Rethink what you think

I’ve been thinking a lot about the last few weeks...well, months really, and how my level of patience has been dwindling.
I’ve also been thinking about how I might be being a tad self absorbed right now.

Yes, I’m depressed. I am turning 50 in 3 days and there will be no party, no friends to hang out with, no going to dinner, and no gifts, (although I don’t really care about that part...other than flowers..I really hope I get flowers), but the world is in turmoil and everyone is freaked out.

I get all that, but I think what is really bothering me is that no one has planned anything. Like before this all happened. Could I be in for a surprise? Unlikely. My sister Beth called me on the way home from work today asking me who she should reach out to to possibly come over to my house this Saturday and hang out, outside (safety social distancing....god I’m so sick of that phrase), so no, I don’t think that there’s been much thought about me and my 50th.

The year Andy turned 50 I was trying to be involved with the planning but I was shut out of that, so I went through all my old photos and dug up as many as I could for Andy and friends in the hopes of having them play during the surprise party. Even that was thwarted, but I did get the photos to him.
Same thing with Elise. I tried to be involved but they all planned a trip that I could not afford so I didn’t go. Which she recently brought up. Pissing me off. She gets mad if we don’t come to things we can’t afford...ugh...another story...

The point is I made an effort. Even if they didn’t know it. I did. I always do for people’s birthdays because I think birthdays are very important. It’s a time to reflect and celebrate your life, hopefully with friends and loved ones.

Loved ones. Ray...my love. I’ve been particularly hard on him recently. To be fair, he has not been easy to deal with, but I know I need to be patient. If I really love him, I need to see him and his side of things and let him work things out.
I read my posts from the past few months and I think if he ever saw them it would upset him, but I didn’t delete them because at the time they were written that’s how I was feeling, and this is after all, a record about me. Which is why I’m glad that no one ever reads it.

Side note- I really should back up all this stuff. I’ve been writing in it for a very long time.

Anyway, self absorbed. Yeah, I think I’m making it worse by dwelling on the bad stuff, but I can’t seem to help it. I fucking seriously depressed.
I feel like if just a few small things were going better it would make such a huge difference. I need attention that I’m not getting (different kinds from different people) and I can’t fault people for that.
I do think I’m being shown who really are my friends though. There have never been a lot and there are fewer by the day.  That’s ok...quality over quantity, right?
My training has been going ok but my weight is just sitting there and this is not where I want to be. I know no one can change that for me, but the depression is seriously not helping that at all. I’m struggling. I feel like I’m drowning and no one even knows I'm in the water.

I’m headed to my moms tomorrow. My birthday weekend compromise...like so many I feel like I have been making... is that I am going up there for 2 full pool days by myself, and coming home Saturday to be with Ray since he doesn’t like the pool.
Yeah this is part of the depression...knowing that I’ll likely never be able to enjoy those kinds of things with him and not knowing if I can really deal with that for the long haul...but really, if we can work around these things together it seems like it could be ok.
Nothing is perfect. God knows I’m not.

I’m going to bed tonight hoping to wake up tomorrow with a better attitude. Just decide to be happy and grateful for what I have, and enjoy the time at the pool with my mom, then enjoy the weekend at home with my love.
It could be worse. If anyone read this they’d probably think I was a selfish bitch, so instead of reinforcing that behavior I’m going to fight against it.
I don’t think I should not be myself, but there must be compromises and sacrifices.
I feel like I’ve had to sacrifice my biggest birthday ever, so I should be caught up for a bit.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Almost 50...

A Difficult Conversation

I just got off the phone with my boyfriend. All fine, long day. We’re meeting tomorrow at my moms house after he’s done with work and I mentioned night swimming. Fun I thought, but no.

“You know what I never want to hear again? Anything about getting in the damn pool. I had to hear that shit for 25 years...”

This is pretty much the exact same thing he said to me a year ago.

I am not saying that the pool is a deal breaker, but what is, is someone that tells you they are a changed person, and is not. Someone that says he’s on board with all the things he had issues with before, but now , back in the fold, loved, and secure, is not.

Its also that same delivery as last year. We’re having a good conversation and out of nowhere I feel like I’ve been bitch slapped. He’s better at being able to say things that are going to be hurtful, or something that we’d disagree on in a “conversational “ way, that makes me feel like I’ve just been yelled at when he never raised his voice.

I don’t like that.

