WE – DO NOT AGREE!

No, for your information I did not want to be finger fucked for these last four going on five straight years!  I did not want to not be able to date and sleep with whatever man I found attractive.  I most certainly did NOT want to have to prove anything to anybody simply because David was always around, but always out of reach making me feel as if my life was not my own to do as I choose.

Did you think I would be so upset at watching David and Courtney making out, seeing him with a wedding ring that I would run into the arms of the closest available man?!  You don’t know me at all.  I am happy for David.  I was glad he found his perfect mate even though it has exposed me to hurt at the loss of a friend.

But, I want to move on.  I have wanted to move on since, oh…I don’t know, March or April 2014.  Don’t get me wrong I wanted to move on before then 2014.  However, I have simply not been allowed to since moving here.  I have not been allowed to find or have a man find me to share the rest of my life with.

Also, I am sooooooo over being virtually tried-on just to see what it would be like.

The entire world gets to be in love and have the love of their life in their life to spend the rest of their life together, but me?!!

What the fuck did I do so wrong to end up like this at this time of my life?!

I will not mention the store’s name since they still have time to correct the situation, but since working at I’ll call it The Shop Around the Corner I have been unable to eat as I normally would since losing so much weight.  I lost another person.  I lost so much weight it was as if I lost another person, an older, or a different person than I am now.  Since working at that store, I have been unable to eat during any breaks or lunch while I am working regardless of where I work.  I used to make a lunch of sliced apple an a hard-boiled egg, eight ounces of water during a 10 hour shift.  I would have only oatmeal and coffee for breakfast.  However, when I returned home from my 12 hour shift, including drive time, I would have gained or maintained my weight.  It appears someone – I don’t know who, but it is the only explanation – has a copy of my car key, and they alter my food.  I guess so they can watch as I eat the food they have altered.

I am so over trying to figure things out they are not a part of my job description.  I am not finished with this yet.

Just so it is well-known, documented, and recorded I was GLAD when Erin left the store.  As far as I was concerned we were no longer friends.  This person, Erin called up (sounding drunk) to the store I was working at asking me to leave work early to go drinking with her and her lesbian friends.  I WAS SO APPALLED!!  I was mortified for myself and for her.  I would never ask to leave work early by making up a fake story, nor was I in ANY way interested in her lesbian friends.  Where were the men she was supposed to wing-man for me?!  That’s who I thought and believed she was.  I never spoke to management about this phone call because I did not believe it was in my best interest to complain about her and her behavior, nor did I go to management whenever she yelled at me at work.  I had not figured it out at the time, yet I knew there was something not-quite-right about the whole thing.  It was a good thing I never mentioned anything at work, it was a door not to be opened.  In hind-sight, they would have turned it around, whatever I said, just to make me feel insecure about my work environment, my abilities, my performance, and my character.

This pattern of making me feel insecure at my work place and in life has not stopped since.

I hate cleaning!  I love clean things and a clean environment, but I detest cleaning.  It is a huge distinction between liking clean things and enjoying to clean.  The very thought of having to clean makes me want to scream!  Ugh!

I am only one person living with three cats, I shouldn’t have to clean so much.  My routine should be simpler.  It shouldn’t take so long to clean and take care of my tiny place.

I miss my house.  I miss being able to decorate for Christmas.  I miss the Christmas lights and presents.  I miss the feeling of good-will.  It made me sad the other day because I no longer wrap presents or have anyone to give presents to.  I used to light up my home with icicle lights.  I got the ones that looked the most realistic.  I placed deer by my birch tree, and a star of David hanging high in the raintree in the front yard.  To me it was significant.  I was saying the deer represented the cold and the North Pole, and the star of David represented Bethlehem, and my small front yard brought that vast perspective together.

