Ave María, grátia plena, Dóminus tecum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta María, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatóribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostræ.
Amen.
Things are starting to shift significantly within me. I can feel the progress being made at present while I let it all be in the face of God. I have let His hands begin to work rather directly with it all, and He is incredibly capable, I am seeing firsthand.
When did I stop mattering? Or, rather, when did I stop being good enough? Worth it?
It was, almost, easy for quite a while for me to take care of myself. For me to go to bed early to get enough sleep, to wake up early with my natural body rhythm, to exercise greatly, to feed myself very nutritious foods almost always… to take true care of myself. It took little mental effort for so long…
Then something changed.
I don’t know what specifics it was or when, but something big changed inside. Something snapped for me. I have a feeling it was in August when the stuff went down with the gym… actually, yes, that was exactly it. (Haha. Duh. Already blocking it out, I guess! Better work on completing it instead, or I’ll be stuck in this cycle and state for even longer.) Yeah, that gym stuff really shat on me, for lack of better phrasing.
It’s interesting to see how subtle crap like that can have someone go from physically fit and strong, emotionally powerful, empowered, eager for life, and inspiring to a mere shadow of herself, both in terms of presence and in terms of the physical body. As I said to my mom the other day, referencing my being, my energetic space, “I keep getting smaller.” But the same could just as truly be said about my physical space. I’m down likely no body fat, but purely muscle loss of about ten pounds. I was already at nearly-prime physical fitness when I weighed 124lbs last year. The fact that I weigh 114 right now is starting to be a bit scary. Ten pounds is a massive change when one is only 124lbs to begin.
To add some extra context, when I was athletic in college, I weighed about 125-126. Later, when I was not doing great with my physical health and fitness, and I had gotten very sedentary (but never fat), I weighed 130lbs. Weight fluctuated between 128 and 130 on any given day for a few years. After a year at the gym, my muscle mass was way up and my fat was way down – yes, I did body scans for relative comparison over time – and my weight had only gone down about five pounds. So, in my prime physical fitness, I weighed about 124-125. That’s only a 5-6-pound difference from my heaviest. I’ve been in the same five-pound range my whole adult life. Now, in a matter of months, I am suddenly down ten pounds.
Not a great feeling in the mind.
I also have felt that I am, through allowing this struggle, torturing myself. And it hurts all the more that I can’t seem to figure out how to stop it, how to heal it for good. All efforts so far have been necessary, fear-based, and only meant to be temporary. I know they won’t solve anything, but I also know every little bit helps right now.
I think I might just want to sit with this tonight, sit with this sadness and the open-ended space for what I want to create for what’s next. Something is always next, and we always have a say in it. So, I will sit with this all tonight and see where it leads me for tomorrow’s considerations and inspirations.
Thank you, God, for this able-bodied brain and true logic. Help me to use them well, especially concerning my health and well-being. Help me to let go of the anger and the hurt and the need to fight back and attack and scream and yell at them for being so horrid to me. Help me to say to you what I seem to need to say and where I feel I need to be heard. Hear me, please, and help me to release and complete all of this pain and frustration I’ve been carrying around and by which I have somewhat literally been starving. And, if it be your will, please, teach those people not to be jerks – help them to see the light of you, so I don’t have to feel like punching them in the face anymore. That would be great, too. Thank you for a sense of humor. I appreciate when you make me laugh at absurdities. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In your name, I pray. Amen.
P.S. If you want to pray for my healing and my completion with all those events last year, I would appreciate it and I welcome the loving prayers. 😉 Thank you, too.
Firstly, I just will say that I had an almost-normal BM this morning, and that was awesome. Woohoo!
Now, the bigger news in my head: My man went to Mexico today. And he came back today, too. All by car.