I also don’t like that he’s not on board with some things that I really love to do, and want to do with my partner.

Swimming, yes, but if he has triggers from his ex about that I can let it go. I’ll just always think we’re missing out on something beautiful together.

But what else does swimming involve? Being outside. Hiking, going got the beach, exercising in general. These are all things I want in a permanent partnership with the man I love.

Last fall he was all into the idea of exercising but now, not so much. These are things you can’t force in a person I know. I also know I don’t want to try to have a life with a man that doesn’t have any interest in those things.

Even if we took everything out of the equation but the exercising. That’s so fucking important to me. Not just as something I like to do, but as a thing that is important to my health and his as well.

I’m sitting here alone, very unhappy and unsure of what to do.

I had a great training session this morning and have made the decision to add another trainer to my schedule to be able to ultimately do 5 days a week. It’s costing me money, and time, and a huge amount of effort, and I would like to think that the man I intend to spend the rest of my life with would be equally enthusiastic about such a thing.
When I mention that I hope one day he will work out with me he just says nothing.

Maybe this is why he said a over Memorial Day weekend that he did not know what our future holds. Maybe because we don’t have one.

A Better Day

The rest of the world was still in chaos today, but I managed to fine some peace today. I got up very early and did an hour on the elliptical which felt great!

I also had a big shoot, which I got into so much I literally forgot about the Pandemic for a little while and all the rest of the mess.
It came back of course, but at least I had a small break.

In bed now and training tomorrow. I hope I have a good weekend with my love. We both need it.

The biggest obstacle at the moment other than the COVID crap is that it’s summer, and I want to be at the pool, and he doesn’t.
This was a big issue last year. I thought when he came back around in October this was something he was going to overcome, but it has not happened yet, and so I’m just going to be going alone again I guess.

What sucks is that all I want...all I can really do even, for my birthday this year would be to have a relaxing pool weekend, and I can’t do that because he won’t want to do it. Oh I think he’d come. He did on memorial weekend (which I was so happy about!), but he sat out in the blazing heat in jeans.

I’ve been there, I know what it feels like to pretend you are not roasting because you don’t want to get into a pair of shorts or a bathing suit. I’m trying not to push him, because that doesn’t work. It only make people feel pressure and that’s the last thing he needs.

So I guess I’ll either spend my birthday alone at the pool, or at home doing nothing with him.

I just want something good. Please dear God, just please.

Going to bed...or trying to...dicks behind me are shooting off fireworks and they are really loud.

Hate my neighborhood and am so ready to get the fuck out of here.

I’ll be 50 a week from tomorrow. Fuuuuck....

Goodnight.

The Perfect Storm

Another month gone by in what I thought was a bat shit crazy world shut down by an enemy we can’t see. Well now there’s new crazy. 

Riots in the streets, protests. The perfect storm of crazy fueled by horrible incident where police in Minnesota killed a black man, George Floyd, on the street by suffocating him while restraining him. People are fed up, and I don’t blame them. I’m fed up too. 

People started to arrange protests. Black lives matter. All lives matter really but for now, I’ll take this. What started out as peaceful quickly went south.

Then it turned ugly. 

The storm was ignited by this terrible unnecessary tragedy, and with so many people having been cooped up for almost 3 months, people losing their jobs, their homes, their businesses, and their lives to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not surprising that this incident exploded the way it has. 

7 days of protests now, all over the world, all asking for reform in the police departments and government in general. The ugly was not the protests, it was the rioting and looting that of course went along with it. Businesses already suffering were smashed up and looted. 

I don’t believe the people doing the worst of it have anything to do with the actual protests, they just want to cause trouble and steal stuff. 

Fortunately enough of the good people have stuck with it and hopefully it will actually do some good, although we’re now kind of in a “where do we go from here?” Place now. 

Where DO we go from here? How do we actually make the changes we really need? Vote? Sure, only voting for the same people that are already part of the problem.

Then there’s our president. The most unpresidential of presidents ever, he’s a mess and it’s just making the USA look worse than it already did to the rest of the world. Yesterday he actually got the National Guard to break up a bunch of peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets so that he and his rotten children could cross the street and do a photo op in front of a church he never goes to, holding up a bible that was not even his, and that I doubt he’s ever read. Stupid.

I want him gone, and I don’t think I’m the minority in this. There are still a few people I know that think he’s actually done a good job in the economic area, and that’s probably true to some extent. I will say that he seems to be the only person in the world that will actually stick up to China, but.....and it’s a very big BUT...a I’ve said a million times, it’s not the message it’s the delivery. 

