just a job. I am tired of sales, I am tired of feeling like I need to be completely likeable to everyone to do my job “well.” I am too honest to just take the time off whether she visits or not so I may not now get that option.

It’s hard having days off separated from each other. While working it’s so hard to get anything done besides getting ready for work and then work. Afterwards, I have chores and errands, and by the time that’s all done it’s really time to think about getting ready for bed. What about hobbies? Things I enjoy? Stupid stuff I just feel like doing? Nope, too tired.

Even now, sitting here on my day off after going to the hospital this morning for a new prescription of birth control pills (because my Mirena IUD came out on its own) and then shopping around, coming home and cleaning my apartment I can’t help but think I should be doing so much more. I should be making a plastic bag holder out of something recycled. I should be scrap booking or cleaning and organizing my photos on my laptop. How about twee-zing my eyebrows or doing sit-ups? Cheesy rice on crackers! What am I supposed to do? Why aren’t I more happy? ….

I was happy earlier today, before the news, and then everything changed. I lost my happiness and with that, my sense of purpose apparently. It’s getting annoying being me.

I hate sounding like a broken record, but I can’t help but repeat out loud the broken record that keeps playing in my mind and through out every day of my life. I am really starting to believe I was never meant to live in this world. I used to believe, I was never meant to live in this time. Now, I just really feel there was never a place for me here.

I find the everyday life in my reality too harsh. Too inconsiderate, it’s all too pointless. I used to want to be things and then as time passed and the things I wanted to be, became out of reach.  I began to believe that someday, someway I would do something like give people the shirt off my back and food off my table. Or, perhaps I would fly somewhere giving up everything to help some village have fresh water or public toilets. Nothing is working out, and I find myself very angry at all of those “inspirational” Facebook graphics that insist I am the author of my story and that if I am not happy with my now/life I can always just change the ending. What a load of crap.

And then the lights came on In the middle of the night
What I should do with my life, How I should spend my time?

Then, those changes I wrote of previously started taking on a positive light. I found a better job. I became extremely fed up with our living situation. I got sickened from bed bugs, and the absolute bottom barrel folk that resided in the run down building. I got sick and tired of it all. With my new job, my pay increased. My hours of work increased. My happiness increased and so much more but then my relationships worsened. The relationship that occupies my every thought and waking moment was becoming worse and worse.

I try to be very thoughtful. If I do something “wrong” I try to correct however small the error. I want things to continually become better but in this instance, I cannot just will or make things get better. I am one person, I am not always whole. It makes me think of something I heard while listening to “Dune” by Frank Herbert on my Audible app for Kindle.

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife — chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: “Now it’s complete because it’s ended here.”

We moved from that hell hole of an existence and have had a clean and peaceful albeit cramped place to rent. March of 2013 brings an even larger and nicer apartment in the same building at the same rental cost (very surprising.) My daughter who I have not seen in almost 6 years will also be visiting Alaska in March. Many, many good things come but yet the road blocks that have caused so much of my grief and pain stand in the road and only become bigger. It is overwhelming. It’s hard to stand with one foot each in a different world and maintain your balance (and sanity.)

I must also admit, it’s my “Friday.” I am off tomorrow and then back to work the next day and off the following. During these “slower” times in my life I experience a variety of feelings. Excitement at the idea I do not need to report anywhere; I am free. Exhaustion and happiness at the prospect of sleeping in and also sadness that a simple day off can actually make me feel so many different things.

I have been working full time at a “real” job since I was 15yrs old. However, I can distinctly remember working since a much earlier age. From cleaning, cooking and taking care of varying drunks in my life to my sisters… little girls who looked to an older little girl for their well being and care.

When I was 15, just before the age of 16 I gave birth to my daughter – who very much needed me. Over the following years I worked, tried to raise her and cared as much as I could for her ailing father who was my abuser. He was sick and I was oblivious to what that kind of sickness could lead to. I dreamed of him just dying for so long that I couldn’t see it was really happening in front of my eyes. I cried a lot when he died.

From the time my mother and father signed over custody to him as our guardian I truly believed that he took care of me. I worked while he quickly stopped working. I paid the bills to “live” in extended stay dumpy motels. I did everything I could to scrape together some money while still doing what I needed to get by while doing that “everything I could” to get by. I am using too many quotation marks in this post, but that’s just how it’s going to be.