He had to extend or complete his vehicle registration for use in Mexico, which he had set up when he drove down there for the New Year’s vacation time. He just hadn’t closed it, as he’d expected to go back at least once more before late June. However, having seen this past week that he won’t be making it back down way south in the next three weeks, we found it best for him to go to the border today and handle the necessary paperwork. So, he left around 10:30 this morning, and got back just after midnight tonight. And, I kid you not, his car looks like he destroyed school upon school of bugs… it is coated… like 3-D paint, actually. Haha Apparently, there are even feathers in the mix, which is kind of sad, really. But that’s how it goes sometimes. I’m glad he was kept safe through it all.
Thank you, God, for the safe travels and successful trip of my man today. Grant him and me both the rest we need tonight to give us the ability and energy to do great things tomorrow, always pursuing and fulfilling your will, hopefully with increased clarity all the while. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Well, I ate some solid food today… but not a ton. And, unfortunately, I was very much craving steak for dinner time…, so I had some. My body was very clear with me as to when it was time to stop, a point much sooner in the meal than is usual when it comes to home-grilled steaks.
However, my belly had been filled with gas for hours beforehand, giving me miserable pains that occasionally incapacitated me or made me yell out involuntarily, but that I could not seem to relieve. Hours and hours later – meaning around midnight, enough gas had released that I no longer was carefully clutching myself and avoiding moving too much or in the wrong way.
At last, I think I can possibly go to sleep in my bed and actually sleep. I hope, anyway… and, hopefully, a solid – literally – BM will release after I awaken in the morning.
Fingers crossed!
God, heal us all, please, and help us to rejuvenate fully always with sleep. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Please, enjoy the message I sent to my cousin for his birthday today:
Cousin. I believe today has been your birthday. I have a mild case of food poisoning/intense case of indigestion and a fever, so I let it get away from me. If you can, imagine a phone call from me, in which my mom and P—— and I all sing “Happy Birthday” – remember that my mom will be off-sync, due to being on a different phone, and P—— will be in and out with the vocals due to what’s next in the sentence – while P—— gives his honest but digressing attempts, due to a lack of practicing, at playing the melody of the song on piano while also keeping normal time, and I do my best to follow his lead for the base chords, since he’s the melody and the melody is in charge. Likely, I also, chime in and out with the vocals, because, no matter how many times we practice, when it starts to go poorly, I can’t stop laughing hysterically and mostly silently. We might even have thrown in there “Las Mañanitas” for you, sung by my mom, in which case, you have almost no vocals for the English “Happy Birthday,” because P—— is concentrating so hard on playing notes and keeping in time and I’m too busy holding my gut as I keel over laughing but still diligently playing the piano part correctly. Hope that brightens your day! Happy, Happy Birthday, Cousin!!
Also, enjoy photos of our real life egg hunt today
This last one is the one we never found at Easter. I guess a raccoon got it and ate the candy inside… and, possibly, the other half, too?One of the eight possible candidates for the real eggs
Happy Birthday! Chickens laid eggs today for your birthday!
I’d say it’s a darn solid birthday message, especially considering my being somewhat sick and all. Decently done, Nanner! Decently done! Haha 😛
Dear God, please, gran my cousin safety and success in his endeavours to do your will. Thank you for such a wonderful cousin and friend. In your name, I pray. Amen.
My man found himself this evening about seven and a half miles away from the road, on a beach where there had once been a highway that had washed out one too many times, the government had given up on it.
I imagine he was rough-housing it, playing in his SUV on the beach. However, he got far too close to the water, and that beach decided he was going to park it. And so, he was stranded on that beach.
At present, he has been stuck for over two hours, and we have confirmed that the tide is going out, not in, which he had originally thought was the case and which elicited much panic and stress from the both of us. In fact, the tide will continue to go out for another hour+, which is great news.
The guy who works on his car sometimes happens not only to be a specialist on his type of car, but also to be a big-time off-roader who has something like 15+ vehicles, several of which are big trucks. I’ve ridden in one of them, actually. This guy is on his way now to go get my man and his vehicle off the beach. Yippee!
