Thinking........always a dangerous activity....part 1....

I think I wrote a while back about the analogy I had heard of going from say Las Vegas to Los Angeles and how even if you did not know the exact route, if you knew the basic direction, and you keep going in that direction, then you will eventually get there.  The second portion of that analogy is that if you set out in that direction, and then change your mind and start heading in another direction, and then change your mind and start heading back, and so on, you could essentially be lost forever, turning in circles and never actually getting anywhere.  To way to get somewhere is to keep heading in that general direction.  It is sticking with a single decision that keeps a person moving in the chosen direction, and making each decision based on that initial decision.  If you always override your past decision in favor of a new one, you end up floundering in the wilderness, unsure of exactly where you are, how you got there, or where you are going. 

So, you may be wondering why I am thinking about that...well, I have had many pockets in my life of that aimless wandering without a real goal in mind.  I have never really liked those times.  And I feel like I am in one at this point, and have been for a couple of years.  So I am going to try to put some of my mental meanderings into words.

In 2003, I spent 7 months (May 1 to a few days before Thanksgiving) volunteering as in many ways an interim research director at ECHO (www.echonet.org) in North Fort Myers, FL.  Their research director was leaving to move back to Canada in June and his replacement research director was not able to be there until October.  So they needed someone to learn what research was going on, and to keep it moving forward, to be able to bring the new director up to speed.  That way there would be no break in the research, no stopping and starting.  It was an amazing experience.  ECHO is an amazing organization, an amazing blend of science and spirituality.  Living with others of like mind, working side by side with people dedicated to "...using science and technology to help the poor..." which was the core of the mission statement when I was there.  The revised mission statement is "ECHO's Mission is to equip people with resources and skills to reduce hunger and improve the lives of the poor. "

It was the most fulfilling 7 months of my life.  But volunteering full time is a not an easy to sustain lifestyle, as income is a necessary part of our culture.  But I felt very honored to have the support, financial, emotional, and prayerful, of all of the people who helped me be able to do that work.  As I was nearing the end of my time at ECHO, I was trying to decide what to do next, what my next step would be. 

I am a very visual thinker (I tend to think in concepts and visuals).  As I was meditating on my path, the visual that came to me was like standing in a clearing in a forest.  It was a small, sunny beautiful clearing, surrounded by a fence with many gates.  From the clearing, like spokes of a wheel were many paths going in many different directions.  All looked inviting, all looked clear, but I could not see more than a few paces down any path.  I had a sense that I could choose any one of the gates, and by opening one the others would be locked.  It was a pivotal decision making time, but I had no idea where any of those gates would lead.  I try not to waste my time wondering how my life would have been if I had chosen a different path.  At the time, there were some easy to see paths from the point that I was at, but with each one there were so many unknowns.  I chose to return to Ithaca at that time, to return to the career field where I had the most training and experience (at that time plant genomics).  And to return to where I had my church,friends, family, and other known  entities.  In short, it was the least risk path.  I knew it when I chose it, I knew it was the path of least risk.  I also knew it was not the most potentially fulfilling of the paths that lay before me, both of the ones I could see the next steps in or the ones that were just a vague idea.

I returned to Ithaca, got a position working in agriculture at Cornell again, and decided to settle in to work towards another dream of mine--adopting children with special needs.  So I bought a house, and then I met A.  I really had never had a spousal type relationship, so this was a new experience.  I put my adoption plans on hold, and developed a relationship with A.  We had a ceremony solidifying our commitment a year later, and revived the mutually agreed upon path to adoption, with somewhat different parameters than I originally planned, as I was planning on foster to adopt, knowing that most foster children return to their parents (which is normally a very good thing).  So I was prepared to be a safe haven and support for children whose home lives had become unsafe, and to help them while their parents found stable ground.  But A felt that getting attached and losing them was more than A could handle.  So we chose to do straight adoption, looking at children internationally, kids who were already freed for adoption in foster care, and private agencies.   We began the path to adopt a beautiful boy named Rustam from Russia.  He is and always will be the first son of my heart.


Rustam still resides in a place in my heart, and will always be there.  He was my one armed bandit.  He had hanhart syndrome. The amazing child with only one arm, and completely fused finger on the good arm, as well as fused toes, and some heart and kidney issues.  We had a couple of videos of this amazing child.  He was so smart and capable.  He could use his little lobster hand so well, and loved playing ball, running around, and just being a kid.  You could tell from the videos that he was a strong willed little guy, interested in exploring his world, and willing to exert his own control over his life.  He probably would have been a challenge to parent, but strong willed children usually become successful leaders as adults if their strength can be channeled properly.  So are very worth the challenge.


For a few months, we focused on talking to specialists about his issues, preparing his bedroom, and we even had the chance to send some things to him with another family who was adopting a child from that orphanage.  We had completed all of the paperwork, gotten all of the clearances, and had been raising the money for the travel expenses.  We were awaiting a travel date for the first trip to go to Russia and meet him, sign the first round of papers, have court, etc....  Then we got the call that another family in Russia had committed to adopting him.  That is the risk of international adoption.  IF a family there chooses a child they take precedence over someone who has not yet been there.  So he was no longer available...We were broken hearted, but were bolstered by the fact that he would have a family, a mom to tuck him in and give him kisses. 