I miss being able to create and decorate my home.  There is no point where I currently live.  I need new flooring which I would want wood floors it is always my preference.  I need new closets.  I need new organization throughout my house and garage.  I need storage solutions.  I need chairs and bar stools.  I need drapery and sheers.  But, what is the point?!  I can never afford it off of my salary.  More importantly, what is the point when I have to live with tin foil covered fire alarms, covered appliances, covered A/C, and covered radio in my car.  Why is it all covered?  Because someone has placed hidden cameras throughout my home and car.  Why would anybody do that?!  I have no idea.  To spy on me?  Because someone thought I was a bad person and thought they would catch me doing something?!  To which the worst thing anyone could spy me doing is cleaning too much.  Oh yeah, I forgot about the hidden camera in my computers as well.  Why would anybody do that to me?!  Why would anybody do that to me of all people?!

I have no idea why I had to change cable companies.  It seems a waste of my time and money at this point.

Do you know how terrible a man is when it is more important to him what plate you eat off of, then how you feel or your wants and desires?  It takes a small-minded man to control or micro manage to such an extent.

Why keep two people apart?  Why keep people apart at all?!  Why keep people apart who help each other?  Why push people together that don’t belong?  Why push people together when one person – this person, me – is constantly screaming NO, GET OUT, NO MEANS NO!!!!!!

I am sick to death of cleaning.

Do you ever get tired of good?

If your life is good.  If your job is good.  If a man is good.  If a movie. a song, or a book is good.  If a purchase is good.  If your food is good, is that good enough for you?

The problem is – for me – it is never good enough.  I want exceptional.  It is not a need or desire from a place of discontent or dissatisfaction.  It is a part of me that simply cannot tolerate anything less than more.  More than good.  More than good enough.  More than average.  More than status-quo.  More than being able to blend in.

The problem is my whole being cannot deny the light within me, nor can I accept anything less than what I know to be possible.  Having to pretend to be someone I am not, having someone else’s mantel placed upon me as if it is my burden to bear is always seen as a lesser version of me.

There has always been something in me that is greater than my circumstance(s).  I was born with it.  God gave it to me as a gift.  As He does for every person, He gives every person a gift when born.

It is not possible for me to live with mediocre.  My spirit cringes.  My soul aches.  I want to rip my flesh off in anguish at the loss.

What good is a good meal if it is merely measured out ingredients?  What good is a movie if it does not make you uncomfortable in its truth, or bleeds anguish bearing its vulnerable soul?  What good is a man if he is not in physical form?  What good is a man if he is unwilling to learn from you, or believe in the vision you see in him?

What good is good?

If you are willing and able to settle for good, then congratulations and good luck to you, you will have a life.  However, I cannot settle for anything less.  There is the brightest light that burns within me every day, all the time.

Good is not enough for me.

They don’t know what they want from me.  Do they want me to be the fastest woman alive?  Already been there and back.  I can do a million things at once, but if you want nuance, finesse, precision, subtlety then you have missed your mark in your direction.  Because I am the fastest person there, you have to slow me down just so you can follow.  However, you know the numbers are too high.  You are missing out on opportunities of moments to be realized.

I am sick of driving.  I fucking hate driving at the moment.  I hate the route I have to drive to work.  I hate the time in my car.  I hate the traffic.  I hate the lanes.  I hate how people are trying to tag each other.  I fucking hate driving anymore.  I have been un happy with driving, my car, my route for years now.  I fucking hate driving!

The Grand Canyon is so beautiful.  It was the greatest part of my Las Vegas trip.  Like everything else in these last few years I was too broke, too tired, and too unprepared to enjoy much else on the trip.

I went into a casino while in Las Vegas not because of the sign on the marquee which I think read something about being turned into a dog, I walked into the casino because it was the next one on the path.  But, I don’t understand casino’s.  I did not enjoy my time in  the casinos or much else other than the Grand Canyon.

I have no choice at this time – I will have to reverse on this street.  For I cannot continue backing up on a driveway only to find out after the fact the consequences,

I am too unhappy to continue this route.

Here I am, hurried up home to clean the litter, feed the cats, take a shower, eat something, and try to come out of head that weighs on me with such heavy sadness and gross unhappiness – two hours later I just start to get in the head space where I could get some work done, some writing and such only to stop because I have to stop due to the time.  There are only so many times you can fall asleep with your eyes open in one day.

I am unhappy with my writing and not being able to have the time to truly get the details in my writing.

I have to end this abruptly.