Granted, it’s an hour and a half drive just to where the road ends, plus those extra seven and a half miles on the beach. Also, if my man had mentioned it to me sooner, the friend I asked would have immediately recommended the very guy who is now on his way to rescue my man, and the whole thing potentially could have been set into motion an hour or an hour and a half sooner, instead of at ten o’clock at night…
However, he is on the way and he is the right man for the job, so we are all grateful.
God, please, get both of them and their vehicles safely home tonight and in great condition, please. Please. In your name, I pray. Amen.
I attended a women’s self-defense class today. A friend invited me multiple times, so I imagined it was expected to be a good class. It was taught by a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor, which was actually the main reason I went. I had a feeling she would cover some extremely valuable stuff that is different from what we do in karate. By going, I could begin to round out my self-defense repertoire, something I’ve been wanting to do for some time now.
And I was right.
She covered some very simple ways to get out of wrist grabs, being bear hug-grabbed from behind, as well as how to take on being knocked to the ground and attacked by a man from the front/top, and, not only to stop him in two different scenarios, but to render him unconscious by restricting blood flow. That last part was definitely awesome to learn. I had always wondered how to do that, and I learned much for it today.
The whole class, though, I was thinking about whether I could execute this stuff on someone bigger and stronger than I am. I have always held my own in wrestling matches that are for fun, but all that stopped when I met my man. I do believe that I have not once bested him in any kind of wrestling scenario. I mentioned something of this to the instructor, and she said to bring him next time, so I can practice with him at the end of the class.
I guess I get to look forward now to practicing these crazy things with my man!
Thank you, God, for the many blessings of today. Thank you for this life. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Dear God, please, keep my man safe in his travels this weekend especially. Grant him the space he needs to release all that he has been carrying so heavily these past years. Help him to free himself willingly from the restraints that have kept him from being true to himself, true to the man You made him to be. Give him clear sight of who he wants to be, longs to be, was made to be, and grant him the tools and the endurance and the drive to become that man, always and forever. Thank you for the blessing of him. Help him to be ever more so the blessing Yoi long for him to be, both to the world and to himself. In your name, I pray. Amen.
At the end of a good movie or show, when the credits music is right, I love to dance to it. Especially if the movie was a happy one and one where things were accomplished, I am already in a celebratory and happy mood. Put on some great music that makes one want to move, and I am so on board. I, too, want to accomplish things and be happy and take on the world successfully, like they did in the movie (or, sometimes, show). The story followed by the music just makes me want to jump up and dance wild and freely right there in the living room. I love living room dancing period, and this is one of those living room dancing times that is particularly goofy and fun. It’s just great and so freeing…
I have yet, however, to find anyone since my childhood who enjoys doing this with me. When I first began visualizing the partner I wanted to have in life, back as a teenager or, possibly, pre-teen, I had these visions of the two of us dancing together in the living room of a cabin-in-the-woods type of house, in front of the fireplace, on the big living room rug. I wanted this to be a nightly occurrence, really.
Alas, that has yet to happen. It has partly happened, in that I got my man to dance with me a couple times to this long, thrumping song that plays at the end of the Mandalorian episodes. But that’s it for the living room dancing. Otherwise, I’m the only one who hops up after a film to dance around and have fun. I seem to be the only one who’ll dance around at all, really…
Guess I’ll have to work on that with him, because I really want to dance with him both at home and at dance things and anywhere at all. My first guess is that he likely is like most people – how I myself was at one point – in that he likely feels a lack of confidence in his ability to ‘dance around’ or dance spontaneously and freely/free-form, and so feels embarrassed whenever he attempts it, and, therefore, avoids it.
Here’s to hoping we can resolve whatever it is for him that holds him back from being silly and dancing with me, because it is such a wonderful experience to go wild with dancing in the living room. Cheers.
Dear God, please, heal us all. In your name, we pray. Amen.
hannah ananas 