We grieved but decided to continue with our plans to adopt internationally and selected two little guys from a different section of Russia--one who had been a preemie and one who had some issues with his hips and leg length.  We redid our paperwork  for the new region and began preparing for the adoption of Kostya and Andre.  My dad got his passport so that he could be an extra set of hands during the process and the travel to bring the boys home.  We altered the kids room (added a crib for little Kostya), and began getting toys that were appropriate for a slightly older child than we had planned on as Andre was 4.  While we still grieved the loss of Rustam as our son, we were committed to bringing home these two little ones.  As our original home study and immigration clearances were for up to two children, those did not have to be redone.  So paperwork did not take too long to redo.  A couple of months later, as we awaited a travel date, we got another call of bad news.  Andre had been taken into foster care in Russia and the family wanted to keep him and someone had stepped forward from Russia to adopt Kostya.  So another major loss.  It was like getting hit with a shot gun blast, as my heart was still an open sore from losing Rustam. 

But we were firm in our commitment to give a child with special needs from Russia, as children with special needs are placed in mental institutions at age 5 and are not available for adoption after that.  They live out their lives, like the US used to treat people with disabilities--hidden away from sight, treated poorly due to the belief that they are essentially of lesser value than "regular" human beings.  Not given the chance to grow, learn, and become productive members of society.  So, we lifted up our broken hearts, and committed one more time, to a little boy who was in yet another region of Russia.  As many of our clearances had expired we used a sizable portion of our saved funds (which had been dipped into for the second attempt) to redo all of our paperwork for yet another region.  This time we were hoping to bring home Kirril (whom were were going to rename Korey).  He had hydrocephalus and possible mild CP. 

We did not prepare for him.  We were too gun shy and our hearts were broken.  We spent a month doing things, only to learn that our funds were too depleted to have enough for the first trip.  We decided after a few weeks, that we were in no condition to weather another loss, and we now needed more time to raise more money.  We had already lost over $8,000 to the process of international adoption, most of which was spend on all of the document preparation, getting the right seals and stamps, translation, and then redoing it a couple more times.  So we regretfully stepped back from Kirril, something that makes me sad to this day, as I followed his picture for a long time, and learned that even though a couple of families traveled to meet him, both families turned him down.  He most likely ended up in a mental institution when he turn 5.  Having been hurt by the losses so many times and lost so much money, we decided to concentrate on  adopting from the US. 

I will have to continue this story tomorrow.  my little man J had aquatic PT today and it is tiem for me to head over to school to pick him up for that....

Attempting to use mobile posting.

New name and some of J's history...

Okay, so while the blog address is staying the same, I have decide to change the blog title to more appropriately reflect the content of the blog.  While I originally set out to chronicle my daily actions toward losing weight, it has turned into a blog chronicling the transformation of my life in a multitude of areas.  So I have changed the name to better reflect that focus, which is much broader.

Okay, so Today I am going to talk a bit about my son's (J--age 4 & 3/4) journey, as we had a slightly shocking eye appointment today, and I just, for myself, want to process it, thus I will tell some of his story, mainly his medical stuff, focusing on his eyes after the initial history.

J was born a preemie (12 weeks early) to a 25 year old birthmom who had had 9 pregnancies (5 live births, 3 abortions, and J--probably more since then but I only know of a teeny tiny piece of her story).  J had no prenatal care prior to being born and about two to three weeks before his early birth she had gone to the doctor seeking an abortion, but was told she was past the 24 week mark and thus too far along.  She arrived at the hospital a couple weeks after that in labor with him stuck breech in the birth canal.  They had to perform an emergency c-section to get him out, as he was being crushed by the contractions.  He was bruised all over his body from the contractions crushing him, he was cyanotic, and had breathed in meconium, in addition to being nearly 3 months too early.  His apgar score at 1 minute was 1 (zero is dead).  We had the chance to talk to the doctor that delivered him, and she said when she pulled him out she did not think he would make it.  But oddly, this little fighter managed to have a 5 minute apgar score above 7.  So the doctors and nurses were amazing at reviving him, and he had an amazing will to live. He as just shy of 2 lbs 10 oz.  His birthmom contacted an adoption agency that day and arranged to sign him over to the agency.  As a single mom with five boys at home already, and with his likely daunting issues, she knew she could not take care of him and that someone else could.

Josiah had heart surgery at three days old, to close a hole in his heart that was normal for a developing baby in the womb but that needed to close with him outside the womb, as oxygenated blood was mixing too much with depleted blood, thus reducing the ability to keep his body oxygenated. He was on a blown oxygen as his lungs were not ready to breathe well enough, he later was slowly weaned off the supplemental oxygen during his 2 1/2 months in the hospital.  During the first two weeks, Josiah developed a Grade III brain bleed (intraventricular hemorrhage--IVH) on the left side of his brain and later a Grade IV IVH in the right ventricle.  As the chance of death is over 50% for one grade III or IV bleed, the fact that he survived both a grade III and a grade IV on opposite sides is incredible. A grade III causes damage by increasing ventricle size due to the added fluid from the blood, and a grade IV causes damage by both increasing ventricle size and by blood actually absorbing into the brain tissue itself, severely damaging the brain tissue. On top of that, he developed post-hemorrhagic hydrocephalus, which is a build up of cerebral spinal fluid in his ventricles which puts a great amount of pressure on the brain from the inside, which in an infant forces the skull to open wider in an effort for the body to save the brain from being crushed between the ventricles and the skull. 


