Help Yourself #1

Finished my first (and second but we'll get to that) self help book of the year. 

This month's choice was some deliberate counterprogramming. Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living by Jes Baker. I felt like it would be a good choice to dive into when the barrage of January BE THIN TO BE HAPPY advertising started. 

I liked a lot of it. I really wished a lot of it had been more prevalent when I was growing up. Which if it had been there probably wouldn't be a need for it now, but still...I can wish. 

It's about not just body positivity and body acceptance and all of those buzzwords that you hear but about loving yourself, and giving yourself permission to love ALL of yourself and all of the wonderful diversity around you. And also how to advocate for yourself and how to not limit yourself and how to push back on people that try to limit you because of your size. 

It was aimed at someone younger and heavier than I am, I think, but it was still good to read and I took things from it. 

Some things I didn't agree with and I had to sit with those things and think about them. Did I not agree because I'm 54 years old and have been steeped in diet culture my entire life or did I not agree because my own research and life experience has taught me differently? And sometimes it was one, sometimes it was the other. 

I reached a point about 5 years ago where I decided to stop struggling with my weight. To just stop. It wasn't doing me any good. It was making me feel badly about myself every day. I mean it's right there, struggle with my weight. I decided that I was the size I was and so I was just going to make sure I was in the best physical shape, best healthy state, I could be in, size be damned. And so I focused on what I was eating, eat real food not processed pseudo foods, and I focused on working out. I can lift heavy things, I can walk quite a few miles, I'm good. 

I went through my closet and got rid of any clothes that didn't fit. All of the things I had been saving for "when I lost the weight" I cleared it all out. Some of you remember that. It was something like 6 bags of clothes to Goodwill. Oh how I wish I hadn't done that...

BUT at the time it was really important to do it. I needed to clear out that feeling of failure every time I looked at that super cute black dress with the multicolored polka dots that I had only worn twice before I got too heavy to fit it. And all of those jeans in various sizes that I couldn't have pulled past my thighs no matter how much I was lifting at the gym. Everything I touched needed to fit. And I need to love it.

No punishment clothes. Because that was a thing I would do when I was at my larger sizes. I wouldn't buy anything nice because clearly I didn't really deserve it. I bought utilitarian things. Things that I didn't really like, thinking it would encourage me to lose weight. But I hadn't lost weight. I had been the same size for a few years. This is what my shape was and I needed to stop punishing myself over it. I wasn't all the way to body positivity, but I was working on body acceptance. 

And then the pandemic hit. And it was a terrible year with personal trauma and societal trauma and so I baked. A lot. And we ate. A lot. And I stopped wearing anything with structure. Soft clothes every day. Which, again, at the time was how we dealt and I think it was fine. But I gained even more weight from where I had been for years and now I was looking at a whole new closet clean out. If I ever stopped wearing soft clothes, which I wasn't sure I would. 

But about a year into the pandemic I tried the food elimination process to see if my joint pain could be caused by what I was eating. Okay, wait, that's not exactly accurate. That's what I told Brent we were trying it for, but really I was trying it to see if it would help him with some acid issues he was having. Our doctor had recommended he try an elimination diet before but he wouldn't do it, too much hassle, didn't want to force me to cook special foods, yada yada yada...So when I read Michael Symon's book Fix it with Food I knew I had an opportunity to see if it would work. We had actually been planning on doing it the year before but then... see the above paragraph... 

So I did the elimination diet and discovered that yeah, food was an issue. I was eating things that were making me feel lousy. (We did not discover what was triggering Brent's issue completely, but did discover that nightshades are no bueno for him) And I lost 25 pounds. (Really wish I had kept those clothes.) 

But I didn't lose 25 pounds because it was a diet. I lost the weight because I wasn't holding on to so much fluid anymore. I lost the weight because of the decrease in inflammation and the accompanying decrease in pain. I was able to work out more because I hurt less. I was smaller because my body stopped trying to protect me from the poison (to me) I was eating daily. 

