Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I forgot my mantra


Last night I was cooking and out of nowhere I started thinking about my mother seeing pictures of me pregnant from Thanksgiving that my sister e-mailed her and I started to feel this intense rage rising in me.  I thought, “You don’t deserve to be a grandmother!  You suck!  You don’t deserve to be included in any of this!!!”  I felt my blood pressure rising and started slamming pots around.  I thought about the few e-mails we’ve passed back and forth and how I feel like such a freaking hypocrite even doing that, that the whole point of cutting her off five years ago was to make the statement that I wasn’t going to put up with her – well, for lack of a better term, abuse – anymore and that I was standing up to her finally, and now here we are chatting away via email like all’s forgiven and nothing happened.  So…she just gets a free pass for her shit behavior, and gets to have the enjoyment of being in the loop of all the baby stuff.  None of this sits particularly well with me.  But I immediately reminded myself of my Pregnancy Mantra which has done wonders at keeping dark, disturbing thoughts away – “this is a happy time, and we’re only going to think about happy things.”  That cut it off at the knees.  I mean, she’s old, she’s sick (mentally and physically), and most importantly, she’s thousands of miles away and I’ll never see her again.  Including her in all this was my decision because I thought it would be cruel not to, and it would.  So, la lucha continua, huh?

Weight concerns have been abated slightly by having weighed myself since my return and not having gained because of Thanksgiving.  I really had this fear that just that weekend would have packed on ten + pounds and I’d find myself in this gaining cycle that I couldn’t stop.  But that hasn’t happened.  Still, the reason it hasn’t happened has been effort on my part – since my return I’ve eaten lots of big salads, fruit, vegetables, soups and whole grains.  I have dinner out tonight, lunch out tomorrow, dinner out Friday and a Christmas party Saturday, so when I’m home I’d better eat well!  I believe it’s good to have a small amount of anxiety about this because otherwise I’d just slack – years ago I decided I “just wouldn’t worry about my weight” and ate whatever I wanted and surprise!  Put on about 20 pounds in a couple of months.  I was so in denial I was convinced the dry cleaners had shrunk all my clothes!!!  After that I bought a scale, weigh myself every day, and started paying attention to what I eat each day, and that has never recurred.  I mean, we all know damned well how to eat to maintain a healthy weight, we’re grown women.  We just sometimes chose to ignore this advice.  But for the health of me and my baby I can’t ignore it right now.  I can do it.

Starting prenatal yoga Friday, can’t wait.  I’ve missed yoga SO MUCH, I dream about it.  I am already pretty calm and zen (you may not agree with this, but you didn’t know me a couple of years ago) but regular yoga again can only help this.  Also I’m dying for some exercise.  I can feel my muscles all weak and stiff and I don’t like it one bit. 

Yesterday I turned a quickie “I’ll just dust off this desk real quick…” into a five hour office cleaning extravaganza.  I hadn’t really tidied up in here since the most recent remodel in about 2006, and boy did it show!  I am continually amazed the toll running three businesses takes on a little house like this.  The piles of papers, the office supplies, the boxes of records – ugh!  I am nowhere near done with this project; I have at least two more days at it plus a big drop at Goodwill after (obsolete electronics mainly).  My goal yesterday was to clean out the service porch for use as a stroller parking area and I didn’t even touch it.  Sigh.  I’ve got my work cut out for me around here, for sure.

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