On Marital Discord, Part 1

“There’s a fire burning in my heart,” ran through my head for two days. Adele’s catchy, bluesy beat pulsated, over and over and over, and I found myself repeatedly belting out that single stance.

And wouldn't you know, as I write this I’m having a hard time summoning that snappy tune…

What kind of fire is burning in her heart, I thought.  Is it love? Is it desire for something else? What fire is burning in my heart?

I was cooking a scrambled egg feast when my son asked, “Do you know any of the other words to that song?” After I let the one-liner ring out once more, he chased me down and covered my mouth. Okay, he didn’t really chase me down, but he did run up behind me and laugh as he placed his hand over my face. “I can’t take it anymore!”

The only other words I could come up with were, “We could have had it all,” so I looked up the lyrics to discover that the song is really quite dark and speaks to the vengeful nature that resides within us. In the song, the fire is actually “starting” in the heart, and the person warns another that retaliation will be so much worse than what was originally dished out.

The opening line of the hit title Rolling in the Deep, however, indicates that before the subject became motivated to enact revenge, she had been in a dark place of isolation. 

“There’s a fire burning in my heart/Reaching a fever pitch and it’s bring me out of the dark.”

That is the way it tends to happen, isn’t it? We suffer a great pain, we retreat for a while, and then something spurs us into action, moves us in a new direction, one toward healing.

Sometimes that fuel is anger.

Which leads me to the second item which has been on my mind the past two days: Heather Armstrong’s separation from her husband.

If you aren’t familiar with Heather, she is the author of dooce.com, a woman who blogged before blogging was vogue, one who lost her job after referencing her work in a way her boss didn’t like, and someone who’s family lives quite well from blogging income.

Yes. Blogging income. Her husband left his job years ago to manage the site and its logistics.

It boggles the mind that blogging can support an entire household.

Not so boggling, however, is the fact that they have separated.

Marriage is often hard, even when you’re not working side by side twenty-four-seven.

As humans, we are in a constant state of change: We mature; our likes and dislikes change; our needs change.

Marriage necessitates a buoyancy that is, at times, contradictory to our very nature. In the absence of that elasticity we often encounter frustration or anger.

Ideally that tension doesn’t lead to Adele’s burning desire for retribution, or to separation. But, let’s face it, in a two-income world, it is too easy to let stresses go untreated. Before you know it, you can’t stand the sight of your (once) soul mate, let alone tolerate being in the same room.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said before: There’s a fine line between love and hate. So, what’s a couple to do when they have reached the point of feeling like enemies?

How do you go about trying to reconcile differences?

How do you find separate spaces from which to heal, without adding financial stress—or possibly more money stress—to the mix?

What do you do if you have children or another family member living in the house?

What do you do if, as in the Armstrong’s case, you share a business together?

Every couple who has faced marital discord has labored over these and many more questions.

What I can tell you is that it is possible to overcome seemingly monumental conflict.

There are a few simple, yet not so easy, strategies our counselor helped my husband and I to employ when we literally couldn’t come together without it turning our convergence into a screaming match.

But first, I must return to my day job…

Soon…

On Living in the Present

Two days ago I had an epiphany:

I’ve been living in the past.

And I had no clue because I had cloaked the behavior in a thick veil of distorted language.

I was thinking about how relationships with my friends have changed in recent years.

How we are all at different emotional, physical, and social stages in our lives.

How the demands on our individual days are no longer in synch…

How I wish I could reverse time and go back to the days when one, in particular, didn’t feel so estranged.

I wish I could go back to the times we talked with ease, lingering conversations about everything, nothing, and lots of hearty laughs…

That’s when I recognized the mask over my words:

I wish I could get back to where I was five years ago, when I was in the best emotional and physical shape of my life…

back to that feeling…

that feeling of accomplishment…

back to that confidence and self-assurance…

Eighteen months ago I wrote this post detailing the success I’ve been longing for…

Two weeks ago I wrote this post about my feelings of frustration and failure.