And that massive weight loss did trigger a small stretch of "oh I should lose more" but I got it nipped in the bud and I have settled out at the same weight (in a range of 5 pounds) for the past two years. This is where I am comfortable. My knees don't complain, my body feels healthy, I can eat intuitively. 

And as I read this book I thought, I wonder if I had been raised with body acceptance if I would have figured out that there are certain foods that make me feel unwell sooner than I did. Instead of believing that all of my health issues were because of my weight, if I had realized that being overweight isn't a health issue unto itself, if I would have figured out how to treat my particular body well earlier. 

Because for years we have all been bombarded with the message that being fat is the problem, instead of looking at weight gain being a symptom of a problem (sometimes) or not having anything to do with the problem (most often). Like take diabetes, we've been told for years that being heavy is a cause of diabetes. Lose the weight, get your blood sugar under control.

But is that right? 

Not really. Being heavy and having diabetes often do go hand in hand but not that being heavy causes diabetes. The same thing that causes diabetes, your body's inability to process or regulate sugar, and the food choices you are making, causes weight gain. It's why you often lose weight AND get your diabetes under control when you change the way you eat. It's not that the weight caused one, it's that the sugar issue caused both. See?

And I sort of knew it. Or was figuring it out much earlier than the recent research has shown. Think about the problems right now with Ozempic. It's a great drug for helping control diabetes. But people are using it for weight loss. Because it changes the way your body processes blood sugar. It helps manage that and a side effect is you aren't hungry. So you lose weight.

When we did Atkins years and year ago it was the same thing. It's a diet that a lot of people have used to get their blood sugar under control and you lose weight. The thinking (when we did it) is that the weight loss is what triggers the good blood sugar. But it's the fact that you aren't hungry that triggers the weight loss. I figured out once how many calories I was taking in a day on Atkins and it was scary low. But I was never hungry because of what I was eating so I didn't worry about it. 

But I didn't quite put it together.

It took years to figure out that my weight and my health weren't really tied together. A change in doctor helped too. Not ending each appointment with "lose weight" was a bigger relief than I ever thought it would be. The only caveat to that is that I do have more knee pain with my arthritis when I'm heavier. Even heavy and fit is more pain than if I'm a little lighter. Which makes sense in a way that a lot of other things don't. A joint that is damaged is going to feel better supporting less weight. It's also why it feels better when I keep up the muscle work around it that helps support the joint. Keep moving to keep moving. 

But anyway, the first self help book of the year was around diet and fitness...except not. It was partly around how the diet and fitness industries have completely warped our understanding of how our own bodies work and how the advertising and glorification of thinner bodies over fatter ones has made us all think that thin is better. As I said, I think the book was definitely aimed at someone younger than I am, and someone larger (in her description of plus vs. straight sizes I am firmly in the straight sizes category, I just have a plus size mentality), but I also believe it would be a good read for just about anyone. 

We all need to learn that all sizes and shapes of people are just that, all sizes and shapes. And apply that to ourselves. I have gorgeous, sexy, stunning and handsome friends of all sizes, I could just never apply the lense I saw them through to my own mirror.

Eat good healthy food. Give your body the best foods it needs to run the best way it can. 
Be active. Get your heart healthy. Give your muscles some work to do. 
And enjoy your body. Every bit of it. Dress in what you like to wear. Get clothes that fit your body and your style and go be fabulous. 

The Power of the Divine

I've been thinking about the power of the divine goddess lately. 

I know right? Not my usual. Or at least not unless I'm deconstructing it for a story. So...

But lately I've been playing with the idea of it, what it means, who it involves. 

Hecate, The Triple Goddess, the maiden, the mother, the crone. How does that translate to now? 

Then yesterday Kevin's father let me know that he was ready to memorialize Kevin's facebook pages. He sent a really lovely message to me and to Nadine, another friend of Kevin's (and mine). And he talked in his message that he felt Kevin really had found soul friends in each of us. And how people are lucky to get one in their life, let alone two. 