So often things could have been better for that man if he would just shut up. 

Really...JUST....SHUT....UP!

I don’t know what will be coming for our country, but I fear it’s going to be a very long time before we are back to any sense of normal again. 

As for me, I’m ok one day and not the next. Back and forth with charging forward and making myself do healthy things, then falling completely off the wagon. 

I feel completely unsupported. Everyone has their own shit to deal with after all. 

And to top it off I am a little over a week from turning 50. 

The big one, the birthday of all birthdays, and I won’t even be able to celebrate it. Well, at least not the way I wanted to. 

I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be right now. 

I’m mad, and frustrated and depressed.

I’m mad for not taking myself in hand months ago when the Wellness Center closed and my work dried up. Not taking the opportunity that was very much the same as I had in 2012, when I made such positive changes and came to have one of the best years of my life. I’ve tried. But not as hard as I should have. 

I have had good weeks and bad. Some really bad. A few pretty good. My weight has just stopped at 25lbs heavier than I was this time last year, and that is just heartbreaking to me. 

The post I did in February when I was going to the Gym-I was psyched, and I know if I’d been able to continue that I would be in a very different place today. Instead I just started my 3rd very expensive month of training with Leanne again,  twice a week, which while I am grateful for, it’s not enough to spark the weight loss, and although I do feel stronger than I did when I began, I am continually doing things in between time that sabotage all those other efforts.

I will say last month I did better than the month before, so there’s that I guess. Maybe a 1%.

But overall I’ve felt bad about the way I look for a while and it has not helped that Ray has been stand-offish with me. 

Something that he says has nothing to do with me or my body, but more to do with him processing all this crazy too. He’s been thrown right back into the isolation that he’d fought so hard to get himself out of. 

Being forced to stay home and be a shut in, when you already struggle with making yourself go out and do things, doesn’t help anything.

Love is patient, love is kind. That’s what they say. 

Last weekend was good. Actually last week was good. I was in bed early for the most part with little to no alcohol so of course I felt better,  and I exercised almost every day. Also, I got a pinball machine on loan which totally rocks, and MG came over. We all 3 played and played. Sometimes I still feel like I’m having to do all the work with us, but I’m trying to be patient and kind. I keep saying I love him. Not to remind myself that I do, but because I do. 

We’re all having a hard time. Even now, when things are “opening up”, it feels like we should be waiting longer. I’m slowly getting some work again and even though it’s not as much as it used to be, it’s good to have,  but at the same time I worry that it’s too soon. Going into peoples houses that aren’t respectful of the rules. Not wearing masks and such. 

So much information has changed over the last 3 crazy months with this virus. I don’t think people even know what’s right and wrong anymore. 

Well they know some things are wrong. And the world is showing up to scream it. I saw the news just now. A small bit...(I don’t watch too much it’s just...well...too much) but people all over the world are having protests sparked by this mans wrongful death at the hands of this cop that had apparently been shady for a while. 

So what can come out of this? Hopefully they will be screening applicants better when hiring police officers. Mental health needs to be a priority, not just physical health.

Chances are, if this guy had been really looked into this would never have happened. 

I mean the guy died on the street in broad daylight with people gathered filming the whole thing. The guy begged for his life. Called to his mamma. It was horrific to see. 

The fact that the world is now waking up to these injustices because of his death can be the only blessing in it. 

He was indeed the sacrifice that we needed I guess. Horrible. 

It won’t change everything or everyone, but in the midst of all the rest of this chaos I hope that we can find some peace with each other and make the world a tiny bit better for everyone. 

The perfect storm. Maybe it will wipe the earth clean. Sometimes I think the earth, or God maybe..is just straight up pissed off at the mess we’ve made of this beautiful place. Teaching us a lesson, or just simply getting rid of us entirely. Clean slate. 

Maybe it is the end of days. Did I mention the giant lizards, killer hornets, food shortages that are slowly starting to happen, and there’s that pesky hurricane ramping up in the gulf right about now. 

Yeah, happy birthday....right. It’s funny, I said years ago I’d probably never live past 50. Maybe I was right. 

For tonight I am in bed, it’s 10:45, and I had a decent day. 

I’ll try for a better one tomorrow along with the rest of the world. 

Day 3

Yup. Successful again. 

