Necessary Mutilation

Weight: 215.0 lbs.

I am in a state of emotional and physical limbo right now, and haven’t yet decided my level of commitment to anything. I am a mess of contradictions, confusion, ambivalence, conflicted emotions and uncertainty. I am one who must ponder life before making any real changes or finding the internal chutzpah to change - but once I am on board, I usually am pretty good at putting in my all. My supervisor at work has even given me feedback about this trait when it comes to expectations or work changes, saying that I usually have the need to resist and rebel and fuss at first, only to embrace whatever is asked of me when I am ready, and then put in 150 %. I am not one to head off to war without considering all other options first, I guess, nor do I handle changes in direction without a large amount of fretting, complaining and resisting first.

Let’s hope that this is where I am stuck, once again.

Yesterday I did step up my exercise though, especially after my friend made fun of me when we were discussing this Friday night. She said that she’d be tripping over her own feet at the slow pace in which I said that I run the treadmill at. On the other hand, she weighs half what I do and is far more nimble in her sleep than I have ever been awake! But, nonetheless, I tried the treadmill at what turned out to be an uncomfortable speed for me (3.0 mph), and on various levels of incline. I found a balance between requisite sweat equity and not having a heart attack or being sucked into the mechanism, and hope to continue here until I am able to push myself harder down the line. I think that I need better work out sneakers too, as the ones I have seem awful slippery on the bottom and several times I was sure that I was gonna fly backwards across the room at the higher speeds.

In addition to this and the mental exercise of pondering my dilemna, Tom and I worked hard in the house and I am thrilled with some major rearranging and organizing that we did. I have much more to do today, but as I am good at this and it is one of my favorite things to do, I am happy to hunker down and spend a mostly in day fussing. We are reorganizing all of our files and file cabinets and storage areas, and this entails poring through old papers and documents and reading all kinds of interesting things from the past. As I tend to hoard and have a terrible time getting rid of anything, including and perhaps especially old papers, my greatest challange is in letting Tom shred or discard certain things. So, mostly we are just refiling and reboxing things and putting them away more neatly and better labelled. I wonder at times if my fat serves the same purpose as so many things…surrounding and insulating myself with layers of stuff and things to feel safe, in some distorted way. Clearly, I am not entirely on board whether it pertains to possessions or body fat, and if the same emotional underpinings apply to both, then I may have an equally difficult time letting go of excess weight because I may “need it” someday, as well. I must say, that just like much of the junk we’ve accumulated, it is familiar and comfortable in many ways.

Scary!

So, today I plan to make a mighty effort to at least consider discarding and letting go…and hope to continue engaging in the parellel process of doing this both in our home and within myself. Wish me luck!