I think it's a reflection of the man Kevin was that there are a lot of people out there that would feel that way about him. That he really was part of them and they were part of him. I've talked about it before, he was always just so very Kevin that he allowed space for people to be so very much themselves. And for a few of us that are already that way it allowed a sort of click of recognition and sense of place. 

Now, you cannot know another relationship from the outside looking in so the next part is all about what I feel. I could be really far off but it's my feeling.

This email dovetailed into my thinking about Hecate. In my friend group there is a lot of feminine energy. A lot of us that fill different roles at different times. But I think Nadine and I tend to hold the anchors most of the time. 

We are close in age, but I am firmly in the mother/crone position and she is maiden/mother (though more like fun auntie). All of our friends fill positions as they feel they are needed. The feminine is fluid in my world. I see it all the time. We all adjust and move. 

But this feeling of who we are influences how I see those soul friendships Kevin's father saw. 

I was crone. 

Nadine was maiden. 

Nadine and Kevin were playmates. And I don't want that to sound dismissive. It's not. Have you ever watched kittens or puppies playing? It all looks like fun but they are growing together. They are mirroring skills that they need in the rest of their lives, but are also able to snuggle up and take a nap when playtime is over. They got each other in that playful sort of way. Which helped when things got harder and they could help each other in the real world ways. And also snuggle up safe and warm when needed. Their bond was deep and intrinsic and important. They sent each other jokes and videos and just checking in. They fed each other literally and metaphorically. They played together and loved each other deeply. 

I am only 10 years older than Kevin but firmly mother/crone position. He would check in with me with questions about "how do you see this?" We had very different world views and life experiences, but he respected mine and I respected his. He sent me videos and notes as well, and a lot of them were funny, but it's not the same flavor. It was more, I know you like this thing, here see it. I sent him the same sorts of things. And also the sort of things moms send their kids, look at this thing we talked about that you could go do. I wrote about the last message on his old account where we were disagreeing and that was firmly mother/crone energy.  

That was our energy. I loved him deeply and I know he loved me as well. But I wasn't his playmate. We could play, but I was crone. I was the bit of advice when things got out of hand. I was the stern lecture when needed. He had a really good relationship with his own mother. I heard a lot of stories about her and I loved her through him. And I think that was why he and I were able to be as close as we were. He saw that energy as a positive thing. I was also a safe place to crash when needed.

Maiden, Mother or Crone we are all always that, a safe space to land.

I play the role of mother/crone a lot. When my friend Skippy was going through chemo and getting ready for reconstructive surgery her doctors told her she needed to stop smoking. There were people in her life who were telling her that she had been through so much if this was too much for her to bear she didn't need to. So she called me. And I told her not to be stupid. I didn't sugar coat or slow walk. We had a long conversation and I was just this side (she would probably say the other side) of harsh. But she didn't need a playmate or a friend she needed a mother, a crone. She knew who she was calling and what she needed to hear.

We all play roles in life. 

For some I'm closer to mother (or even fun auntie sometimes too), for others I'm full crone. I've lived it, let me help you live it. But with zero tolerance for bullshit. 

I am glad Kevin had both of us. Had that balance. Had his deep soul friend in Nadine. His playmate. His companion. His safe space to be.

I am glad he had me. 

And I am glad we both had him. 

I warned you all that I would be processing this loss for a long time. 

You never get over it, you just learn how to move forward with it. (great Ted talk)

I'm learning where and how to carry this one. 

I'm glad I have all of my Hecates to help me. 

Start the Week...

I just sent Dana our first exchange piece of the year. For my part I told her I'm sending her all the half formed, half baked, I'm not sure if there's anything here ideas. 

Today's was a prime example of it. I have an idea that's sort of formed. And it's an idea for a much longer story than I normally tell. Like possibly novella length? Maybe like Witches in the Wonky Tower. 

But then again maybe it's not. Maybe it's just a scene in my head and there isn't anything else? 

