Baby Steps

I've been trying to pull my thoughts together for this post for a while and it's been a real struggle.  Partly because I'm wrestling with the guilt that comes with marking your line in the sand and then completely failing to jump over it, but also because I'm failing to put my finger on the precise reasons why I'm failing so spectacularly.   Fail fail fail. Epic fail.  So I'm going to get straight to the point.  Deep breath and dive in.

For the past couple of months, I've been eating whatever I want with glorious, gleeful abandon.  Crisps and sweets and chocolate and everything in between.  Except that you come to realise that what you're really doing is desperately cramming food in your mouth, trying to.... I'm not sure really.  Trying to avoid dealing with emotion?  Trying to keep myself safe in my cocoon of fat so I don't have to try?  Trying to committ a slow drawn out suicide by coating my arteries with a cheese flavoured layer of sludge? All sounds a bit melodramatic, doesn't it, but bear with me, this train of thought may be on the verge of pulling into a station.

There are any number of reasons excuses for the way I've been eating.  I could write a giant boo hoo poor me blog post about how hard it is to be me.  Except, really it isn't.  I've strolled my way through life, always taking the path of least resistance, rarely feeling really strongly passionate about anything.  Please don't misunderstand, I love my friends and family but sometimes I realise that days or weeks have gone past without me speaking to them and I hadn't really noticed, like the time had just folded from one spot to another.  Most of the time I feel disconnected to the point that I now have to make a concerted effort to accept invitations to go places.  My first instinct is always, without exception, to decline.  Even if it's to see people that I love or to do something fun.  I'm not sure why it should be this way, but it is.

So sometimes it all seems a bit pointless and of course the easiest thing to do is not to try and make it all mean something, but to drown it all in a sea of crisps and other assorted snack foods.  As a result, I've actually put on weight since I last posted. Oh the shame of it.

I can't think of the bigger picture at the moment because it's making me freak out and dive for the crisps, so for now I'm settling for making better decisions for myself, one at a time.  So for example, today I decided not to go out to the snack van and buy crisps. And I didn't do it.  I know that I'll need to deal with my wider issues at some point.  But right now I'm taking baby steps in an effort to head in the right direction, because I figured out that it's not about big declarations and goal setting, it's about the thousands of little choices that we make every single day. I think that's progress of sorts.

I think we're at that station now, please feel free to get off.  Sorry that this post is a bit of a downer.  I hope you had a chuckle at my last one to make up for it.

This One's Mostly Filler

I haven't blogged since September.  I've been really struggling with knowing what to write.  I'm going to put some considerable effort into this and in the meantime, please see below one from the Facebook archives from 2007......

Confession time. I have, for the past 2.5 years allowed the hound to sleep in my bed. And I do mean IN the bed, he snuggles under the covers and makes himself comfortable whilst I endeavour to pull off some contortionist moves in order to gain some bed space. I'm not sure how this happens - I do have a king size bed, but he somehow throws himself across the very centre of the bed and makes it his own.

Last night I decided it was time to reclaim my territory - who pays the bloody bills? That would be me then, and surely earns me the right to make myself comfortable in my own bed.

10.30pm - bed time. I move M's bed (soft and squooshy) into my room and make him lie on it. Turn out the lights. 

10.30pm + 5 seconds - first attempt from hound to gain access to my bed. A bold frontal attack jumping on my stomach. Oof. Dog is returned to his bed.

10.31pm - as above

10.32pm as above 

10.35pm - dog attempts first stealth attack - quietly and casually strolling to the end of the bed and gently pulling himself up onto the bed and hiding at the end. It actually took me a moment to realise that he was there. Heart swelled with pride at him being so clever before I realised that he was making me look stupid. Dog is removed from my bed into his.

11pm - M starts to cry gently in his bed. Manipulative little beggar. My heart melts, but then I steel myself for the job in hand. Dog stomps out of bedroom in a huff and I drift off to sleep.

1am - Wake up as am a little bit too warm. Why? Because the sneaky little chap waited till I was asleep, crawled under the duvet and made himself comfy. Dog is roused and thrown off onto his own bed.

3am - ditto 

5am ditto - persistent little fella ain't he? As a sidebar, he really is very stealthy. If the Americans had had him in 'nam then things may have worked very differently.

More of the same tonight I'm sure - am very tired today from all the waking up in the night - but need to stick with it - just need to prove that I am more stubborn than the hound. I fear that he may be made of stronger stuff than me though - I'll probably be sleeping in his bed by the end of the week.