I cry almost every night. I have for years. It comes down to a lot of things. My aging body, the decreasing amount of years I have to accomplish “anything” with my life. With only another day passing that I did everything wrong in the past and I can’t do anything right in my future. I cry because of exhaustion, because of heartbreak and sadness that no matter who I talk to.. how active I try to be, who I have in my life I am extremely alone. And, it’s so easy to judge everything I have done wrong in the past and most importantly how I set my daughter up for a life only slightly better than mine at best. It is heartbreaking, it makes me cry at night. Sometimes, it makes me cry in the day.

I wish I could “relax.” I wish I could let completely go and that I could fall back on the super supportive soft and welcoming net of someone who loved me but no such thing exists. I must dance for my supper and no safety net exists for me.

My form fills one side of the bed, it warms the covers and stops the other body in the bed from falling out the other side. I am to speak responses to words when prompted. I am to cook, wash dishes and feed the cat. My body will get up in the morning after warming the bed and acting as a bumper, pack the lunches and send it off to earn an hourly wage in the customer service industry.

My thoughts, words, feelings, input is not needed in my own world.

“We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower”

Or at least I will. I decided (again) that I am going to work/fight harder for everything I want and already have. My determination has been renewed.

I will no longer avoid looking at what I despise to see. My weaknesses will be met with a new determination to overcome.

If I am dreading the dishes, I will do the dishes first. If I hate the scrubbing, I will scrub harder. If I dislike my body, I will learn to love my body (not accept but love.) If the bills are weighing on my mind, I will pay the bills first and skip the luxuries.

I have lacked the strength to end my troubles on a few occasions. Therefore, I will push forward until I either find the strength or I have pushed so far forward that I have no memory of what ailed me before.

I will push and push and when I am exhausted, I will keep pushing that much harder. I will push until I forget why I started pushing and if I am lucky I will be rewarded with the peace I have always sought.

Getting closer and closer to the age of 40 seems to bring back more memories from my childhood than any other time in my life. I remember riding my bicycle on an intensely hot day, several intensely hot days actually. Racing to beat the clock that was ticking at home. It was a clock that was constantly ticking with an enforcer who stood next to it, waiting. Waiting and hoping for me to be late.

I rushed through my childish years, hurrying, hoping not to be caught by the timekeeper. Dreading a new day and wishing for the present moment to pass into nothingness. My best friend in life has been “sleep.” The dark absolute peace of nothing. No consciousness. None of my thoughts, no  existence of myself or anyone else.

I discovered a new way to erase myself in my mid twenties into my early thirties. It became more and more work to keep a certain level of obliviousness. My tolerance for many toxins increased as well as my intolerance for the outside world and my own thoughts. There was a night I drank plenty and took Ambien after Ambien and all would have been “well” if some strange need to survive hadn’t kicked in and took over my body landing me in the emergency room where my stomach was pumped.

I have often commented that for someone who would like to end it all, I sure try really hard to make it day after day. I tire greatly of this repetitiveness in my life. I am tired of growing older and still facing such similar problems of the past in my everyday life. I have found new ideas growing in my mind. New “plans.” Still trying to solve the  mathematic word problem of my life. If Linda is 36 and gets up everyday at 7am and works till 6pm while balancing a budget and trying to stuff all the hurt in heart into an invisible box, at what age will she finally die? … or something like that.

I stood at the sink washing dishes tonight and I remembered when I was about 12 yrs of age. I was  accused of eating a cheap fast food hamburger, because I was told I was fat at the time – therefore logic dictates that I had eaten it. A long leather belt was pulled out and I was told to drop my pants and hold on to the sink because I was going to be beaten until I was sick and threw it up. I said “I understand.” I understood that he had to do what he had to do to me. He was sick. And I did get sick but I didn’t throw up the hamburger, instead I took it out of the back of the fridge where it had gotten pushed aside and I gave it to him. All of that week I had a note from home excusing me out of PE because I was black and blue from my lower back down to the backs of my knees. I understood what he had to do, he was sick but what I don’t understand is how I am still so willing to understand other’s and what they must do, what they need and how I can’t seem to put myself before those things.