We brought him home at 2 1/2 months old directly from the NICU. He had a laundry list of diagnoses including: 1) Prematurity, 2) post-hemorrhagic  hydrocephalus 3) GER (gastroesophogeal Reflux) 4) ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) 5) Anemia of prematurity 6) neutropenia 7) Reactive Airway Disease 8) failed newborn hearing screening (twice) and 9) I can't remember what the ninth on the the list of 9 was now, I have it at home somewhere . So basically he was a child who could potentially be blind (ROP), deaf (failed hearing screens), on a feeding tube (narrowly dodged a nissen wrap thanks to a GI doc willing to trust us to do the hard work of feeding him every hour with thicken formula and working hard to get enough food into his body without it ending up in his lings--the first 8 months were hell, as he had to be fed every hour and had to remain upright for 30-45 minutes following each feed--try to imagine how life is like that), with risk of severe CP, MR, and a host of other issues.  We were told at the hospital that it is hard to give a prognosis, but to be prepared that he may be just barely functioning, may never roll over, may never speak, may never be able to do anything (BOY did HE blow that out of the water).

So, that is his basic beginning, to lead into what I want to talk about today--his vision.  Josiah has been going to the eye doctor since he was a tiny infant (in between trips to the ICU, the eye doctor even visited him in the ICU one time so that he would not miss his visit).  So for the first few months he went every couple of weeks to ensure the the ROP was resolving and the blood vessels were not getting too out of whack.  The reason they have them go so often, is that with ROP, the blood vessels grow incorrectly and can actually grow abnormally to the center of the eye instead of on top of the retina.  Retinal detachment can occur, causing blindness.  But if caught early enough they cauterize the blood vessels and stop the destruction of the eye, but that also results in impaired vision.  Anyway, we went every couple of weeks and though the blood vessels were growing slightly abnormally they kept growing int he right direction.  Appointments were then moved to every month, then every 3 months, and by 14 months old, his eyes were developed and the ROP resolved on its own. 

The second problem with his vision then came into focus ( :P ).  With the brain bleeds and hydrocephalus (all that pressure), there was some damage to the optic nerve on the right eye (right side brain damage causes the physical body problems on the left side, but the eye on the same side as the damage). He was down to seeing the eye doctor every 6 months. He was diagnosed with both far-sightedness--so he can see things farther away okay, but up close is blurry.  And with strambizmus (lazy eye) on the right side.  He got glasses that he needed to wear 3-4 hours a day, and we began patching the good eye to force him to use his weaker eye.  As he got older he would remove the patches, so we moved up to eye drops that cause the left eye (his good eye) to be blurry, thus making him use the right eye.  He did fairly well, and by the time he was 2 1/2, his second pair of glasses corrected the strambizmus well enough that patchign adn drops were stopped.  We were cleared to see the doctor one a year and have him wear his glasses 5-6 hours a day, especially when he was doing table work (coloring, puzzles, playdough, etc...).  Last year's eye appointment went well, his eye was still weak but seem to have stabilized, we did not need a new prescription as they had only slightly changed, and he was to continue to wear his glasses 5-6 hours a day.  Which he usually did at school.

Well, over the past few months he has been growing more and more resistant to wearing his glasses, and within the past few weeks outright refusing to wear them, even at school.  So it was time for his appointment, and today's eye appointment was a shocker.  Both eyes now require vision correction at all times (though is left eye is in the regular range, and has not changed too much), but his right eye has deteriorated horribly.  He can not see much at all, he could not even see the large E on the chart.  Technically, he is blind in that right eye now.  The doctor said probably he has not been wearing his glasses because his eyes have changed enough that the lens may make his vision worse.  So new ones have been ordered.  And we are going to implement an aggressive semi-patching routine with a high prescription strength lens on the right to try and get as much vision as we can.  We will be going back to the every 3 months visits to the eye doctor.  But he said there may not be anything that can be done.  With the brain bleeds he had, and the fact that we did do so much early on to strengthen that eye, it is very probably that the damage to the optic nerve was too much, and that it will continue to diminish.  But he is not willing to give up just yet.  The early patching and blurry drops should have corrected it.  He said they don't like to talk about the possibility of it not getting better until around 5 or 6.  Which is why I am just now hearing that this is a possibility.  As he has not been wearing his glasses these past couple months, that could be why it is such a drastic change from last year. 

I was not prepared for this news, as I really thought his eye issues had stabilized and we were just at the management phase.  But alas, that is not the case.  It is possible that he may end up legally blind in that right eye, and there is nothing we can do but try to stop the degradation as much as possible by forcing him to use the right eye.  It is going to be an interesting summer... 

Day 81--Still breathing...

So, today was originally the day by which I had planned to move much closer to my weight loss goal, but alas, it is a slower process.  There is much that I started out with doing correctly, that I was unable to create a good habit with.  And many other things that I have done well that are improving my life as a whole:

WALKING:  I am walking 1-2 miles almost every weekday, which is a huge plus all around.  It helps keep the muscles in my legs feeling good, it helps strengthen my heart and lungs, it releases tension throughout my body, it uses some of my excess stored energy, it helps my body be better at using insulin, and it helps me clear my mind and have a stronger sense of peace. 

BETTER FOOD CHOICES: I have cut out a significant portion of fast food from my weekly diet.  For a while I was having a McD meal at least 4-5 times a week (not good health wise or $$ wise). And now I only go to the golden arches about once a month.  I have been eating more yogurt and oatmeal, and less sausage egg and Cheese sandwiches.  I still need to continue this transition, but it is in a good progress.  I'd say I am past the half and half mark, so the oatmeal/yogurt or small bagel/yogurt is beginning to be predominate.  I am much more likely to be eating turkey on WW with a piece of fruit or a V8 for lunch instead of greasy burgers and fries (which also helps in the $$ department as it is so much easier to bring my lunch).  I am getting 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables everyday.  I am drinking at least 10 cups of water every day.