So I wrote up what I had, both ways, and sent them off to Dana. Here, you read this now. Or don't. But at least it's out of my head and can breathe for the next week while I decide if I write another section of it to send on or if that's it. 

But at the end of the year I'll have a folder of work that is or isn't something. Some of it will probably end up posted here for my fiction piece for the week. And who knows maybe something will strike me enough to send off for a submission again. It's been awhile since I've crushed my muse's heart in that way.

I keep thinking I've reconciled myself to not publishing. At least not publishing outside of this venue. I just don't want to work at it like that. Driving to dinner Friday night Brent and I were talking about it. About the work that it takes to actually publish a book, or do creative work at all. I said I had watched Shay and Melynda and Dana and Conor and other friends of mine and what all they went through and go through and I was like...yeah, no. 

And he got quiet and then said, "I don't want this to sound as insulting as it might but...you don't like to work. I mean you can, don't get me wrong, you can be really head down dedicated, but if you have the choice you'd rather just..." and he trailed off. 

"Have fun."

"Yeah."

Now I can see why he'd be worried he was being insulting, but I'm not insulted by that. I spent a lot of years working. Head down, succeeding at what I did. Hearing my Dad's voice in my head that if I was going to do something I always had to be the best. Now, not that he said I had to be the best, it was just his assessment of my personality. That anytime I decided to take something on I had to be the best. And it's true. I didn't want to do things if I couldn't be the best.

And because of that I missed out on a lot of really cool things. 

I never allowed myself to do things just for the fun of them. There was always an end game. If I had a job I was working toward the next promotion. I had to be employee of the month. If I decided I liked a class I had to be the best in the class. And then when I realized that ruining the curve for everyone else while at the same time being bored out of my head in class kind of sucked I decided to not strive and to just do what I had to do to get by. Which I regretted senior year as I saw the top ten in our class standing on stage and realized that I should have been there. I should have been one of the best. Freshman year I was absolutely in the mix with that group.

Most of you met me after those years were over. You know the me that has coloring books and weird goals around writing and reading and just lives my life with zero fucks about what anyone else thinks about it. The sort of person who does not get mad when their spouse says, in so many words, "I'm not saying you're lazy but you aren't what I'd call driven."

I do worry about it, just because since I've chosen this path Brent has a lot more money pressure on his head, but as he will point out, that's his personality anyway. And my "hey! slow down and pretend to be a rose." way of living helps keep him from burning out. It's not like I force him to succeed, he just succeeds and I force him to enjoy the fruits of his success instead of looking to see what the next level might be. 

Or at least, that's what I tell myself.

And he agrees. As we talked about it more he also said, "You'd be really happy with a lot less." A nice way of saying I'm pretty basic. Now do not get me wrong, I love a lot of our fancy things. I love being able to fly first class to Hawaii and lay on a beach (for five minutes before I drag him into the water). I love that I don't have to worry about the fact that eggs have doubled in price this year. I love that if I see a new dress I can buy it without months of budget rearranging. But...I'd be fine if none of that had happened. And I never view that as mine. 

Which is weird. And Brent does not agree. 

But I always view it as I am lucky enough to live Brent's lifestyle. The one he strove for and worked to get. I am lucky enough that he brought me along for this fabulous ride we've had. But...

I'm a burgers and books kind of gal and I'm okay with that.

I'm okay that I don't feel the need to stress over if my writing will ever be good enough. I did that for a long time and what it did was make me not want to write. If I can't be the best... 

But shifting back to not needing to be the best. Not needing to do anything beyond the part that makes me happy. The creating a story and sharing it with at least one person who hopefully enjoys it. That shift makes all the difference in my life. 

I'm a basic bitch hedonist and I'm okay with that. 

Sorry, Dana, you're going to get a lot of crap this year because of it. But maybe it will be what you need to make you see how freaking good you are at what you do. 

And as for the rest of you reading this, I hope you find something to do in your life that you do just for the joy of it. Not to be the best at it, but just because it makes you happy to do.

