PURPOSE

Yup, that right there is what I've been feeling like lately. 

For the life of me, I COULD NOT settle down and focus on anything yesterday.  I went outside to read on my Nook seven times.  Couldn't focus.  Came inside to fart around on the interwebs.  Couldn't focus. Tried to watch some TV.  Couldn't focus.  Tried to clean up the kitchen, something that REQUIRES NO FOCUS, aaaaaaand...couldn't focus. 

All day long I shifted from one pointless activity to another and it was making me guano loco.  I finally realized what was so off for me.  I was lacking purpose.  I needed a reason for my day, and yesterday I just didn't have one.  I didn't have any laundry to do, didn't need to go get groceries, didn't have much cleaning that needed to be done, no errands to run.  There was nothing to do and I couldn't just sit back and enjoy it.  I needed a goal, a reason for my day, and I couldn't find one.  It was bugging me so much that I nearly popped a Xanax.  (But hey, that would have made me tired, I would have had to lay down, and DAMMIT I DON'T TAKE NAPS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY.  So power on through anxiety! *fistpump*)

 I can't tell you how happy I was when Matt got home and asked me if I got his posterboard for his book report.  "Crap, no, I forgot!  BUTI'LLGOGETITRIGHTNOW!!!"  Suddenly, I had something to DO.  Granted, it didn't take long, but I had a "shit to get done."  Just the one, but it felt good to have that goal. 

I've always known that I'm a goal driven person, but I didn't realize just how much until yesterday.  If I don't have a goal, a purpose, a reason set out before me, I feel utterly lost.  So much so that it brings on debilitating anxiety.  All of the goals for my life are currently set so far ahead of me that I have nothing to focus on right now.  Instead I drift from one little task to another and feel like I'm not accomplishing anything and I go a little bit crazier.  Since we're stuck in that limbo of moving, it's just making the lack of purpose even more glaring to me. 

So, time to make some goals.  Have a reason for being.  DO SUMTHIN. 

This blog post was first on my list.  Crap.  Almost done.  Gotta figure out something more! 

Ummmmm....clean out the van. 
Maybe I'll take some Big Truck Tacos to Brian for lunch.
Maybe I'll take myself on a me date and go see a movie.

 And force myself to accept the fact that sometimes it's OK to just do nothing.  Ouch.

David Bowie Nailed It

Yeah...it's been a while.

I'm sorry.

Facebook kinda killed blogging for me for a (long) while, but I think I'm back.

So David Bowie has a way of nailing certain moments in life for me.  Recently - you got it...Ch-ch-changes.

It seems as though when we come to big changes in our lives is when we get most introspective about who and why we are, and have more need of understanding it all.  As if that could truly happen, but hey, that's part of what blogging is for.  There's been a LOT of change in my life over the last year, not just WLS related stuff.  Brian deployed for nearly six months last November and I...um....didn't handle it well.  I realized that I am pretty much completely lost without him, and had a really hard time just functioning.  When he got back I had to learn how to be a partner again, even though it had been less than six months.  Going through all that can shatter your self-identity if you aren't strong in it to begin with.  I've learned a lot about myself because of the deployment and his coming home.  Some of it I really don't like (Ch-ch-changes!) and some I need to learn to give myself more credit for.  Aaaaaaaaaaand that's all I'm going to touch on that for now.  Gotta leave something for future blog entries, right?

More changes - I have teenagerS now.  Beth is 15, Caitlin is 13.  I love them I love them I love them.  I will get through this.  I LOVE THEM.  They really are delightful girls: smart, beautiful, just the right bit of sarcastic (most of the time).  I just see so much of me in them from when I was their ages.  I'm sorry, Mom.

Matt is 9, and rockin' fourth grade.  It's a challenge to get him to wear PJ's to bed, use sheets on his bed, or take a shower, but hey - he's 9, right?  Please tell me that's normal. 

And our last big huge change - we're moving.  Most of you already know this via FB or RL.  Brian got orders to Albuqurque NM, and I'm currently sitting here blogging in a nearly empty house.  We have air mattresses, camp chairs, a fugly buffet table, and small TV.  That's pretty much it.  We move out of the house for good this Friday, into a hotel here in town for a week for the kids' last week of school, then we hope to drive out of OKC on 6 Oct.  Then on to bigger and better things!!!  Right?  At least that's what I keep telling myself.  I hate that we're leaving so many friends and family behind, we've established so many roots here over the last six years. (Will not cry...will not cry...)  But as I keep telling the kids, it's a new chance to define who we are and be proud of ourselves for making a new start when we really don't want to. 

I guess that's all we can really ask for...

Visibility

Or moreover, the fact that I'm no longer invisible.  I didn't realize just HOW invisible I was when I was obese, because I'm a friendly & chatty person.  Maybe that was my way of forcing people to see me, I don't know.  Now, though, I'm suddenly visible.  And by visible I mean that when I run into somebody that I haven't seen in a long time, they're shocked.  They tell me, "OH-EM-GEEEEE!  You look so good now!"

Now?

Now?

Really?  So when you told me before that I was pretty in spite of my weight, what was that? 

My husband is even guilty of it.  I know he's trying so hard and he's wonderfully supportive.  Sometimes, though, it gets in my still-fat-in-my-head side of my brain that he's incredibly complimentary of the new me, if he really found me beautiful and sexy before - why didn't he say so then?

Here's the thing.  I'M STILL THE SAME PERSON.  The changes that everybody else is seeing are all exterior.  I'm still the same person that you walked past and didn't notice, this time last year.  I'm the same smartass.  I think part of my problem is that all of the people that are "OMG-ing" at me never knew me when I was thin before.  They always knew RoundMeagan.  So when I was shocked each time I looked into a mirror and saw RoundMeagan because that was not the preconceived notion I had of myself - that's the only version of me that they had in their heads.


I have the same issue with strangers, though.  Last week I was at Lowe's and was pulling a sheet of plywood off a high stack.  There were no employees around to help so I decided to just do it myself.  (hehe, something I wouldn't have done before.  Yay me.)  I got the sheet most of the way down, but those things are heavy and awkward.  Two gentlemen came running to help me get the sheet on my pushcart just in time.  People being what they are, though, would they have been the kind that would walk past and glance at the RoundWoman struggling and do nothing to help out?  Most would have. 


Ergh.  I've been struggling with my renewed visibility lately, as you can tell.  I need to just shut up and enjoy it.  LOL 

In other news - I'm taking advantage of my new visibility and am selling Scentsy now.  I have to work, HAVE to, and this will let me be home with the kids, too.  You like yummy candles?  Do you feel like you're rolling up a twenty and lighting it when you burn a patriotically-named candle?  Do you like the idea of safe, food grade wax that won't burn little fingers if they decide to dip in it?  Then you need Scentsy!  (See, I'm good at this. LOL)  I'm closing my first show today, just a little mini-launch.  I'll be going with my director to a home & garden show on the 17th and will be getting the leads from that, and my neighbor is actually going to sign under me, and we're going to team up and take the neighborhood on a Scentsy ride.  ;)  Want to check out the website?  Clicky!!!  www.scentsationalmeg.scentsy.us .  I'll put a link over there >>>>, too.

So how's everybody else doing?