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“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” -C.S. Lewis


Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm all wrong. I'm seeing him tomorrow evening, I don't know whether it's so he can break up in person (last night was on the phone) or so we can talk things through. I don't know what to expect, I don't know what's normal and what isn't, I don't know what's right or wrong, I don't know what I want, I don't know what he wants, I don't know if any of this is fixable. I'm so confused and I need some respite, and the thing is I know he feels the same; we're like the blind leading the blind.

Things I know:
I can't undo what's gone before
I can't redeem myself; I need him to forgive me
If I could undo everything, the good and the bad, I wouldn't
Having an argument or a stressful period doesn't mean it's all falling apart
We both want to do the right thing
God has good plans for us both, either together or apart
One way or another, this too shall pass.

"Goddamn, change of pace...

...I think you've got a piece of my heart on your face. It's a shame to let it waste; how does it taste? How does it taste?"

BF broke up with me last night out of the blue; I feel totally alone. I just feel like I'd given everything that I had and was until I was completely depleted, but everything I had and was was still found lacking and inadequate, and now I’m left completely drained of self. How to sate such a feeling? And when did I ever let myself need another person so? Such self-induced vulnerability is surely a greater psychosis than any other.

“We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as though they might teach us how not to need.” - Marya Hornbacher

But mightn't they just...?

jealous

My sister is three months pregnant and has a flatter belly than me. This is disgusting, I can't believe how little self-control I have at the moment, it's like all I do is eat :(

Broken

*sigh*... Pretty girls.

I think I’m broken. Not in the metaphorical sense, not emotionally, I mean broken like a DVD player gets broken. Some connection isn’t working properly or something. I’m barely eating, I’m exercising as much as I can given that I’m knackered all the time (normally a bunch of sit-ups and press-ups in the morning followed by a 7 ½ mile walk to work), I’ve substituted most of my coffees for green tea, hot water and lemon juice etc, and it’s JUST NOT WORKING! I don’t understand why I’ve suddenly stopped losing but it’s so discouraging.
Plus, my BF casually dropped into conversation last night that his female friend is coming over from America for a few weeks to spend Christmas with them. Credit where it’s due, she sounds like a really lovely girl, and I *know* that he’s 100% faithful to me. It’s not that I’m jealous, or feel threatened, it’s just… I don’t know. She’s a close friend of their family, and she and he have this really close bond and loads of inside jokes... I just feel so incredibly alone at the moment as it is and I’m scared that she’ll (inadvertently) squeeze me out of my own relationship. Ordinarily it’d be just the kick up the arse I need to get moving and lose some fatness, but I just don’t feel like I can try any harder.
I’m so tired, and I want so badly to pack it all in and just go back to those days when I didn’t worry about any of this, but I’m afraid that if I give it up I’ll have nothing, like peeling back layer after layer of an onion only to find that there’s nothing left.

Midas

…But all at once the door opened, and in came a little man, who said, “Good evening Mistress Miller. Why are you crying so?”“Alas,” answered the girl, “I have to spin straw into gold, and I donot know how to do it.” “What will you give me,” said the manikin, “if I do it for you?” “My necklace.” said the girl. The little man took the necklace, seated himself in front of the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three turns, and the reel was full, then he put another on, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times round, and the second was full too. And so it went on until the morning, when all the straw was spun, and all the reels were full of gold.

-Rumpelstiltskin by the Brothers Grimm



Last night, I got home and BINGED on cookie dough and Hershey’s kisses. I hate this feeling. I hate that eating makes me hate myself so. I want to go back to when I didn't even think about this but it's too hard. As soon as I woke up this morning I knew it was just going to be one of those days when you don’t even want to get out of bed, don’t want to venture out into public and expose your fatness to everyone. It didn’t matter what I wore - everything was going to look fat. There was no point weighing myself - it was bound to be hideous. I even almost opted to get the bus instead of walking to work - I’d never burn off all those calories anyway. Then I opened the curtains, and it looked like the whole world had been spun to gold. Autumn’s in full swing; the trees look like they’ve been bear-hugged by Midas, and the ground is covered with burnished leaves. The sun was just about gilding the rooftops, the sky had been shot through with light and henna and gold… it might have been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t change the fact that I screwed up royally last night, it doesn't make me less ashamed, it certainly doesn't make me less fat, but somehow, being privy to something so breathtakingly beautiful made me feel a little - a *very* little, but just enough that I could feel it - bit less ugly. I guess today’s another day. Another chance to try again.

Armistice Day

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

by Lt. Col. John McCrae

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30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home. (Brooklyn Institution)

In 2002 the number of active-duty US soldiers who attempted suicide was 350. By 2007 the figure had risen to 2,100. (CNN)

300,000 children are currently thought to be serving as soldiers, guerrilla soldiers, porters, sexual slaves and suicide commandos in armed conflicts around the world. (UNICEF)

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Sometimes I think when we're getting bogged down by our own problems / inadequacies / frustrations, it's useful to remember what some people out there are being confronted with day after day. It doesn't make our own problems disappear, but hopefully it gives some perspective.