With regard to the weight, I believed if I could replicate the actions that led to my previous success, I’d have current success.

We tend to associate living in the past as holding on to some negative event. But the truth is, living in the past means any occasion where we dwell on a previous event, be it sad or happy, negative or positive.

And now I know. My spiritual epicenter—the center of gravity that motivates and moves me—understands.

By longing for a feeling of the past, I was doing disservice to the simple elements that I’ve discussed many times: We are constantly evolving and changing. As such, what worked for us before might not work for us this time. We must try something different.

Love him or hate him, Dr. Phil has a saying, “If what you’re doing ain’t working for ya, then do somethin’ different.”

I had said that to myself many times. Okay, Weight Watchers worked before, it’s not this time. People are raving about Atkins…let’s try that…Walking worked before, but it’s not now. Let’s try Zumba…

Until two days ago, I thought I was living in the present.

I was open to different strategies. I was trying different things. I was setting short-term, realistic goals.

I now see that my frustrations stemmed from the longing for a past feeling. All of my present decisions were being made with what-I-did-before somehow attached to it.

As all of these realizations flooded my thoughts, I remembered reading The Secret. And I thought about Byrne’s suggestion to create a vision of the weight you want to reach.

I also remember thinking the idea was a bit far-fetched.

But, hey, what I’m doin’ ain’t workin’ for me…

At that moment, I closed my eyes and envisioned the weight I wanted on the scale for my weigh-in the next morning.

Much to my pleasant surprise, I stepped on the scale the following day to that very number. Right down to the two-tenths.

Okay, before you start screaming at me through your screen about how unrealistic and harebrained this notion is, read this.

My realizations came to me early in the morning.

I spent the remainder of the day making my goal a reality:

·         I set a realistic goal, based on where I was at that moment.

·         I made sure I added cardio to the walk I had planned for the day, increasing my heart rate.

·         I ate foods I knew would help release the fluid I was retaining.

·         I made a decision and established a series of actions.

·         I set a short term goal based solely on the present…

Success breeds success. I spent yesterday and this morning with that feeling of accomplishment driving my decisions.

For the next five days, I will let the vision I have for next week’s weigh-in fuel my actions…

What about you? Have you ever found yourself living in the past? Do you have a success story to share?

Soon…

On Failure, Fat, and Hope

I recently saw a commercial for the upcoming Biggest Loser series. A quick blip of a girl with a weightlifting bar overheard flashed on the screen and I heard her say, “I used to be an Olympic Weightlifter.”

I used to be a swimmer and a diver and an equestrian, I thought.

And, as a teenager, some seventy-five pounds lighter than I am now, I used to think I was fat. Downright Angus-sized fat because most of my frail-boned high school peers were freaking out that they were one-hundred pounds. And I was anything but.

As an adult—a largely overweight female—I now realize that I had no idea what overweight was, and sorely wish I’d have appreciated my body during those adolescent years.

But I didn’t. I abused it like many a teenager, eating all of the wrong foods… How many ways can you say pizza? And grab-and-go processed foods and snacks…

I abused it even more when I turned to bulimia as a way to control my weight.

Little did I know that my weight fears had nothing to do with a number.

Little did I know the lifelong havoc I was wreaking on my precious self.

When I thought about the young female on the commercial, it once again dawned on me that I’m not heavy enough to be accepted onto the reality show.

I’m not overweight enough to qualify for gastric by-pass surgery, if I wanted to consider it.

Never an easy answer for me.

Not that participating in the TV series to lose weight is easy, but the attendees do have people motivating them, they are in a controlled environment, one that doesn’t include bowls of candy bars, and chips and breads and cookies, and loads of temptations.

When they gather with their cast mates, they are all regulated by the same set of circumstances and inspired by the same infectious energy and goals.

Maybe. Maybe their environment isn’t as sterile and regimented as I imagine.

