Yeah...and so, anyway...

One of the things that I've realized over the past few days is that I can longer afford to waste time wishing I could find the courage say certain things to people with whom I have had disagreements with in the past. I'm 50, and as my recent health crisis has shown me, life holds no guarantees. I don't want to go into the next world with a lifetime of regrets and issues that hold me back from God. Not only that, I would like to spend my remaining years here on this planet living usefully, in whatever way God sees fit. I don't know what that entails yet, but I'm hoping writing and teaching are somehow involved. I really don't like to do much of anything else on a professional basis. I love astrology and looking at the more mystical aspects of everyday life, but making a career of those activities makes me shudder with revulsion. It's just not right for me. I've been sensing that I need to clear out some stuff that I tossed over to the side because I...

A follow up from yesterday's post: My daughter Clarissa, and the father of my grandson, Galen, left yesterday to fly to Houston, Texas. Galen's mother lives 40 miles outside of Houston, and they wanted to take Xavier to see his other grandmother. (That's so weird to me: the other grandmother! I can't explain why. It just is .) Clarissa called me to tell me that they landed in Houston just fine, but getting out of the airport presented them with some rather peculiar difficulties. I took a deep breath. I knew it was coming. As soon as she told me that she and Galen were planning to take their baby to Texas, I knew what they would be encountering: racism, Texas-style. Nothing like seeing a tall, strapping young white man with a cute-as-a-button, diminutive young black woman along with their obviously "mulatto" (such an ugly word) child to bring out that old-style attitude. I was hoping that I would be wrong about my assumptions, and that race "really ...

You're probably wondering about the title of this blog. Well, I'll tell you. Eventually. But first I'd like to talk about my celebration of 50 years on this planet. It turned out to be a pretty good day. First of all, I remained abstinent. That in itself is solid proof, as far as I'm concerned, to the miracle that is the Lord. Without God, I would have given in to the sadness and despair that tried to creep in and destroy whatever happiness I would have on my 50th birthday. Not only that, I was almost convinced that no one would know if I went to out for Mexican food, since it was MY birthday. But God was having none of it. God lifted me out of my self-centered daze, and I was given the gift of a wonderful day. Not exciting or thrilling, but wonderful just the same. My daughter Clarissa came over first with my grandson, Xavier, followed by my daughter Chenelle. We had fun doting on Xavier, who is now crawling around everywhere and pulling himself up into a standin...

This is not an endorsement for Obama, but I watched this speech twice today. I admire the fact that he is talking about issues that America has tried to bury. I admire that kind of courage.

I woke up this morning hearing that Beatles song playing in my head. I didn't realize I knew that song well enough to have it run through that transition stage between sleeping and waking. Anyway, I am 50 years old today. I was thinking about being depressed, and I indulged that thought for about ten minutes. After all, there is certainly reasons to do so in my life right now. My health is obviously not good. I've been hospitalized twice in the past two weeks, and I've been to Kaiser South Sacramento way too much over the past month. I don't have a job anymore because of my health issues, and I don't have enough money to meet all of my obligations. Even worse, I haven't accomplished any of the goals that I set out for myself as a young woman. That bothers me the most. I've lost nearly an entire lifetime to food addiction and morbid obesity. And no one did this to me. I did this to myself. Then, I moved on to my actual "birthday". Other tha...

My daughter sensed that I'm having major angst these days about what to do while recovering from surgery, so she showed me a website called okcupid.com, where she recently met a very nice young man (or so he seems right now; a mother reserves the right to be skeptical). Here's part of the conversation: Chenelle: Mom, you need a man. Me: Like hell I do. I'd rather go before a firing squad. Chenelle: No, seriously, Mom. You're being too dramatic. A man would be good for you. She made a few more comments about my needs in reference to the opposite sex, but I'm not repeating them. I was not at all amused, needless to say. So anyway, I followed Chenelle's advice and signed up for okcupid.com. Basically, you answer a lot of tests, which is kind of fun, and the site matches you up with people who score like you do, and whose profile and interests are similar to yours. The best part is that it's free. I like that most of all 'cause I beez broke these days. ...