Sad

I’m so sad that L decided to delete her blog :( I’m sure I’m not the only one who’ll miss reading it. Every day when I get into work and turn my computer on, you guys’ blogs are the first thing I look at - you inspire me :) It's probably not so wise to do it at work, seeing as they monitor our internet use, but I’d rather people here know than people at home; my parents have been through enough this year and it would just break their hearts if they got back from Canada and this stuff was all over the family computer.

So, the weekend was lots of fun, I got to hang out with some really great people and also relax a little with my BF which was lovely. Things have been a little stressed between us lately so it was nice to just have fun together. However, as expected, I ate like an absolute pig and it showed on the scales this morning :( Am trying *really* hard not to dwell on it, but I’m so disgusted with myself. Determined to get down to my STGW by the end of the week, am looking for some really great thinspo tonight and hope to get some up here soon.

Aargh!!!

Weekend is fraught with hazard! Tonight I’m going to a friend’s house with the BF to watch Dirty Dancing - she’s already planned dinner; I kid you not, without batting an eyelid, “I really fancy sausages and mash with onion gravy”! Sausages and mash??? What’s that about?! Maybe if all I had planned for the *whole* rest of the weekend was a date with the treadmill, that might be an option. And don't even get me started on the "munchies" for during the movie. *sigh…*
Saturday night is a house party at BF’s friend’s place. In all fairness I am really looking forward to that, but am desperately trying - to no avail, nobody seems to know - to find out whether there’s a sit-down meal involved (hard to avoid eating with everyone sitting together) or whether we’ll just pick at finger foods while we mingle (easy to wander round with some food on a plate for an hour or so pretending you plan to eat it).
Sunday BF and I are going to his grandparent’s for lunch - again, I’m looking forward to it, they’re lovely, but as he said (with a massive grin, bless him) “We’ll be well-fed there!” I looked at him with horror and asked what he meant; he replied “Y’know, that’s grandparents’ job - spoiling the grandchildren!” Yes. Indeed.
I know I could just opt out of one of these events, but the point of the exercise was never to become a social recluse, and what’s the point of losing weight if you never leave your house and no-one ever sees it?? Which, of course, begs the question “who are you losing for?”. Hm. A question for another day perhaps. For now I’ll just try and come up with some ways to avoid putting on about 30 pounds over the weekend…
Incidentally, if any of you aren’t familiar with the site fadingobsession.com there’s a good little section on there called “secrecy” with some useful suggestions for getting out of eating :) Come to think of it, there are a lot of good little sections actually, I'd highly recommend taking a look if you don't already!
On the plus side, it's Friday woopwoop! If I had to spend another day in this office I would literally cut out my eyes. (Isn't it annoying when people say "literally" when they clearly don't mean anything of the sort? Heh.) Bring on the weekend. Minus all the food :(

Overwhelmed

Went to bed last night feeling fat and stressed, and woke up this morning with a bizarre memory in my mind. Was anyone else fascinated as a child by the way light could shine through your hands and make them glow red? Like, if you covered the bulb of a flashlight with your hand, the light still shone red through your blood and skin.
That got me thinking about these rice bowls my mom used to have when I was a child. I don’t know exactly how they’re made, but I guess at some point during the process, grains of rice are embedded into the porcelain, and then I think the heat when it’s fired makes the rice disintegrate, and little translucent marks are left where the grains used to be. They were really beautiful and delicate; they looked almost as though they were made from lace, but when you touched them they were solid.
That’s what I want. I want to be delicate, fragile, ethereal. So gossamer-thin that even light for all its incorporeality can penetrate me. But all I see staring back from the mirror are acres and acres of flesh.
I'm tired and discouraged and I feel like a monster.

Hahaha...

*sigh*… Some “fast” that turned out to be. I copped out, not once, not twice, but EVERY SINGLE DAY. Years ago when I first failed my driving test (for driving *into* a roundabout instead of going around it, heh) I joked -- remember when it was possible to dismiss failures with a chuckle instead of becoming consumed by them? Seems unthinkable now -- that if you’re going to fail at something, you might as well fail spectacularly. That certainly applies to the last few days. Yesterday was the worst. Birthday cake??! What was that about?? Since when did bloody birthday cake feature on a fasting plan??? It was hideous. (Not the cake, more’s the pity. The binging.)
Most mornings, the only thing that can hoist my fat ass out of bed into the cold is the knowledge that a) I’m not getting any thinner lying in bed, and b) only if I get up can I weigh myself. These last few days though, even the prospect of another mind-numbing day at work is more effective at forcing me up than the prospect of stepping on the scales.
Things to be positive about:
I’m thinner today than I was a month ago.
Today is the start of a new week and the chance to work harder, be better, thinner, lighter.
This evening I’m buying some red beads after work to make an ana bracelet :)