FEELING BETTER:  I am feeling better--about myself, my body, my life, and my overall situation.  Even though there are still many things not where I would like them to be, the past 80 days of focusing on transformation have been very beneficial on my perspective.  I may not have lost 80 pounds in 80 days.  But I am 20 pounds lighter than when I started this journey, but more that the 20 pounds, I feel better about my body.  I have more energy than I did, I mentally feel more lovable and real again, and overall, I appreciate all of the amazing things that my body does.  I have even been taking steps to take better care of my self inside and out.  I got contacts again which I wear about 1/2 the time, and I feel better when I do because I love my eyes, and I appreciate them.  I got my hair cut into a totally different style last week, and I love it because it is fresh and new, not the same style I have had most of my life (I mean seriously, I have had the same hairstyle (a bob) 90% of the time since I was 5 years old  with only short jumps into other styles, so this hair cut is new for me).

BETTER FRUIT:  I am bearing better fruit now than I was 80 days ago.  My children are happier and more at peace because I am happier and  more at peace (it is amazing how that works).  I am applying for real jobs again, and have regained the confidence that I need to trust myself to be able to have a real, full time, higher paying, more responsibility laden job again.  And not only applying, but actually looking forward to working and having colleagues again.  I trust that my kids will be okay without me having to 100% available for them at all times. My faith is increasing, and my desire to really rebuild my relationship with my God is growing.  So much as happened over the past few years, and I feel like I have been walking around in the dark, bumping into things, and now I feel like I have found the light switch.  My exploration of God and different spiritual and philosophical paths are coming back into an actual way of life again, rather than just something to study.  I am more at peace, more joyful, more faithful, more patient, more kind, more loving, and have more self control.  I am working towards being a good person in my daily walk, and re-developing the gentleness that I used to have in abundance.  I feel like a tree that had been going barren for a while, but now those fruits are beginning to grow again, slowly but surely.  And I have gotten into a better mental, emotional, physical,and spiritual place from which I can tend my tree of life so that it can bear strong, wholesome fruit.  I can feel God again, not just knowing in my head, but knowing in my heart.

There are still may things I need to work on.

For the weight loss, I need to continue to change my habits from eating unhealthy things to eating healthy ones.  I need to take on and tackle the problems I have with portion control, as that is probably one of the biggest culprits in my weight battle. I need to work on the timing of my eating as well. I need to continue to increase my physical activity levels, and add in some more muscle building and aerobic work.

For my financial health, I need to continue to find income generating opportunities, and hopefully one of the jobs that I have interviewed for will turn into a job.  I also need to continue to make good financial decisions, and not let myself get swayed by others or by wants that are not needs, or wants that are not practical at the moment (I have no problem with wanting and getting what you want, but it has to be within reason given current situations).

For spiritual health, I will continue my studies and exploration of what others have found helpful and will continue to incorporate various spiritual practices into my daily life, keeping what brings me closer to God and leaving behind those which are not right for me. 

For mental/emotional health, I will get back to my exploration of EFT and other tapping techniques, as they are extremely helpful in reducing stress and overcoming emotional blocks.  Also, i will return to my commitment to do meditation on a daily basis, and would like to incorporate some movement and sound based techniques that I have heard are very centering.

So I hope you will continue to follow me on my next 80 days of transformative path walking.  Yes I often take baby steps, and sometimes even take a coupe of steps int eh wrong direction, but overall, it is an amazing journey (at least for me).

Interviews, Incomes, and Ideas....

Well, I had an interview via phone today with a company out near my ex's family.  it seemed to go well and I should hear by the end of the week or early next week if I am invited in for a face to face interview with the next person up the chain.  If that goes well there will be a final interview with the director of that division of the company.  And if that goes well, I may have a fair paying job, so a move of nearly 5 hours would have to commence and we would have to start the process of finding the right schools for the kids, and hopefully getting into an area where they are easy to work with as a team and not an "us and them" attitude school district.  But anyway, I made it to the first step in a potential job process.  Getting back to my career after four years away from it is an exciting possibility.

 As much as I like the way the schools have worked out for the kids here and that I enjoy being with family, and enjoying the peace and serenity of the mountains, there are just no jobs in my field here.  And the jobs that I could get outside my field barely pay above minimum wage, and few are year round.  So, I while I am doing fine now with the driving thing, that ends with the end of the summer school year in August.  I do not yet make enough in my writing to consistently support my family.  I grew up in a situation where we lived hand to mouth, barely making ends meet even with growing most of our own food, heating with wood, and not having things like hot water or consistent heat.  I know what it is like, as a child, to not be able to do or have the things that other kids have or do (and I am not talking big things).  While I do not begrudge the way I grew up, it made me a more resourceful person, and helped me to appreciate what I had and do have now.  I do not want my children and myself to live in the constant state of extreme stress that it can cause.  As unlike growing up, I rent instead of own and have no way to raise chickens for eggs or have a large enough vegetable garden to grow a years worth of food for preserving.  So the stress would be incredible in meeting basic needs of shelter and food, in addition to luxuries like heat, hot water, and electricity.  (I was 15 years old before we had hot water at my house, most of my childhood water was heated in pots on the wood stove and poured into the tub for bathing, or the sink for washing dishes, etc..).  Yes, I could spend some time fixing the old trailer we moved out of last year and thus live essentially rent free with a small wood stove to supplement heat, and I COULD make each dollar stretch as far as I have to.  People, friends and family members, do it all the time.  It is amazing how little you can actually survive on (my last 3 years adjusted gross incomes were less than $10K as an annual income for a family of 3, so it can be done, its just very stressful).  And if I have to do it (as we had to for various reasons), then of course I will and will find the joy and appreciate that I need to in that situation.  But if I don't need to do that...if the kid's additional care needs no longer NEED me to be a stay at home mom....if I am qualified for a higher paying job and can find one....If I can move to an area with more opportunities and still have loved ones around to help with the kids (that is the biggest thing, as you need family and friends support around)....if I can find a better situation than just surviving...shouldn't I do that? 