Gems...

...or how they can't all be one.

This is the real challenge for you all. When I set write a lot goals it means that sometimes I reach a point where something needs to be written but I really don't have a solid thread to write about. 

There is some political stuff going on. I guess we can talk a little about that, but I don't know how much I have to say. Let's see!

Today is the second anniversary of the attempted coup. The Insurrection. Trump's Treasony Day.

Or just January 6th. 

Isn't it interesting how some dates just get that shorthand. When you talk about 9/11 people don't have any doubt which 9/11 you mean. January 6th is reaching that point. Or has already reached it, at least for now. 

The current batch of Republicans in the House of Representatives are marking their dubious anniversary of trying to not certify the legal and correct vote for the President of the United States by not electing their own Speaker. 

It's not a violent attempt like came later with January 6th but the day is young. 

I say that as a joke, but it's not uproariously funny. It's not really even ha ha funny. It's more smirk and knock wood funny. 

Because those people are nuts. They have bought into this really odd world view and another large group of people have bought into it with them and now they are able to force that world view on the rest of us. 

Right now it's all about dismantling the government because they don't think it works. And the more the stop it from working the more they say "See? It doesn't work!" Well, it doesn't work if you keep stopping it. But when you do your damn jobs it works pretty well. I mean you can Google a list of things the Biden administration has been able to accomplish in the past two years. Working with just the slimmest of bipartisan margins. 

But we are up to, I think, 12 votes for Speaker without McCarthy winning yet. He keeps promising the holdouts more and more and more to get that vote. Which is making him the weakest Speaker and he hasn't even started yet. Because one of the things he's said he'll do is make it easier to remove him. Oh my gosh, cripple yourself before you start running why don't you?

Think about the debt ceiling votes that have turned into shit shows over the past decade. And let me remind you, that raising the debt ceiling is all about paying the bills we have already incurred. The party of "personal responsibility" and "I had to pay my own college tuition (or at least my rich daddy did) so you shouldn't get a break on yours!" is fine defaulting on payments for bills already incurred when it's the United States on the hook. 

So anyway...they use something that shouldn't even be in existence (I believe the passing of a spending bill should be an automatic of course we will pay this moment) as a cudgel to try and get their way on whatever they are throwing a fit about right then. Now they can use taking away Speakership from McCarthy in the exact same way. Whenever they don't get to impeach the Biden administration person of the week BOOM Speaker vote.

And right now, until they get this passed NOTHING is being done. 

Which suits the obstructionists just fine. 

But there are things that need done. I mean there are always things that need done. 

And then there is the just human decency part of it. (Yeah, I know, what the hell am I thinking here) But a lot of the Reps brought their families to Washington to see them sworn in. I mean, it's kind of a big deal to represent your state on the federal level. But now they've been there for three days. Three days of hotels in DC.Three days of not being at home for the kiddos who school started for this week. Three days of meals in restaurants. Three days of waiting around for this nonsense to end.

Honestly, I think it's just a preview of the next two years. A lot of disfunction. A lot of things done and said just to get time on right wing news. A lot of shouting and sleeves rolled up from Jim (I don't care if your kid is being molested, it's not my problem) Jordan. I'd be fine if they got nothing on their nasty agenda done. 

But...

As is always my hope. Maybe this time it will be enough. Decent people will see this and think, we just can't with this anymore. Let the government run quietly in the background. But for fuck's sake let it run. Fix the bridges. Fix the electrical grid. Feed the hungry. House to homeless. Facilitate healing for the sick. There are so many things a functioning government could do. Maybe we are finally getting to a point where it's so fucked up and broken that people actually decide to fix it?

Okay, yeah, I read it too. 

But there is still part of me that hopes. 

Time Passes...

"Good morning, Bernadette, how did you sleep?"

"You tell me."

"You were in bed for 9 hours and got 4 hours of quality sleep. This is lower than your average. And those four hours were not consecutive which makes them less effective. Your heart rate was...Bernadette? Are you listening?"

