Powerless

It was my intention to regroup and try to move forward after last week by shifting gears this week. I had my first trip to the Legends Club to write about, which was made perfect by Aaron Hick's curtain-call-worthy night. After a conversation with my mom, I looked up some words of wisdom our beautiful Pope Francis had about the importance of keeping our focus on serving others rather than on simply improving ourselves. There were some positive and unselfish (or at least, less selfish than usual) things worth reflecting on.

Instead, I can't spice up my blog with relevant pictures or find helpful links to go with my thoughts. I can't write anything hopeful or happy tonight. I'm frustrated with myself about that, as I think about the Pope's words about selfishness, but I can't move beyond myself tonight.

Tonight, I feel so utterly powerless. It's a debilitating feeling.

In the last day or two, I've been made the victim of bullying, primarily cyberbulling. This is not the first time this bully has victimized me with his disparaging words. As I feared, my attempt to stand up to him has led to retaliation. I'm still trying to figure out what to do next. To a large extent, there is very little I can do. I've told him to stop, I've unfriended him on Facebook (the primary locus of the bullying) and I've blocked him on Facebook, meaning neither of us can view or contact each other. I've avoided social events because he would be present. I've now learned that it hasn't kept him from making his disparaging remarks about me on Facebook; he just can't "tag" me or directly link to my account. He has been posting his assessment of me and his assumption of my opinions on his own and others' pages. What's scarier is that I am not even able to monitor what he is saying about me, and I'm only aware of it from friends who saw the commentary.

This bully has said in his posts that he is fueled by people in my circle of "friends" who complain to him about me. To those of you who gossiped to him behind my back, I don't know who you are. However, if I ever have occasion to learn your identities, our false friendship is over. Bullying isn't acceptable just because we're now adults. It's just as wrong as childhood bullying, and the fallout, though different than what a child or youth might experience, can be just as devastating to an adult. Shame on you for fueling that, for not dealing with your issues with me as an adult, and for fueling someone who has been a known bully.

Navigating friendships, family relationships, work relationships and living as one imperfect person in a fallen world of imperfect people is our reality, and we will daily face challenges in all of those relationships. Sometimes, those challenges are more difficult than at other times. Now is one of those difficult times. In almost every one of my circles, I've been attacked, put down, or been treated as worthless by someone or someones. I've continually had the worst assumed of me. Normally, when I have those experiences, I strive to take them and reflect on the times I have treated another person harshly and change my behavior in the future to be more loving and compassionate. Of late, I've lost my resiliency.

What does one do when one is crushed under the weight of it all and unable to get up again? When one cries oneself to sleep more days than not? When those vicious messages are all one hears anymore, day and night?

I love the liturgical calendar of our Church, how we as the Body of Christ journey through the life, death and resurrection of Christ together each year. At the same time, in can be maddening to be experiencing a personal Good Friday when everyone else is celebrating Easter.

To those of you who have been my Simon or my Veronica over the last day or two as this bully reared his ugly head - and especially to those who have been and continue to be Simon and Veronica throughout the Lenten seasons of my life - thank you. I only hope that someday, I can be your Veronica when your cross is crushing you.

For now, I just hope there will come a time when "It is finished."

It's been quite awhile...

I think this post deserves a preface: It's a downer, and it's not an accurate picture of the entirety of my state of mind. It's just some things that I've wanted to put into words. I won't be offended if you skip this one. I think I'll be more positive next time around!

I've been on hiatus for a few weeks. I think it's four, but I'm not going to verify that. I don't really think it matters. I know this might sound weird, but it was a true blessing to hear from more than a few of you that you were missing my posts. Humbling, in the right way.

[Fair warning: As I begin to write this, it's 1:40 AM. I need to get to bed relatively soon, and my thoughts are already a bit muddled.]

So, what's been going on and what caused the hiatus?
In a word, stress. All of us experience stress, and I'm truly not trying to begin a tournament where we try to "one-up" each other. When I get stressed about my life, I try to remember that, ultimately, I only have me to worry about. In the families I work with, moms and dads are pulled and divided in a lot of directions; I don't have nearly the number of commitments as they do.