So, my idea is to blanket out my resume (more of a Circum Vita as it is four pages long these days and list only selected things, so it really is a CV not a resume) to a wide variety of jobs that I am qualified for, would enjoy doing, and are in an area that makes sense on a number of levels.  I also think I will pursue the idea of going back to school through a couple of programs that I still have time to apply for.  Having been out of the loop for so long at a mid-level career experience level makes it difficult to reenter the workforce without going a different avenue.  So I have a bunch of ideas that I am working on and sending out feelers to see what comes of it.  Of course, I plan to continue writing, and hopefully that will eventually translate into a self supporting hobby.

can you really lose...

Can you really lose 80 pounds in 80 days? Well, yes, I believe anything is possible.  Does that mean that I will lose 80 pounds in the first 80 days of this blog?  No, as I am working on transformation of my whole life, not just focusing on changing that one (albeit very big and pressing) issue in my life.  I am not fat because I eat too much and do not exercise enough ( that is only part of the symptoms which need to be treated along with the cause).  If I were 10 or 20 pounds overweight, I might be able to just say "whoa, my eating and exercise habits are out of whack, I have to change those." and be able to get back on track.

When you are twice the size you should be, as I am, there is a LOT more going on than just poor eating and exercise habits.  I am not saying those are not part of it, as obviously they are.  But there are more intense underlying causes that have created the poor eating and exercise habits in the first place.    life, at least my life, is very spiracle in nature.  Most people consider life to be cyclical (though some see it as linear, which is just not in my ability to see, as things tend to repeat until you deal with them), but I see my life more as a spiral.  With a circular cycle, you just go round and round, in the same spot.  But with a spiral you are always moving forward, but the edges of your spiral are in particular issues.  So you deal with part of it and move forward dealing with other things, and eventually you come back to address the issues again, but not from the same vantage point as you were before.  Each time you move through that given area of space (sorry, I picture it in my mind as my spiral path intercepting part of a large nebula and having to successfully manage the problems that arise in order to move to a place in the spiral that is not touching the nebula--if you watch Star Trek or any kind of space traveling show, you understand that each nebula is different and you never know what joys or trial a nebula will bring), you deal with the issue that it holds.  Once you have successfully dealt with all of the issues that are negatively impacting your thoughts, spirit, or actions (most of them subconscious), you will be able to move past that nebula and those issues and not have to keep spiralling through it.  Some nebula's are huge and you encounter them multiple times in your life, and others you encounter and move past after just a couple of rings of the spiral journey.

My spiral has the flexibility of a slinky, instead of a nice firm forward path, I seem to jump all over the place, like someone set the slinky on the top step a long winding staircase and in just keeps flipping and flipping.  That is called the curse of indecision....NOT a healthy way to live. 

So, how did this spiraling journey of mine take me from a skinny little kid (like 5-6 years old) to an very large teenager (overweight by 12, obese by 15), to (I hate this term but it is the technical term) morbidly obese adult.  I am now 36 years old, and have been in that latter category for over half of my life (yes for about a year and a half in my mid-20's I was in the middle category, and I was nearing that middle category again a few years ago before I married and adopted two kids, but that soon turned back into this MO category). 

You don't become MO merely by acquiring bad habits, because with bad habits you eventually wake up and go "Damn, what am I doing to myself!?!"  and you make the commitment to switch to better habits.  While at the core, the biological reason that I am--- {({morbidly obese})} (boy that makes a booming echo in my head when I say it, like a deep James Earl Jones voice echo reverberating off the hill sides (yes I made up my own symbols for booming echo {({echo})}) is that I have historically had poor eating and exercise habits that dominate over any healthy eating and exercise habits I try to motivate myself to.  In order to lose the weight that I need to lose, I need to develop, at my core, healthy eating and exercise habits.  I need to increase my metabolisms ability to burn energy, I need to increase my body's ability to use insulin properly (as it is biochemically extremely difficult to lose weight when you have high blood sugar and rogue insulin that your body is not using, because the resistant insulin keeps the fat burning switches from being turned on in your body, which is why it is so hard for people with type 2 diabetes to lose weight especially once they go on medication which increases the amount of insulin so that the glucose can be used and provide necessary energy to the cells (a very important thing) though only mildly helps with the problem of getting the resistant insulin into the cells, thus locking the body out of fat burning mode without a lot more exercise than would normally be required--it really is a catch 22 in a lot of ways).