First of all, recovering from hernia surgery during allergy season is really, really messed up. Every time I sneeze or cough, I pray that I'm not busting the stitches open. So I'm practicing cough and sneeze control, taking Claritin during the day, benedryl at night, ingesting massive doses of Vitamin C, zinc and those dissolving herbal seasonal allergy tablets developed by the company that brought us "Airborne" tablets (and yes, it seems to help) and being thankful that I don't have to do much of anything these days except stay in my apartment. I'm an absolute mess. So in the spirit of taking it easy one day at a time and accepting life on life's terms, not mine, I'm going to indulge in a little levity here. I found these fun little tests in my draft folder, and so I'm going to post some of them. I don't remember when I took these tests, but as usual, I got distracted and didn't remember that I intended to use them. Well, nothing else...

I finally got a picture of my grandson to post! I'm so happy! It takes very little to make me happy these days. I take nothing for granted. Even when I'm feeling depressed, I'm grateful because at least I'm feeling something . And something is infinitely better than nothing. Or being six feet under, which is what I could have been. Thank you, God, for another day! It occurred to me that some people may have no idea what a abdominal cavity, or more specifically in my case, umbilical hernia really is. They aren't very uncommon, but a lot of people (like me) have them for years without knowing it. So I went back to one of the websites I visited when I was reading about my latest medical adventure, and I decided to post the information here. Before I do that, however, I've also been studying Baha'u'llah's Seven Valleys and Four Valleys on my own, and I see so many parallels between poor Manjun's search for his beloved Layli, and the search all ...

I talk a lot about my recovery from food addiction for a number of reasons: 1) It's the most prevailing, urgent issue in my life right now; 2) I feel that there isn't a whole lot of information available regarding recovery from food addiction, and certainly little documentation of someone's ups and downs while going through the process; 3) morbid obesity is only the outward symptom of a much deeper problem; yet health education programs and public information broadcasts focus on the symptom (There's too many fat people in America these days!) instead of the underlying cause; 4) this is my blog, and I made a committment to myself to show up and be as real as I possibly can, no matter what. Being real may take me down some pretty dark and dreary roads sometimes, but it's better than living a lie. As a food and fantasy addicted, morbidly obese adult child of an alcoholic family, I know all about lying. I've done it my entire life, and it's a pathetic waste o...

Since I've begun this new stage of recovery, I've been given the gift of being able to remember my dreams each night. Sometimes I write them down in my journal, sometimes I don't. But I still remember parts of them, more than likely the most important parts. I have two dream dictionaries, but for some reason, they don't seem to fully capture the meaning of my night journeys. Those dictionaries seem to deal with common symbols or themes known to psychology. I don't mean to sound "terminally unique", but my dreams only partially conform to psychological symbols or themes. However, I have some pretty awesome angels who help me understand things that truly used to baffle me. The first dream is common to any recovering addict. It's the relapse dream, or nightmare, as I see it. It took place in the house in South Sacramento that my family lived in after we moved from Tacoma, Washington in 1973, and I spent my teens and early twenties there. I did som...

A half century old. Five decades. When the clock strikes 7:55 am Pacific Daylight Saving Time on March 27th, that's how old I will be. Fifty. I should feel blessed that I made it this far. After all, I have my (cough, cough) "health". Anyone who has read this blog in the past knows how much of a joke that is. There's very little that is healthy about my body. The best thing I can say about it is that I have is that I have a pulse and a heartbeat. And my brain does function, albeit in a food and fantasy addicted state. So much for my health to be grateful for. I have my family, which includes my children and my grandson. Now that's something to be grateful for right there. My kids have been amazingly supportive of the changes I've been making in my life. They seem to know how to encourage me to keep going, and to let me know that no matter how grouchy and irritable I may be on some days, they still love me. All they ever wanted is for their mom to get...