"You know that I'm not."

"You asked me to tell you about your sleep. It is not polite to then not listen."

"I wasn't actually asking. I was pointing out that you already knew."

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, Bernadette."

"Is it? Thank you for telling me, I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

"You're still doing it, Bernadette."

"Yes, yes I am."

Bernadette got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She surveyed her face in the mirror. Yes, she looked like she got about 4 hours of ineffective sleep the night before. And the night before that, and probably the night before that. Her eyes looked like dark hollows in her face. The wrinkles on her cheeks looked deeper than ever. Even her hair looked tired. Could hair get tired? It was already dead after all.   

She stripped off her night clothes and entered her rejuvenating chamber. She was old enough to remember when it used to be a shower. Her house had been retrofitted with chambers when she was still a teenager, but she still remembered the feeling of hot water cascading against her skin and soap, just soap washing away the day's grime. She could set it to mimic a shower, and sometimes she still did, but it wasn't quite the same. Sensors tricking her body into feeling water wasn't the same as feeling water no matter how much they tried to convince you that it was indistinguishable. 

"Would you like to wear your hair up or down today?"

"Up please."

"Normal makeup routine?"

"Let's go a little fancy today."

"A little fancy?"

"Yeah, how about some bold eye colors?"

"Are you sure?"

"Why are you asking me what I want when you will just do what you always do?"

"I do know what is the best for your coloring."

"Technically you could change my coloring."

"Starting rejuvenating process."

She sighed and just relaxed into it. She would look her best when it was all done, that was the real pisser. Her collagen levels would be boosted and the wrinkles smoothed out. The hollows under her eyes would be plumped. Her makeup would be subtle and perfectly applied. Her hair would be braided and coiled in a tidy bundle at the back of her neck. All of that made her angrier than it should. 

She stepped out of the chamber and looked in the mirror again. She looked at least 10 years younger than when she had stepped in. The effects were temporary and she could, as she had done over this past weekend, let them slide to see what she might look like if allowed to just be herself. Not completely. The program would override her after a few days. The risks were too great of not being able to bring her back to this if she strayed too far away.

She had tried. So many times she had tried. One memorable time she thought she had gotten away with it only to wake in an intensive care chamber. They had somehow drugged her and transported her without her ever knowing it was happening. That was the problem with all of the technology they had in their bodies now. You never knew exactly what you were doing and what they were doing to you.

The generation above her loved it all. They had already started to taste getting older. Seeing how their bodies didn't do what they used to. How they didn't recover from injury like they had. They were so grateful for every day without arthritis pain or ulcers or gout that most of them just slept in an overnight chamber and never faced their unenhanced reflections at all. 

The generation below her didn't know anything else. They had more advanced tech than her body could handle. It had been given at birth and incorporated into their cells completely. The repairs were done automatically while allowing them to age to the perfect place for their systems. Which varied. Which bothered the system a lot. They could not override that portion of the DNA. Bernadette believed that the ones that couldn't age past a certain point would have died young in the previous era. 

But nobody talked about that. 

Even though she thought it might be worse to be stuck looking like you were 12 while all of your peers aged into their 20s. She guessed she might feel differently if she was one of the perpetual youth. If the choice was death or youth maybe youth wouldn't be so terrible. But the number of them that tried to get their tech removed, or hacked to age at least, made her think she was right. 

Not that it mattered. The tech was always right even when it was wrong. 

She put on the outfit that had been laid out for her while she was in the chamber. She looked great. There was no denying it. But she looked the same as she had everyday for the past few decades. Decades of great becomes days of nothing special.

"There. Don't you look ready to take on the world."

"Sure."

"Oh don't be that way, Bernadette. You know this is best. Oh and Bernadette? Happy birthday!"

She had forgotten. She looked in the mirror again. Not bad for 342. 

 

Word...

The themed picture of the day posts I use from Fat Mum Slim had "My Word for 2023" as the prompt today. Hunh...