Anyway, somehow this blog is just a  mental meandering of all sorts of things that pop out of my brain.   Anyway, As I have been focusing on transformation in my life, looking at weight loss, I believe that God (or whatever you may call that source of all, the universal mind, the powerful consciousness, the Source....) God hears my call to treat my physical body with more honor, heads my call to move towards overall health and wholeness in body soul and mind.  And thus my slinky like spiral journey is being moved through the nebulas that I most need to address and correct, to bring to a state of reconciliation and wholeness.  I think that is why my journey has brought me back home, has opened my eyes tot he conflicts that I have with those beings that I started this life walk with, my family.  I can not transform anyone but myself, and I have no need to.  It is my own reactions, my own subconscious thoughts and feelings, my own definitions of myself that I need to address.  The proverbial plank in my own eye that makes it hard for me to see what is really in front of me, and how my actions and attitudes create the problems in my life.  Over the past decade plus, I have dealt with numerous life transforming issues--trust issues, fear issues, sexuality issues, faith issues, confidence issues, etc....  Through that I have come to recognize my strengths and be proud of the person that God created.  I have been able to look at my weaknesses and be confident that is okay to ask for help in areas that I do not excel, and to offer help in areas where I do excel.  But even with working towards a sense of greater trust in myself, in God, in life as a whole; even with reducing my overall sense of fear (something I am still working on, as we all are, most people just call it worry or anxiety, but at its root it is fear); even with coming to grips with my sexuality and dealing with some past traumas int hat regard and coming to embrace all parts of myself; even with growing from a borrowed faith (which I believe is what the faith we grow up with is) and into a faith and understanding of and with God that is personal; and even with a tremendous increase in my confidence that I am a capable, able amazing Creation--even with having addresses at a very deep level those extremely important aspects of life, I have yet to overcome the two massive manifestations of problems that have plagued my life and kept me in the illusion of separateness from who I really Am and separate from God (because if you are; living with the illusion that  you separate from who YOU are, you are also separate from the Great I Am).  For me, those two murky, difficult to break areas of separation are my physical body healthy (namely my weight issue) and my financial stability.

So, my quest for transformation continues,.  I have experienced great transformation in many areas, but for some reason these two areas are stuck.  I believe it is because these two areas have deep, subconscious roots that go back to very early childhood, back to the times when my sense of self in this physical manifestation of life was forming.  These conflicts with family, if I let them go unthought out, will be meaningless.  I need to look very closely at what I was thinking, feeling, and saying deep down inside myself, and as I do that, i can start to uncover, release, and correct some of the root maladaptive thinking patterns that have given rise to my current habits.

To change my present I need to learn from the past so that I can have and provide a better future.  One thing I have learned with this conflict with my mom is that I really have a deep seated belief that my mom can not understand me.  I have a child right now that I have a lot of difficulty comprehending. 

I can not change the things that were said to me when i as a child.  My mother loved me then and loves me now even though she had and has trouble understanding me, and she did the best she knew how to do.  She wanted me to "be normal" and have a better life, which she thought that "being normal" would bring.  But it did not bring that, for me it brought pain, it brought the fear of being different, it brought the feeling that I was wrong, and I think that part of what I am trying to hide behind my layers of excess adipose tissue is this sense of "I am not normal."  I am not blaming my mother, she was acting out of love in trying to help me be more "normal".  And I recognize that.  Part of the reason I recognize it more poignantly now is that there are so many days my brain scream "why can't you just be a little more normal!"  when I am dealing with my eldest son.  Note, my brain screams it not my mouth, because I know how much those words would hurt.  My son does the best he can, and he is an amazing, intelligent, unique person.  And as I have been realizing lately, maybe I have come home so that I could realize that I need to do something different for my son than my mother tried to do for me.  Out of love, she wanted me to be more normal, more like all the other kids.  but I am not.  I am unique, I have an eclectic sense of the world and of life and of myself, I am not linear or cyclic, I am not a square peg or a round hole.  Not amount of trying to "make me be normal" is going to work, as I am atypical in many ways.  In some ways I am sure it helped, it helped me develop the ability to look through other people's eyes and try to act in a way that was socially and culturally acceptable (I know it took a while, my bright green polyester pants and stained peach tee shirt--my favorite outfit when I was in like 5th grade--was not exactly in keeping with the norm though I never understood why you have to look a certain way, shouldn't you just be able to wear what is comfortable?).  But in an effort to help me see the world as others saw it, I do not have the social difficulties that my father contends with (brilliant, amazing and eccentric man that he is).  My mother also helped me expand my inborn sense of empathy for others, to feel with them what they feel, and to use that to try to help them feel better. 

My son G has a strong ability to feel energy, but he has no idea how to use it in a helpful way.  He is an energy magnet, anything high energy attracts him.  Unlike the ability to feel the differences in emotion (like my youngest son, I (and most people) feel when someone is sad, happy, angry, etc... and can read those emotions)  G on the other hand, feels energy, excitement or sorrow, anger or fear--if it is an emotion that emits high levels of energy he is drawn to that person or situation and does what he can to feed the energy.  Now this is great when someone is excited and joyous, as he can feed that and grow it for himself and the other person.  But it is not good when it is a sad or angry energy,a s he feeds that too, and tries to grow that energy.  Which means if he finds a person that screams when he annoys them enough (usually either a younger child or a girl his own age) he will bother and bother and tease and provoke them until they scream, and then his need for energy is satisfied.  This makes him a very difficult person in social circles.  These are the times that I want to scream "why can't you just be normal for a couple of hours". 