Regardless, this is one more excuse in the line of many, one more justification for the choices I do and don’t make.

I carry my weight well and certainly don’t look like I am fifty-plus pounds overweight.

It’s not that bad ‘cause these American super-sized size fourteen jeans keep creeping down.

I don’t have time to exercise.

I sit at a desk all day.

It’s Thanksgiving.

It’s Christmas.

It’s my birthday. (It really is!)

It’s New Year’s.

It’s summer.

It’s tax season.

It’s cold outside.

It’s my metabolism.

It’s the middle-aged spread…

And my all-time favorite? Geneen Roth said not to worry about what I am eating when I first get started. Honestly, I know that’s what it said, but I can’t provide the page number or the actual quote right now because I can’t find the book.

Maybe I ate the evidence in a fit of misguided hunger pains.

For those who missed the tongue-in-cheek humor above: Geneen’s Women Food and God is an invaluable resource for those seeking inspiration, and I twisted her words to suit my own warped rationale, as we mortals tend to do…

I just so happened to be standing at the pantry and shoving a fistful of food into my mouth when I realized my skewed logic. And I laughed out loud, a deep and devious chuckle…

I, like so many others, am in limbo fat-land, wondering how to lose the weight, how to establish new habits, and questioning how I let myself come to this roundness.

Again.

Eighteen months ago I wrote this post about my previous successful battle over the bulge.

I’ve been trying to replicate that feat for years now, and just can’t seem to find the right combination that works for me now.

And that has been frustrating—to say the least—that I can’t simply duplicate what I did before and experience the same positive results.

Why can't I? You ask.

Trust me, I’ve asked myself the same question repeatedly and what I’ve come to realize is that I am not achieving the same success using the same strategies because I am not in the same place I was six years ago.

Why, even the Pinocchio crease in my jaw line has moved from the left side to the right. The crease's impact on me this time? Zilch!

Okay. Okay. Embarrassment. Mild disgust mixed with denial... This time my facial fault hasn't caused a tremor of movement from me; I simply turn the other cheek to the mirror.

Seriously, though, we are constantly changing; our thoughts, feelings, emotions, physical and social beings evolve as we age, meet new people, and are faced with different obstacles and rewards.

Failure was a part of who I am for much longer than success was.

That is the sad realization that came to mind after I saw the beautiful, blonde-haired, overweight weightlifter on the television screen.

I lived for too many years feeling like a failure, feeling like I didn’t live up to my parent’s expectations, feeling like I was never quite good enough.

Hogwash!

I finally began to realize the absurdity of this self-loathing in my late thirties.

But old habits die hard, and unfortunately, the positive hadn’t been a part of me long enough to withstand the barrage of old emotions that bubbled to the surface after my husband’s last affair.

Not to put the blame on him. It’s just that the self-worth hadn’t become rote, and I experienced a relapse.

I choose to believe that’s all this is: An unspecified period of time where I have succumbed to previous patterns of behavior that don’t suit me well.

And, to use a cliché, each time you fall off the horse, you have to get right back on.

Hope requires the same sort of perseverance, and like the photo in the beginning of this post, is a trait ensconced in light and shadows.

I might be a bit emotionally battered, and might just be plump enough for a deep fryer, but I have hope in my heart that I will eventually strike upon the combination of elements that will lead to the success I desire.

Now I all I need is a dose of Jillian Michaels attitude to fire me up!

In the meantime, a good friend who wants to shed a few pounds, as well, has convinced me to watch the weekly series with her as we hold our own Biggest Loser event.

Cheers to hope and a nice long walk with the dog!

Soon…

From a Train Window

As I gaze out of the train window onto a thick fog, Liz Gilbert suddenly pops into my thoughts.

And I wonder.

I wonder if she traveled by train when she moved from place to place, as she wrote Eat, Pray, Love.

I wonder if she wrote longhand, in sweeping, cursive characters, or if she used an electronic device, as I do now.

