question

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about today …

How much of what you want in life or with a partner do you give up when you love someone?

Like say you really want to have children but you’re in love with someone who is infertile?  Or you want to buy a house but the person you’re in love with is completely fiscally irresponsible?  Or you’re religious and the person you want to be with is an atheist?

How much are we supposed to give up in order to be with someone?

Or is there actually someone out there for whom you don’t have to give up anything?

stagnant

Today I’m feeling overwhelmingly, heart-achingly sad.  Sometimes I feel like my life is out of my control and I don’t know how I got here or how to get out.

I’m 50 pounds overweight and I’m having a bitch of a time getting myself to do anything about it.  I know once I start keeping my momentum up will not be too hard.  But for right now inertia is killing me, and I’m feeling incredibly sad that I’m not doing anything to change.  Sadness makes me eat.  Vicious cycle.

I’m in a fairly unhappy marriage.  It’s not that we’re going through a bad patch, it’s that we’re unhappy together and we occasionally go through good patches.  Right now is not one of those times.  Usually vacations give us enough time together doing cool stuff to spice up and improve our life together for a while.  But that didn’t happen on this vacation.  We, in fact, had a horrible time and it took a serious toll.  Right now nothing is particularly good and I’m really feeling the effects of that.

I have a 2 year-old son who’s going through exactly what any 2 year-old is supposed to be going through – testing limits, throwing fits, having tantrums, etc.  But my emotional state is not conducive to dealing with it … I get more frustrated and angry with him every day, and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be helpful in the long run.  What I want is to be calm, and not super emotionally invested, so that when I punish him I’m not doing it out of frustration, I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do and will have long-term benefits for his life.

Also, I’ve reached the point where according to my biological clock and my deep-seated emotional desires I want another baby.  I want my son to have siblings and emotionally now feels like the right time.  Except that it’s so obviously not and my lovely brain knows that.  So my emotions are constantly warring with my brain and I’m in this giant tail-spin of wanting a baby and knowing that, in all likelihood, I’m never going to have another one.  Or at least I’m not going to have another one while my life is like this.

I have no career and no prospects for one.  I’m working a job which doesn’t require me to ever use my brain.  Maybe some people wouldn’t have a problem with this, but I’m actually smart enough that I find it frustrating and saddening.  My job is just fine, but I want something more.

And that’s just it … I want something more.  My husband, when we’re fighting, complains that I’m always waiting for other people to do the hard work for me, that I’m happy to simply sit back in my bubble and wait for the world to change itself to fit my needs.  Is he right?  Am I not taking an active enough role in my own life?  Am I waiting for someone/something to come and save me?

I want something more.  It’s up to me to make that happen.  How do I do it?  What steps do I take?

road blocks

I’m currently in Puerto Rico, loving the sun and sand and the humidity and the time away from real life.

But I keep on being held up, stopped up, by this one huge nagging issue in my life … my weight.  A year ago we were in Mexico and I told myself that when we were on our next vacation things would be different:  I’d have a regular yoga practice, I’d be back in some semblance of shape, I’d have lost some weight, and I’d be happier with myself, in my own skin.

None of that stuff is true.  I am, in fact, probably even slightly heavier this year than I was last year.

So what’s the fucking deal, man?  I’m ready to change!  Except that that obviously isn’t true.  No … I’m ready to have MADE the change already and be on my way already.

I keep making all these other changes in the hope that I’ll feel good about myself, but I’m not making the one change that I really want/have to make, the one that’s going to actually have an impact on how I feel about myself.

What am I so afraid of?  Hard work?  Failing?  Succeeding?  Needing to ask for help?

Probably some glorious combination of all of the above.

So here we go again … what I would like for a year from now (it’s all pretty much the same as it was last year):

– a regular yoga practice

– to have run in the Somerville Thanksgiving Day Gobble Gobble Gobble 4 mile run.

– to have lost 25 pounds

– to feel more like myself and less like a bloated version of me

That’s all I’ve got for now, folks.  I’m sorry I’ve been going on and on about this for 2 years now.  I swear that I will make a change at some point soon.  Seriously.