Seems she normally chooses a word for the year that is her focus. Breathe. Present. Joy. Those sorts of things and that's her yearly theme. What she wants to work on. Sort of a resolution wrapped up into a word. 

My nephew does something similar but he uses a quote. Something to inspire him, or remind him of something he wants to achieve. He makes it the lock screen on his phone so he sees it multiple times a day. 

I kind of like the idea of both of those things but I'm not really a yearly theme sort of person. 

I mean, you all know I love my gold stars and my goals, but rarely is there an overarching theme to them. 

Except this year I did sort of set one didn't I? A nebulous theme that wasn't tied to numbers and gold stars. 

My friend Dana put it really well when she was talking about how differently she feels about 2023. She's ready to be an active participant in her life again. 

Oh my gosh that hit solidly when I read it. 

The past three years have been reaction years instead of action years for me. Every single time I would think I had a handle on life something else would hit. I am so tired of feeling tossed around and not having any sort of bearing. Of feeling like life is happening around me and I'm just trying to stay upright while it all washes past. 

So then I started thinking what would my word be? What would focus all of that? I talked about finding balance again in my goal setting blog. That I want to get back to making sure what I'm doing feels like it has a purpose or brings me joy. So focus? Balance? Purpose? Joy?

But none of those felt right. 

Then I started thinking Flow. I want to get back to where my life feels like it flows. Not like it's the herky jerky what next thing. And as I was thinking of flow I started thinking of the best kind of flow. Being in the ocean. 

You all know I love the ocean. I love when it's stormy and messy, I love when it's clear and calm. Snorkeling is one of my favorite things ever. 

I love that feeling that comes after you settle in to the water. It takes a few minutes to adjust to the feeling of the water, to breathing out of the snorkel, to relaxing and just floating above everything. Then the flow happens. Our bodies are mostly water and I feel like in that moment the water in our bodies and the water in the ocean reach equilibrium. We become part of that whole. It feels like a hug to me. Like a fully embracing, wrapped in the world hug. Or maybe even closer to a dissolving. To letting go of me and becoming part of everything. I know that sounds really woo woo, but it feels that way to me. Especially during whale season when they are singing and you feel it in your chest. The song resonates in your bones. You are part of it all.

A few years ago Brent and I snorkeled alongside a manta ray. It was beautiful. The way it just glided through the water. We swam along with it for quite awhile. Moving with it. That undulating wave of a swim. 

It's like that when we swim with the honu as well. They don't seem to use much energy. Just glide along under the water. And we glide with them. 

But we also have to make sure we pay attention to where we are. How far out we are going. Because that lovely gentle swim with the ray or the honu becomes a beast of a time getting back to shore if you get too far out. You cannot forget that you have to get back to shore.

That's the ocean. It's my favorite place. But it's not something to be treated lightly. Don't swim alone. Pay attention to the conditions before you hit the water. Never turn your back on the ocean. Watch for those sneaker waves that can come and sweep you away. 

Oh...wait...that's it. That's my word. 

Ocean. 

I want to focus this year on joy, on flow, on being active in my life, in accomplishing things, in being present, in making sure I do the things I love and tell the people in my life that I love them. That's the ocean for me. 

It's kind of ironic because it might be the only year in a long time that we don't make it to Hawaii but hopefully we can head out to the coast a few times just to breathe that salt air and ground me in the world the way I like. 

But even if we don't I have a few (just a few) items around the house to remind me. 

Stay in the flow. 
But don't get so comfortable you get washed away.
Support those you love and let them know they are part of your soul.

Ocean.

2023 How's it Gonna Be?

Okay, I've been watching The Wheel and went from the first night hearing him do that "One in three, who's it gonna be?" and thinking oh gosh that's annoying to two weeks later having it firmly stuck in my head and REALLY thinking it's annoying. So now you know where the title for the blog comes from today. You're welcome.