Keeping all that in mind, it doesn't change that I am in the middle of six very stressful weeks. These first four or so have been some of the hardest of my adult life. I can't comprehend how I'll make it until Memorial Weekend when, at least in theory, I can begin to find some calm before the next storm begins.

The blog hiatus, then, resulted from a desire to have an area in my life where I wasn't being judged, criticized, or confined. I just wanted one area of my life where I could feel good, at least temporarily. Which sounds weird, because I don't get snarky comments; my followers are friends who are supportive. I think I was worried about my self-criticism.

And that's how I got to this point in the first place.
Through these non-blogging (and non-weigh-in weeks), I've realized that my overeating is a direct result of my poor response to being out of control.

[And this is where I went to bed because I was exhausted, then picked it up again several days later.]

Since I took a little hiatus from my return-from-hiatus, I've done a lot of pondering. I weighed myself this week, but it's not official, so I'm not recording it or reported it. I've decided that I need a weigh-in break until my stress level (hopefully) improves, come Memorial Day. In fact, stepping on the scale was actually cheating on my resolution to give myself a break. But I learned something.

I weighed in two days in a row because I didn't believe the scale. At first, I was slighty below my last official weigh in; I'd lost a half pound or a pound. That made absolutely no sense. The next day, I was a pound or two up - I can't remember. Still, this really didn't make sense. The way I felt, I was sure I'd gained 8 or 10 of the pounds back. I mean, my clothes still fit better, but I was pretty sure they had just stretched out. I was eating more junk food, although I was doing alright with stopping when I'm full. But still, I felt like I gained the weight back and that I was seeing it in the mirror when I looked at myself.

Except I wasn't. It was all in my head. Because other parts of my life had additional stress, my perception of myself changed.

I learned two important things during this blogging/weigh-in hiatus:

• I need to develop strategies to combat stress and how I let stress affect how I see myself;
• I have to plan my (flexible) menu in advance. If not, when I get stressed, all hell breaks loose.

I made one really good decision during this hiatus: I scheduled a massage for May 20, the day after a huge (but beautiful) work event.

The Minnesota Twins are at .500
I'm having a difficult time making heads or tails of this. They're fourth in the AL Central, so it's not like they're competing for the playoffs. However, I was certain they wouldn't see .500 until 2015.

My assessment now is that their record at the end of May will translate to their record at the end of the season. Why? Because this is a really tough month for the team. Their success in April could possibly be attributed to the scheduled and extra weather-related off days of rest. In May, the Twins play 29 games (two off days the entire month), and the wrapped up their longest roadtrip of the year. If they make it through this month around the .500 mark, they might just be legit.

It's not just me that sees me with prejudice
There are many people who experience a variety prejudices. Many of those people are bruised and broken by the horrible way people treat them. So, I know that some people may feel this is "first world" whining. Still, I see this prejudice increasing, and I'm tired of it, tired of it being acceptable to society. And I want to say something.

Above, I talked about my struggle to see myself as I am. I'm not the only one who can't see my talents and abilities because my weight gets in the way. For years, there has been criticism of media and entertainment industries for putting forward unhealthy ideals (or idols, one might say), airbrushing photos, and the like. I'm not putting forth a new or unique idea when I say all those messages can sometimes make me feel defeated and like it's not worth trying to become healthier. But I think most of us (and by "us", I mean everyone who isn't a supermodel) can begin to see that beauty comes in a variety of shapes and sizes and can move past that, at least in some way. It's unfortunate, it affects people, but there is a large segment of society who will band together and say magazine covers don't have the corner on beauty.

What I find troubling and personally defeating is the way obesity and obese people like me are being demeaned, demonized and ostracized by society. I think some of you may think I'm exaggerating about this; I don't think I am.

I have three items that I think are evidentiary of this:

• This first is any article about Governor Christie. I know almost nothing about his politics (mostly because I avoid politics); I only know people say he can't do his job because he's fat. This article is a great example of the discussion surrounding his weigh.
• Secondly, I started to type "fat people clipart" into my browser, and "fat people falling" automatically came up. Apparently watching people like experience embarassment is entertainment for some people. I also found an image of a very obese person with the caption "Fat People: The longer you stare at them the better you feel about yourself."
• Finally, I think this speaks for itself:

I needed to get a start on explaining my view, but I don't think I'm ready to explain my view on this any further right now.