The Weight of Life

David Wolfe:

Have you ever found yourself wondering how the fucking hell I ever got here?  I found myself unable to recognize myself in the mirror.  The picture I had of myself in my head did not match what I saw when I looked in the mirror.  I was so overweight I could barely stand to look at myself.  Anytime I saw a picture of myself I thought, that is not me.  The difference between who I believed I was in my head, and who I was in physical form was so vast I could never reconcile the two.

However, my body size stayed in the plus size department for more than twenty years.  The self-loathing of not being able to be who I believed I was in my head was ever-present.  It conflicted and created problems on a sub-conscience level.

There are moments in our life from which we are not able to turn back from.  Here I was sitting at my mother’s bedside in the middle of the night watching television with the sound off reading the captions while my whole being stayed on high alert making sure she slept, that she did choke on her own saliva, that her heart didn’t go into A-fib, that she didn’t roll off the bed in confusion, or wake up and hurt herself on the way to the bathroom, or mess herself in her sleep, or a million other things.

People might see it that I had removed myself from the entire world.  It was the only way I knew how to do it.  Once I saw it was possible to still reach my mother before the stroke sent her mind into a dark place of no windows or doors, and every nurse and doctor treated her as a patient with a social security number and me as a daughter unable to grasp the severity and finality of her stroke, I couldn’t help myself because I knew I could do it better.  Without any medical training or help, I knew I could take better care and get her past the days of being hospital bed-ridden, Peg-tube feedings, and not speaking.  And I did.  I fucking did.  For years.

It was also her wish to be at home, so how could I not honor her wishes given what I believed was possible, and what she wanted.  She walked all on her own almost as soon as she got home.  The hospital bed that they ordered for her was sent back nearly as fast as it got there for it was not needed.  She started eating on her own after a month.  Her medications were reduced too.  I bathed and dressed her.  Put make-up on her, dyed and cut her hair, did her nails, dressed in her favorite clothes, put earrings and jewelry on, applied her favorite perfume just as she would have done had her brain not been taken away from her.  I took her to stores so she could see people for she loved people, to see them, to greet them, and to share her love for them, on car rides so she could see the scenery and be entertained, took her for treats, and ice cream, or anything she would eat for something different and fun.  Took her on outings so she could be outdoors, and not trapped in a room in front of a television.

Then almost as if the days started getting longer, she wanted to spend more and more time in bed.  As if the memory of who she was before her stroke, went away.  As if she herself could no longer see the woman she once was.

To say that the time spent being my mother’s caregiver was difficult or hard does not come close.  I usually slept in the same clothes I worked in.  Almost 75% of the time I never even made it into my bed.  My father, who is not equipped to be a caregiver, got up at 7am, then I could go to sleep.  Most days I was up by 11 am.  On occasion, I got to sleep in until 1pm.  I wore a standard uniform of shorts, tank top, and my hair pulled up.  It was the most I could manage.  Being able to take a shower was almost a luxury.  One time while I was in the shower, panic came over me.  I rushed out, grabbed my robe with wet hair and soap still stuck to me, I had to check on my mom.  She was standing at the front door with a stranger.  Needless to say, daily maintenance was hard to manage.

More than just my body, being beyond tired, stressed, and worn out, I felt myself coming to an end.  I felt if I continued in the same way caring for my mother, I was not going to make it.  I felt it might literally kill me.  I thought I might have a heart attack and die.  Plus, the longing I had to be myself again, to do simple things like go to the beach, or a movie, or go on a date, or go on dates with many men, the simple freedom of just walking outside whenever I wanted was so painful it was a crushing weight and burden I could barely work past.

Working towards a plan to make sure every person – not just me – in my family would have their own place as the way our life had been was going to change., I worked toward reconciling the picture I believed I was in my head to the person I saw in the mirror.  I looked at all different diet plans, exercise plans, food plans.  I watched shows about losing weight, make-overs, fashion shows.  I did research on-line about the best and most effective ways to lose weight.

Yet, more than any of that I worked in my own head.  Over the years, I had dieted more times than I could ever remember, and it never worked.  So, I went in my head and worked through why that was.  Why did I try and it didn’t work?  Was it the diet?  Was it me?