These are the times that the growing insight into my own childhood (and how my mother tried to help me be a person she could understand better) begins to makes sense of where I am.  I know the sense of self loathing that comes with not being the "right" kind of person.  I was (and still am I suppose by some people) labeled as over-sensitive, a dreamer, or thinking too much.  However, I have learned that I am sensitive enough to care for other people, especially social outcasts, and to be able to love a person and not give up on them even when many others have.  I dream big dreams, and know that the ability to dream big creates a better world for me and for my children, and that I can help other people figure out what their dreams are for thier lives, what they are being called to deep down.  And I think--a LOT.  Some people say they have a two or three track mind, that keeps rolling through, I have counted over twelve different thought processes going on in my conscious mind at a given time, Only God knows how many in the subconscious mind.  I lose track after that because that observer part of me usually get swifted away by one train of through or another.  So year, I DO think a lot.  And yes, if I do not control the train station, chaos can ensue, reducing my productivity.  But when I am mindful of the tasks at hand, and can seperate the tracks that I need to focus on from the others (allowing them to run uninhibited int eh background), then I can get an amazing amount of things done.  

Okay, so anyway, I kind of like this just random mental meandering, allowing my thoughts to go wherever they want to as I type.  I guess one of the things I am trying to say is that as I go through this loop which is helping me see some of the roots of my sense of self, and how my family played the roles they did, doing what they thought was best out of love, and out of a sense of wanting me to have a good life, it helps me to let go (or at least start work on letting go) some of the negative feelings I have about myself and some of the untrue perceptions I have about my how my family thinks of me.  I look at my son, and I see myself in him.  not that we are a lot alike, but that we are in similar situations--not fitting well into anyone's idea of who we should be, just each being our own person.  He, like me, has issues with fitting in in social situations.  He has trouble understanding what is asked of him.  He has trouble understand what he is doing that is not correct.  A couple of big differences between us is that I WANTED to fit in and tried really hard to do what was asked of me, and quench my uniqueness.  He does NOT try to fit in and actively tried hard to do exactly what you asked him not to do (the joys of a child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder).  He had a hard start to life.  He was prenatally exposed to drugs and alcohol.  He was severely neglected and abused in his birth home for the first 13 months of his life.  He bounced through 5 different foster homes before he turned three years old.  He gave up.  He was failure to thrive for a while.  He gave up as a toddler, in order to protect what he had left of his infant sense of self, he drew inward and gave up.  I had a loving family, who loved me even though I looked like a green lizard thing when I was born (that is what  my dad said :p).  My family was young and economically poor, but they loved me.  I did not give up. 

I had a great advantage over my son.  Even though I was quirky, and nothing like a social butterfly, I had a supportive and loving family that did what they thought was best for me, even things that I found painful.  I can see in hindsight, that those growing pains did help me (trust me it would be very easy to lose myself in my thoughts and stay there if I had not been shown how amazing the rest of the people in the world were too, and how to relate in ways that build strong and lasting friendships--my mother's gift, not my father's).  It helps me to look at this and to figure out how to be a parent to him in a way that celebrates his uniqueness while at the same time helping him to relate to people in a more meaningful and socially acceptable way.  I have found my frustration with him growing lately, and my patience shrinking.  I believe that nothing happens by accident, and that this period of time and the conflicts that are arising are happening because there is something that I need to learn.  I have been seeking wholeness, seeking a stronger connection with the Great I Am (God), seeking a transformation out of my unhealthy thinking and behavioural patterns so that I can truly be the amazing person that I was created to be, instead of hiding behind my shells of excess fat and financial stresses.  In seeking honestly, I encounter a number of challenges.  And I think working thorough these challenges is helping me understand myself better and understand God better.  And understand the path, the journey that I am on better too. 

So can you lose 80 pounds in 80 days?  Sure.  Will I prove it to you by losing 80 pounds in the first 80 days of this blog.  Not, as that is not my intention.  My intention was never to prove it, my intention was and is to share my path of transformation, my journey in real time as it is happening.  And yes, I actually do expect to lose 80 pounds in 80 days, I just don't know which 80 days that will happen over, so keep following along and we will find out together...

Warm days and clean carpets and family roles...

So it has been lovely weather (aside for the persistent rain or drizzle every few hours).. The kids and I actually wore shorts yesterday for the first time.  Today was touch chillier, so even though G and I had shorts on early in the day I had him change into pants for the afternoon.  The kids were so cute this morning, J was sitting on the toy tractor and G was pushing him around the dandelion filled yard ( I LOVE dandelions, seriously, I think they are happy and beautiful).  So it was a gorgeous morning. 

Starting last night and finishing up this morning, I empties all the furniture out of the living room (except my blanket chest and some stuff I had in the corner behind it as no one has been in that area for months and I had no where to move it to).  I did all this so that the floor was ready for a steam cleaning.  Magic Carpet, owned by my mom & step father, did a beautiful job.  My step father is very good at making hopelessly messy carpets look 1000X better.  So, aside from a problem with miscommunication causing grief between my mother and I, it was a good day. 

For some reason I have miscommunication problems with family, most other people in my life seem to understand me, but if email is involved (and half the time even face to face conversation) there is bound to be miscommunication somewhere, and this one started our as a miscommunication face to face (talking about a particular thing which related to carpet cleaning, but somehow the two got tied together), over five different conversations (where I had hoped to unhook the two ideas), and I tried to do one final clear up via email to my step-father, and made it go from bad to worse--so there are days I feel like i am cursed when it comes to communication with my family.  Because how can something as simple as discussing a carpet to be cleaned lead to five confusing conversations and a final email that is meant to clear up the confusion, thus causing hurt, anger and more confusion.  But, well it is family, and I will keep trying to express myself more clearly. 