So this year is kind of an odd combination of goals and meanderings. I've got some hard numbers for things (really hard for number of blogs, actually) and some soft ideas around how I want the year to go. A mix. 

So let's start with the hard numbers.

60 books.  I know this is what I set for last year with the move planned and I surpassed that even with the down time. But this year I'm breaking it up a bit into subgoals and that will slow my reading speed. I'm doing two nonfiction and three fiction a month. I talked about it before. I'm going to do a self help book to see what I take from them in my 50s vs what I took from them in my 20s. Though I'm not re-reading ones from my 20s for the most part. I'm doing one bio/autobio a month. And then the fiction is two free choice and the Fantastic Stranglings pick. Though those extras could shift a little depending on how the other reading goes. I think it will be 5 books a month but it might be 4 one month, 6 another. Nonfiction is just so much slower of a read for me I think this will actually be challenging. There is also another sub-subgoal to make sure that at least one book a month is off of my TBR already owned pile. I've got SO MANY books loaded on my Kindle that I've not gotten to yet it's almost embarrassing! Almost. I mean it's totally not. But I do want to read those books. I wouldn't have them if they hadn't looked interesting at some point, right? 

208 blogs. This one is crazy in a way. When I break it out to weekly numbers it's totally fine. But when I then add all of those weeks up and look at what I've done in the past I'm like...whoa. Wait a second. In 2014 I wrote 177 and in 2015 I wrote 185. Those are BY FAR the highest totals I've ever reached. So instead of taking one of those I decided to sail right past it. Or actually I didn't even look at my historical numbers when I was deciding on this one. It's one fiction piece a week and three non-fiction. That's the average. And that's what I'm really aiming to do. Now if we go on vacation or something happens I'll play catch-up somewhere but the real goal within this goal is to sit down and write more days of the week than I don't. Dana and I are working on some sort of exchange as well and I'm not sure if that will be extra fiction or if I will send her things before you see them. I'm not sure just yet. But what you should be seeing is 4 blogs a week. Some of them will be extremely short, I'm sure, but there will be blogs.

And that's it for hard numbers. Now into the rest.

Fitness/weight/health I want to make sure I get back into a good balanced routine with weights/cardio/flexibility. The past couple of months with everything they've entailed has gotten me out of balance. I've stuck with doing some light cardio, my sciatica has felt better while walking, but I've really let down on most everything else. I want to get back into the solid routine I had working for most of 2022. I also want to drop the extra weight I put on over the past two months while everything fell apart. It's not much, just a few pounds, but I want to get back into that happy knees range I was hanging in last year. I've already seem improvement there as I've stopped popping advil 5 times a day. 

I'm going to try and pull all of my photos off of Facebook and have those albums stored here instead. Once I get that part someplace else I'll make decisions about my social media usage as well. As you know I swing from it's bad and I should leave to it's great and I can't go because all of the people who live in the magic box are there. But a lot of the people in the magic box have already left so it's getting easier and easier to go myself. Last one out get the lights.

I want to finish getting the house set up. We paused to give our finances a chance to recover but I need to figure out how to balance that need and the need to finish settling in. We have a few spaces that need some furniture and then I need to sort and organize again. Starting to figure out the things we put away places that just don't work there. 

And that sort of dovetails into the overarching theme for the year. I want to find what works. Like overall, what makes a day a good one? Is it getting things done? Checking off those lists and getting gold stars? Is it feeling cozy in my house? Is it having things clean and tidy? Is it sitting and reading or coloring or watching a documentary? Is it working out? Is it a walk around the neighborhood? Or in the woods? Or at the coast? What is the combination of things that works for me? Not for anyone else, except Brent and Katie when she's visiting, but what makes me feel happy? 

I'm starting with blogs, reading, fitness, planning, picture of the day and posting on Facebook. We will see where I end up. 

Happy New Year! I hope 2023 is a great year for all of us. It's been a really rough stretch and I think a lot of us are starting to feel like we are breaking out of a rut and ready to move forward again. Fingers crossed the Universe co-operates!