The Week in Review

It was one of those "mixed bag" weeks, too busy and yet, not busy enough.  A week where I felt I was on point in my career, but in my personal life.. things are lacking. The thing that stands out the most was the death of someone I have known since I was fifteen years old. She was a lovely woman who struggled with her weight ever since I have known her. She went from being big to huge to massive. Unable to walk, let alone stand, she was placed in a convalescence home. Her family couldn't take care of her anymore. She died of complications due to morbid obesity. Some ask: "How do you allow yourself to get this big?" My answer: Real easy! Just don't move! Eat all you want, whenever you want, don't deal with personal issues and don't move one muscle. There is your recipe for disaster. I can't imagine what type of mental anguish someone who has gotten this large is going through. The physical is easy to see, it's in your face, but how do you deal with the mental if no one says anything? What kind of help can you offer if you don't know? All we see is them getting larger and slowly killing themselves. I think you have to deal with them in the same way you deal with anyone else with an addiction; confront and intervene. Something has to be done with the obesity issue in this country. Research is showing that obesity is now or on the way, to beating Cancer as the number one cause of death. How did we get here? I do believe and have always asserted that this is more a mental issue that has turned into a physical issue. I am no doctor, but I have been over one hundred pounds overweight and understand the thought processes that can create this slow death cycle. It's going to take family and friends and a whole lot of saying ENOUGH! to stop loved ones from hurting themselves with food. It is a hard, long journey that can be won. 
Peace

Get Up

Since I can remember, I have dealt with moments of the "Blues." Melancholy, sadness, whatever you want to call it; it was there, lurking. My Mama always said that I "think too much", as if in some way my melancholy was my fault. Impatiently she would say "Get Up!" or ask in a frustrated voice "What is the matter with you.. NOW!?" I never could answer because that would have opened up a can of worms. As a child, how do you say molestation? How do you broach that subject when you are scared and humiliated? It took me years to see the correlation between my weight gain, depression and my self-imposed solitary confinement and connect the dots straight to, as I like to refer to them "The Bitter Years." I have said this before and I will reiterate: What you don't deal with in your twenties, will bite you in your thirties and dang near kill you in your forties." Once I recognized and allowed myself to forgive myself for whatever I thought I should have done or said; I could ACT on my behalf. I could get up and get help. No shame, no regrets, no guilt and no more secrets. I look back and sometimes feel ashamed that I took so long to get to it, that I abused food as if shoveling food into my mouth would quell the secrets that wanted to come forth. Shame doesn't live here anymore. I am no one's victim, nor am I a martyr. I'm just a women that learned that it is okay to tell your story and then walk away from it, to lean on others for help does NOT make you weak,and happiness IS a choice. We can't control what happens to us as children, I wish that we could. But we do control how we deal with our past and not let it deal with us,good,bad or ugly. I wish you Truth. But most of all, I wish you Peace.