I am loquacious (in case you hadn't noticed by the volume of my writings), and so I do have a tendency to be confusing (as so many different things relate to each other in my mind, but not in other peoples minds, and I tend to talk about more than one idea at a time--which leads to the unplanned wedding of a couple of different things, which I have trouble undoing.  So I need to keep working on myself and trying to find a way to communicate with them more effectively.  Perhaps other have had issues with my communication but have just never reacted drastically to it.  Most people tell me I have good communication skills and convey my thoughts well.

I suppose when it comes to family, well, they are a whole different ball game.  In an article called "Branching Out: Going home for the holidays can mean getting stuck in old family patterns -- or growing into something new."  By Sally Kempton in the November 2010 issue of Yoga Journal (page 55-61), she states "If you think you are enlightened, go visit your family."  She talks about how when you go back to your family of origin, you are wrapped in all of the joys and sorrow, successes and failures, pride and disappointment, and all of the other experiences that you had gone through together.  Later Kempton said, "Memories, rivalries, and disappointments are only a piece of it. More basic is the forced encounter with parts of yourself that you thought you outgrew years ago, and the equally insidious confrontation with the ideas that family members have about who you are."

This idea has been set forth by many people.  That your family of origin can never really see or understand the person you have become, because their unconscious expectations of you (and yours of them) are rooted in many of the growth experiences from your growing up.  The buttons that you have were mostly installed by the family you grew up in, so they are more likely to push those old buttons or, if you have worked on deactivating some of those buttons, they may just expect you to react a certain way and react accordingly.  I have a not so unconscious expectation that my mother can not understand me, and can never fully know who I am.  Much of this comes from her telling me that she just can't understand me as I went through my teen years, and her often frustrated exasperation about how I am so much like my father.  Which was exasperating to her, as she never really did understand my father.  I find it to be a compliment mostly as I adore my father, and I know that he is one of only a handful of people who truly has a mind that works the way mine does (not that we think the same, as we differ on a lot of opinions about a wide range of topics,  but rather the way we process and use information, the pattern of our thought processes, is very similar).  I have come to understand that our particular pattern of thought processing is fairly unique, which is why i have taken to explaining things in detail when trying to convey information, as I find people used to have trouble following me.  In college I met my friend Lisa and we shared this unique way of processing, so I loved our conversations, no need to explain the weird jumps we made.  Others would be so lost, but we got each other, and it was such a rare and wonderful thing.  I miss her, as it has been a long time since I have talked to her, just because life grew us apart. I still keep in brief touch through email and her husband's facebook page (she is too busy to have one of her own), but I long for a nice long conversation over lunch.  My best friend from college, Kay, who is still my best friend now nearly 19 years later, has known me long enough and spent enough time with me, that she can usually follow my weird conversational jumps without me having to use a segway, which is pretty amazing too.

Anyway, away from that aside, I was saying, there is a large body of articles and papers out there regarding this phenomenon with adults dealing again with their fairly of origin and finding so many old road blocks and relationship discomforts coming to the forefront.  I believe it does have a lot to do with old memories, buried feelings, expectations based on a persons behaviour from years before, and the inability to mesh the newer identify o the person onto our preconceived notions of them.  Lord knows that when I can step back and try to look with new eyes, I learn a lot about myself and my family member that I just couldn't see before.  I think my communication difficulties with my family speak to both my perception of them (or more honestly my perception of their perception of me) and of their perception of me (or their perception of my perception of them).  It is all very confusing and exhausting in so many ways. 

I have many times in the past year, wondered about how wise it was to try to move back home after 17 years of living as an adult on my own (or with friends or near certain family members--basically living away from home). 17 years is a long time, and a person changes a lot in 17 years, not at their core, but how they express and experience, and share that core changes greatly in that time.  Now, only 2 years back home, and without a social life outside of family and far away friends (anyone that tells you raising two kids with special needs does not drastically alter their ability to have a life outside of the kids sure does not have my kids--it is extremely isolating, especially the medical issues when they are very young (J) and the behavioural issues of autism which do the opposite of improving with age (G)).  But as J gets older and G is trying as much as he is able, I am hoping that the tide on this will begin to switch soon.

Anyway, as I was saying before I interrupted myself, the past two years living at home (well in my own place, but it is such a small town, it is nearly the same as moving back home with the parents) I am finding that much of my sense of self and my self-confidence has been eroding back to that teen-age level, and as I have very few fond memories of my high school self and had less self-confidence than you can imagine (like many geeky, flabby teenagers), this is not a desirable direction to be moving in.

So my communication ability with my family seems to be reverting back to those old levels, where I always felt misunderstood and alone, and I think this is God's ways of opening my eyes to the regression that I am undergoing.  It was this weird, month long communication glitch with my mom, which I do not like as I really like the friendship my mom and I have and have been continuously building, that has made me look inward at what is going on with me.  I think it may be time for me to move on again.  To stand back on my own two feet without worrying about what other people think of the path that I take.  To get back to reclaiming myself and building an amazing person instead of reverting slowly back to that person that i did not like.  To move forward and build strong, respectful connections with my family based on the incredible (though never perfect) person I know I am not the teenager I used to be.

There is actually a lot more I would love to put down on paper (like the analogy of quicksand and living in this particular limbo, the harder you try to fight against it the faster it seems to pull you down, so needing to calm down and focus on finding a stick that I can reach to pull myself up with), but I am really tired and I have to get up early to try to put the furniture back in the living room before I wake the kids.  The floor takes 12-14 hours to dry, but the air is so damp it is taking longer than I had expected. 

So I am off to bed now.