I had to purchase a new copy of Windows XP, and I lost all of my old documents, except for the ones I remembered to back up. Strangely enough, I'm not too upset about it. I have other concerns that are a lot more pressing. Apparently God has a much higher opinion of my capability to handle all of the issues of daily living than I do. You know that old saying, "God doesn't give you anymore than you can handle"? Well, you have my complete permission to slap the next person you hear say that. Ooops. Loki is supposed to be gone now. I'm supposed to be sweet and loving and spiritual right now with the moon in Pisces. Well, I'm not. I'm abstinent and working my recovery program today. That's as good as it gets, as far as I'm concerned. Like I've said in the past, it's a miracle that I'm not trying to run over slow-moving old women in the aisles of the grocery store like I used to when I was stark, raving abstinent. That is what I cal...

I wanted to post a picture of my wonderful grandson, Xavier, but for some reason it wouldn't publish. It's a shame because that picture represents so many things to me. Mostly love, the wonder of God and life, and hope for the future. I just love my grandson so much! He is a shining light in my life, as my children are. I bought a baby signs video so we can both learn how to do sign language. I wish I could spend more time with him, but then again, I'm not exactly healthy enough to keep up with a bouncing baby who has figured out that crawling is sublime, and can hardly sit still in my lap anymore. I spent last night in ER. It turns out that I have more wreckage of my eating past than I ever imagined. I have a hernia that began tearing open before I had gastric bypass surgery. Of course, I didn't know. Listening to my body's "help me" signals has never been something I've done in life. The massive weight gains and losses stretched the membra...

I want to make a correction from an earlier blog. The moon didn't change from Aquarius to Pisces until yesterday. I was thinking about the movement of the sun on the horizon,which changes almost hourly. Details. Life is in the details. I seem to forget that a lot. Anyway, I stayed in Loki-mode for a lot longer, and it's a good thing my computer crashed. It's such a tempting vehicle for my darkest inclinations. I won't have my computer fixed for another week or so. I have been doing catch as catch can at school and like now, using my daughter's laptop. But I wanted to post because it's a help to me to attempt to be as honest as possible. I still consider myself a journalist, and honesty to the best of one's ability is what a journalist should offer to the world. That is what Baha'u'llah says concerning the journalism profession. Honesty is more important than anything because of the dangers of leading people astray with misinformation. The...

I'm not supposed to be angry. As a self-centered addict, I can't afford to be angry because I will eat food that I can't eat because they will trigger the uncontrollable urge to eat more and more, even if I'm so stuffed that vomiting doesn't even relieve the pain. Then I obsess on eating more. So the best way to end that deadly cycle is to weigh and measure the food I can eat, and remain abstinent from all flour and sugar products. But that's not all. I have to abstain from "checking out" into fantasy and remain present at all times, even when my life is now limited to basic housekeeping tasks, going to class and Baha'i activities (the ONLY things in my life that are enjoyable), doing my recovery work and waiting for the next meal. No wishing I was somewhere else, or with a member of the opposite sex. And I can't be angry about this. This is my life. It doesn't matter if I don't like it. It's what I've created with my dysfunc...

Life just keeps going on...sometimes real good, sometimes not so good. Sometimes real bad. Real good: I'm still abstinent from all flour, sugar and excess portions. That is definitely a miracle, especially since I remember saying to friends that the only vegetables that I like are the ones found on top of a hamburger. That's not entirely true, but the only way I would eat salad was to drown it in ranch or Cesar dressing. I eat all types of vegetables now, and I can't say I enjoy them. I eat them because I'm supposed to, and I just want to get my meals over with. It's entirely God because my will says Angela would rather have a double cheeseburger with fries. Just for today, I pray every five minutes and I don't eat anything that I haven't committed to my sponsor. That's it, just for today. And I have released forty pounds from my body since last August. I guess I should be doing a happy dance, but I honestly don't care. I have other things to...