I wonder if the view from her window was as hazy as some of the mental moments about which she wrote.

And I think about her discussion that genius is not to be had, but that it resides in each one of us.

I wonder about the historic buildings I see crumbling into the landscape. Why were these once glorious structures abandoned, and what stories are buried in the surrounding soil?

As I soar across France and Italy, I see an image not much different from home. Hills and valleys, farmlands and villages, graffiti-riddled relics and opulent castles dot the landscapes before me.

The cosmetics vary, yet the premise remains the same. Animals. Plants. People. Home.

Yesterday, I observed two young girls giggling as they tried to step onto the tops of each other’s feet. Though I could not interpret their words, their behaviors and squeals of delight were unmistakably universal, no different from children I’ve seen playing in their homelands of Mexico and America.

And I wonder, why, then, when we are so similar in so many ways, when we share so many common threads, when each of us holds within us the power of Liz Gilbert’s genius—the ability to create and manifest brilliance—do we war with one another? Why do we not emulate the grace of the land around us?

George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Maybe then, the grace lies within the learning, within the rubble…

Soon...

Home is Where I Am

I have been busy packing and planning for my first trip to Europe. I’ve made lists and more lists; lists for me and lists for my hubby. There are more lists for my children and the person who will be staying with them while we are away.

This morning, as I was thinking about this trip and the numerous items I still have to do (finish packing, change bedding for our guest, confirmations, notes to school…) some of our family trips blipped through my memory banks and I thought about conversations I’ve had with my children about home.

The expression everyone knows is “Home is where the heart is.” And yet, I’ve always believed that home is where I am.

 We have traveled frequently throughout these past fifteen years, mostly short weekend jaunts, with a few weeklong events thrown in here and there.

Often, when were traveling, my children would ask when we were going to eat or swim in the hotel pool, or visit a particular place. 

I would reply something like this, “When we get back home,” or “We’re going home to change, then we’re going out to eat.”

At first, this confused my children. “Home? But I didn’t think we were going home for one more day.”

But after many conversations, I think that they, too, have finally come to realize that home is where we are.

This is something I’ve done without thought or intent, but I feel it is an important detail to adapt into our lives.

If we are comfortable wherever we are—be it a luxury suite, a cramped hotel room, or sleeping in tiny twin beds at a friend’s house—if we take our hearts with us, then we are always home.

I am excited to see what awaits in my modest, temporary homes in Paris, Zurich, and the heart of Italy…

Soon…

When Life Sucks...

A person who is lamenting the detachment and isolation of his son just said to me, "It's okay."

I'll never forget when I spoke those same words to one of my customers, in the early months after my son died.

"It's okay," I'd say to people, who would usually say some variation of, "Yes, it's going to be okay," or "I know."

But this one woman, she broke the mold. "No, it's not okay," she said to me.

And I've tried to remember that ever since.

Sometimes life sucks. And when it does, it's not okay.

As such, I'm resurrecting this post from a year ago.

We need to remember that, when life sucks, giving credence to the suckiness is a part of our healing...

Soon...

Webs of Joy

"Why don’t we ever decorate for Halloween?”

That question by my youngest, nearly five years ago, was the beginning of an annual October party.

It spawned a collection of ghoulish decorations and home accent pieces that include a life-sized Sleeping Beauty witch, her outstretched hand offering visitors a shiny red apple…

Yesterday, as I drove home from work, the Halloween decorations were the first objects to catch my attention. Plastic signage, lighted decorations, and pumpkins filled the tiny porch of this run-down urban home.

But it was the teenager—standing on a wooden chair—that elicited today’s smile.

Where many teens could care less about decorating for the holidays, much less take on the project alone, this young lad appeared to be stringing faux cobwebs between the two side posts.

And by the flailing of his one arm, he’d apparently become entangled in the sticky material…

Have you had a recent moment of joy? Share it here!

Soon…