Why is it that as human beings we understand the things we need to do but for one reason or another, we don't follow through? For example, I have needed to clean my desk for about a year. This is a simple task and would probably take about a half an hour. But for whatever reason, I have not cleaned my desk. I got a laptop in February of 2009 but my desktop computer from college was still taking up all of the room on my desk. I did not dismantle my desktop and put the laptop on the desk until sometimes in 2010. I spent the year sitting on my bed with my laptop. Again, stupid tasks that get uncompleted. Another example is that I went to Boston in February of this year to visit some friends. I stayed the weekend and packed a duffle bag. It took a couple of months to remove even one or two items from the bag. But thus far, we are in late July and that duffle is still sitting on the floor, not unpacked.

Here I'm just talking about menial things. I'm not even going to talk about how I know I need to apply for jobs and what not. That does go back to reasons I can discuss in therapy. It's the little things that we don't do. Do we get so distracted by social media these days? For example, I'm blogging about this issue right now when I could be cleaning my desk. I will be happy once my desk is clean. I like when things are clean. I just don't like the process of getting there. Is it laziness? What could it be?

Go find one small task that you have been putting off and do it. You'll be glad you did. I think I'm going to start cleaning this stupid desk.

What does it take to be comfortable with my body? How do you "get over" ten years of complete and total body dissatisfaction? I wouldn't even call it dissatisfaction. How about disdain, hatred, disgust? Anyhow. I just really can't stand my body. And I always try to think about what I've learned in therapy. In that moment where I hate myself, what is really going on? What is driving this feeling? But why can't it be that I really hate my body?

I have so much work that needs to be done in order to get physically fit. You don't gain thirty pounds and it's all hunky dory after that. This body is on loan to me. Technically speaking. But I actually meant that this weight, this body size has got to be temporary. Will it all even out? It's been a year and a half into recovery. Shouldn't my body have adjusted by now? My metabolism adjusted back to normal? I have so many questions.

This is all up to me. I'm the one who needs to do the work. I can hate my body all I want, but at the end of the day- I'm the one changing my eating habits. I'm the one who needs to get her ass to the track.

/typical girl bullshit

-L

On Monday morning, I toss and turn in the early hours as I often do but this time, I find that my stomach hurts. It's not typical nausea for me (I'm nauseous a lot of the time) so I'm super weary of going into work. I have to go, of course, but I ask my manager who is supposed to come in at 3 if she'd be able to come in any earlier. She was still in DC, though, about 4 or so hours south. By then, the stomach achiness turned into body aches and a ton of sinus pressure. Whaddya know! I'm slammed with a cold. In July. I manage to get through the day until my boss comes in at 2:30 and despite the fact that I was scheduled to stay until 5, I bid adieu and booked it out of there. I've been pretty much house-ridden ever since. Luckily I had Tuesday and today scheduled off. I'm not looking forward to returning to work tomorrow and working 27 hours in 3 days. It should be interesting.

I hate colds. They are the worst. Ear pain, throat pain, general inability to close my mouth because I can't breathe out of my nose. Just plain ick. Make it stop.

For many years I had only one close friend with whom I would socialize. It was mainly out of proximity and convenience and settling, if you will. We had a history, as we went to high school together, but we were not friends much then. Upon becoming close right as we started college, our friendship promptly fell apart when she told me I was stupid for developing bulimia and that I deserved everything coming to me. It should be noted that as our friendship "grew" years later, she would recount this strain in our relationship as a good thing- that she was making my life better. Anyhow, we never had a positive relationship. I felt used and guilted into things much of the time. Finally I "broke it off" in April and I cannot tell you how much better my life is.

I'm learning that I don't "have" to do anything. If I want to stay at home on a Friday or Saturday night or spend it with my family, this is not a bad thing. J was under the impression that since we are in our 20's, we must always be partying. If I wanted to go to sleep by Midnight, that was lame. I'm so much happier being comfortable with my quiet time. I socialize with a new group of friends whom I adore with all my heart. I will also spend a Saturday night reading on the deck and that's okay.

I'm also okay with my Internet life. Sure, 95% of my close friends are those I've met through the Internet. This does not make me lame, unsociable, or unable to make friends in "real life". I firmly believe this is a consequence of living in 2011. Get with the times.

Post for next time: JY's discussion at group of imagining yourself in a better place. If you can't imagine it, you'll never get it.

I am the type of person who is easily spurned into any emotion. This entry will be an example of how little it takes to make me happy.

So, this afternoon I went to a local grocery store with my dad. It's really more like a market with a really great atmosphere, fresh foods, imported foods, etcetera. To preface, I'll just say that I'm a fan of cheese. Pretty much all kinds of cheese. Today I wanted to get a smoked mozzarella to go with some fresh semolina that we were buying. I didn't want to buy an entire pound so I kept asking the guys behind the counter if they could just give me half a pound. While one of the guys was separating the cheese for me, the other gentleman who was behind the counter packaging the fresh mozzarella into bags called me over and gave me a very handsome-sized chunk of the cheese. I'm talking hot, gooey fresh mozzarella. I could've died right there. When I say foodgasm, I mean foodgasm. It was almost like a sexual experience, I'd venture to say.

See, easily made happy.

Venustation means the act of making something beautiful or handsome. I added the 's' because venustation was already taken. Obvs.

This is the 3rd blog I've created in the last two years- all attempts at a new beginning. The earlier two became exactly what I was trying to get away from- obsessions over my body, my inadequacy, my terrible self-esteem. I only wrote entries when I was upset which ends up documenting only the sad parts of my life.

I want this blog to be about everything; the sadness, yes. But also the hopes, what's on my mind, what's making me crazy, what's making me happy. Even what I did each day so I can remember it all later.

I've been blogging online in some form for over ten years. If Teen Open Diary still existed and I remembered my login information, you'd find my earliest pieces of online journaling. You'd find a journal entry from September 13, 2001- the soonest after 9/11 that I felt comfortable documenting that day. You'd find that I talked about my theatre life a lot which got me in trouble when members of my theatre group found my TOD and shared it with the group- casting me out and making me a spectacle for months. I was 14-17 years old in the time that I had that journal before I moved on to Livejournal where I stayed until my online journaling petered out about two years ago.

I've always been a writer- starting with really odd and melodramatic stories written during class in middle school, swapped between friends as we all wrote similar stories. Online journaling is reminiscent of that time for me. I write for an audience when 90% of the time there isn't one.

I'm only here to impress myself, though. To document my life, to vent, to express, to emote.

Welcome to Attempt #3 at redefining my life through blogging.

-L