1 hour on the elliptical and although it was a struggle I made it! Bed at 11pm (now), and no weekday wine again! 

Yay ME!

Off to moms tomorrow after training for the weekend. Mother’s Day 2020. Beth and John won’t be there. They have both been working this whole time and we are afraid they have been exposed to CV19.

It’s so surreal.

 It’s everything you see, hear, and feel every day. It’s impacting everything and everyone.

 Has there ever been a generation like mine? One that has seen this kind of change over years? 

Not like my grandmother, Menemy, she saw horse and buggy go to people walking on the moon, and home computers. All the things we thought were good, and they are really, but I just hope we are preparing to adjust to this new normal, because I’m afraid it really is here to stay.

Time will tell, but I pray to God that I’ll be looking at this post next year on Mothers Day weekend thinking, “thank God that is behind us and everyone is safe”.

I hope I get to celebrate another Mother’s Day with my mom, and the whole family this time. 

I hope we all make it, and everyone we know.

I hope next year Ray and I will be doing this together and going to play pinball tomorrow night.

Life will never be the same, but I hope....I just hope.

Day 2

Ok today. Another good day in that I’m thinking “what would Rebecca 2012-2013 do? 

I’m still here! 

Going to bed later than planned but alarm set for 7, and tomorrow’s 1% is changing the morning routine. 

Get ready and be on elliptical within an hour and a half. Sooo 8:30 am tomorrow, and save any breakfast for afterwards.

Elliptical today for a whole hour! I felt great about that.

Worried about work, but that’s another days 1%.

Bed time.

Today I had a 1% change up.

Started with training session. Im 5 weeks in now, and to be totally honest, I have had good and bad weeks. Its bee a very rough month. I hit a wall…well a few I guess, but I’ll get into that.

Ended with playing Diablo with Ray. It’s Cinco de Mayo and I didn’t even think about having a cocktail. Ive bene having far too many cocktail nights.

With no work and all this time on my hands every night was getting to be staying up until 2AM and sleeping until 10-11:00 Am. Yesterday I decided it had to stop.

So yes, today started with a training session.

I worked today, just one house, for the first time in over a month. It felt a little strange, took longer than I intended, and I was a little panicked in the mask, but it was good to be back again.

With my recent nocturnal activities I was thinking that Id be missing that glass of wine..or 4..or vodkas…or whatever but not at all. I did my work and had a decent dinner, and pouf! Suddenly it was 7:30 PM. When I realized the time I had that minute where I’d usually say…”oh maybe just one glass of wine..” but tonight I didn’t think it. I genuinely didn’t want anything. Now I’m actually in bed at 10:30 PM.

I’ve had a million thoughts about my day to day existence in the last month.

This is the craziest time in my life. It beats everything,  other than dads death and the time leading up to it, but even in that, the world was turning around me going on as usual. Only mine was falling apart.

Now the world stopped. So little has been going on and it’s been scary and maddening, I’ve had terrible days and pretty good ones.

I got to spend some real quality time with my mom. Probably the easiest time we’ve ever had. With no outside interruptions, and just day to day life up there, it was really good. We planted a garden, and just spent time together.

Since I’ve been back I’ve had a couple of really good weekends with Ray. The in between time of not seeing him when I was at moms has not been great for us though. We’ve fought about stupid things. I’ve even questioned if we really belong together (again), but then I remember how I feel when we’re together and while there are times when I wish he would act or do some things differently, I do love him, and I’m quite sure he feels the same way about me, in both good and bad ways.

I want this to work out for us.

I want a life with him.

There are a lot of stressful things happening right now. Beyond personal lives, work has been nonexistent and I’m being forced to get into the video side of the real estate photo business, which I don’t want to do.

I’ve been wishing I could get away from real estate photography altogether so I’m hoping I can focus myself and do something about it.

Then there’s my weight.

I weigh more right now than I have in years. 20 lbs or more than I was at this time last year and it’s killing me. I started out well at the gym, and one month in, the virus shuts the gym down, along with the whole world in about 2 weeks.

Needless to say my roll was over, but Im so glad I started training with Leanne again. It’s not been as successful on the days I’m not training but I’m not giving up on myself.

I must pull myself up and get my shit together. Make small but consistent 1% changes.

So my 1% “big” change today was exercise, no drinking, and bed at a decent hour, which I don’t think has happened since all this started mid-March. I’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow but for today, I’m going to bed happy.