I found a trigger point when I realized why I had allowed myself to gain so much weight.  It opened a door allowing myself to work through things about myself.  Which knowing why something happened is imperative to understanding.  I worked through why I could lose weight to a certain point, and then it would stop.  Why I could maintain the weight I was given my diet which was healthy.  I worked through what works best for me.

It is impossible to force a person to lose weight.  Weight is not a matter of simply diet and exercise.  Weight is of an emotional matter.  I did the research.  I did the emotional work.  I planned to make it happen.

I am a person that works best with short-term goals.  So, I chose a diet that would have the most dramatic weight loss.  Losing only a pound or two in a week, I would become discouraged and give up.  However, if I could lose five pounds in a week, then I could lose twenty pounds in a month.  Then, I could lose all the weight I wanted in six months which was about 100 lbs.

I started at 40 days at a time.  A kind of fast for 40 days, another 40 days of a very strict diet.  I was still caring for my mother giving her chocolates so she would take her pills, I would remind myself it is only 40 days.  I thought if I didn’t like who I was after 40 days, then I can reassess.

I kept a picture in my head of what I wanted to look like after losing weight.  I saw myself on a beach, in a bikini, with my back to myself long hair flowing in the wind.  I went to that picture in my mind all the time.

It worked.  I lost weight.  I lost nearly 100 lbs. in six months.  It wasn’t long after that I lost a total of 125 lbs.  I lost weight because I did the work.  I lost weight because I did the emotional work.

It’s been five years since I’ve lost all that weight.  It is not over for me, I am still not happy with the shape of my body.  I have yet to see the day of me in a bikini on a beach.  However, being able to move my body, being able to shop in the x-small section, being able to take up less space on a plane, or around others is a huge relief.  It is so much more than can be expressed in words it is something that must be felt.

Cherith J Gjestland

Earlier today I was remembering.

His name was                 and he wore black scrubs.

As many years as I’ve spent in hospitals and nursing homes I can count the men that I’ve witnessed visiting on one hand.  Less than a handful.

I encountered male doctors as a norm.  However, finding men who were visiting or apart – I’m sorry I am so upset about                    today I can barely keep myself from shoving a knife through my heart – I could count the men that I’ve seen and witnessed on less than one hand.  I took note anytime I would see a man at a nursing home, or by a hospital bed because the lack of their presence was astounding to me.

I never once thought that taking care of family or friends or visiting a sick person was a woman’s job.

My mother had just gotten out of surgery where they placed a PEG-tube in her stomach, they were wheeling her to her room and Billy was at the nurses’ station.

He wore all black scrubs which made him stand out from the usual cartoon or pastel scrubs every other nurse wore.  He looked like he was wore comfortable in jeans and cowboy boots than scrubs.

The nurse informed us that my mother would probably not wake up for hours, and it would be best to go home.  My brother left quickly trying to urge me to go home as well since it had already been such a day.  My father left shortly after that too.

I could not.

Something in me said to stay.

So, I sat by her bed with the overhead lights off staring at the TV in silence.  It wasn’t even 20 minutes later my mother shot straight up out of the bed trying to not just crawl but hurl herself out of the bed.  I quickly called for          .  Because my mother could not speak from the stroke nor did she have the mental capability to push the nurses’ button to ask for help.  You had to be there.  She couldn’t communicate it otherwise.

          didn’t understand why she was reacting that way but assured me he would get the answer.

It was a simple fix.

The doctor told him that perhaps the bandaging they had wrapped around her belly was too tight, so he loosened it.

That was it.

She was fine after that and went right back to sleep for hours.  It took me hours to be able to leave after such a terrible occurrence.

All I could think about was if I hadn’t been there she would likely have jumped, fallen, climbed out of the bed trying to get relief and not being able to tell anyone or communicate it in anyway.  She would have seriously hurt herself before anyone noticed there was a problem.

I so appreciated        .  I was so thankful for him and to him.

I hold that picture in my mind of him in the hospital in his black scrubs waiting for the time to put on his jeans and boots and drive off in his truck.