Metanoia

(n.) the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life.

I feel as if that describes what I'm going through a lot lately.

It certainly is a journey.  And I'm not entirely certain how far I have gone, or how much longer I have to go, or if it will ever end.  I was asked today by someone I just met officially for the first time, "So how are you?"

I responded like any other polite person who knows how it is socially acceptable to respond to such a question by the simple word, "Good."

"Just good?" was his reaction to my possible half lie.

"What else am I supposed to be?"

Truthfully, I was quite good at that time.  But naturally that's just the on the surface.  Deeper down there are some troubling questions that I'm dealing with and trying to find the answers for.  But no one wants to discuss those over a delicious meal of sushi, so I didn't bring it up.  Plus, I just met the guy.  I wasn't about to go into all the secrets of my "wonderful" life with him, because it would have been a life story kind of thing if I would have allowed myself to think deeper than surface level.

But here I can be honest.  (sorta)  Right now, I'm not sure how I feel about things.  Honest.  Before, there was a lot of anger, hatred, and all other sorts of emotions directed at a lot of people that I once said I loved.  It's been a rough year, I'm not gonna lie.  I wasn't even sure if I could trust myself or my own emotions at one point.   I've been hurt intentionally and unintentionally by people who I should have been able to rely on.  I haven't even known who in my family I was "allowed" to talk about it, so I had no outlet except anonymous blogs.  My life has not been a nice walk through the park, smelling the roses, people.  And like I said, this past year has been especially hard, because everything that I had once known or believed in switched completely, turning everything upside-down.

Many of those fierce emotions have died down considerably.  Things still may have to be talked about when I'm finally able to talk about them.  I was talking to a friend about this earlier today, and he said something to the effect of: "You have to be able to rely on yourself.  No one has your interests as the number one priority other than yourself.  Like yourself, and accept yourself."  Now my devoutly religious friends will claim that God or Jesus or whatever deity they choose will be as devoted to my interests and needs as I am, or more so, but right now, I'm not sure how much I believe that.  So what my friend told me really resonated with me.  I've never liked myself.  Often, I downright hate myself.

But what he said really made sense.  Even my loving husband, no matter how self-giving and how much he cares for me, there may be times when he forgets something, or he may not be around when I need him.  I need to learn how to care for myself, and have an interest in caring for myself, because no one else around me will tend to my needs as well as me.  It's kind of depressing, but also kind of liberating.  And it is what I have been working on anyway.  Mainly with kempo, but also in other ways.  I can kind of see my frame of mind changing as the days and months press on.  I honestly can't think of the last time that I truly hated myself.  I look down on myself, and I still struggle with accepting compliments without laughing it off, rolling my eyes, or denying it, but I can't think of the last time that I've honestly hated myself.

Things still need to happen.  I still need to discuss things with people directly involved with these issues.  But in general, I think I can finally, truthfully say, "I'm good." when people ask me how I am.  I may not be fantastic, or wonderful, or any thing other than good.  But really, when it comes to me, "good" is pretty darn good.  Good means that I'm finding a way to live my life despite all the shit that I've had to deal with.  And that, friends, is a mini miracle in its own right.

It's that time of year...

Yes, I admit, making a resolution to only eat one serving of high sugar food a day is a silly thing to do around this time of year.  Truthfully, I think I would be just fine eating only one piece of pie in one day around Thanksgiving time, and Christmas really doesn't fill our house with sugar.  Halloween was the worst - but I think I'm over that craving - though I still have candy corn hiding in my purse...

But what will likely test my sugar craving more than any other thing are these:

I went to the store the other day for important things - cold medicine and pain killers for Bug - he has been sick since Friday.  But these... these little devils... I'm not sure I will be able to resist them... and yes, I bought this box yesterday - and I ate them.  Only two.  They are so rich, I can only have about two at a time.  Which is a good thing.  And you know what?  Apparently one serving of these is only one cookie.  I thought that was pretty crazy.  I don't know how I manage to forget about these every year just to be surprised the next year when I see them on the shelf again.  They will be floating around stores from now until the snow starts to melt.  Winter, I love you so... but you bring to me these temptations, and I may find myself faltering... a lot.  Only two a day... if that... only two a day... *mutter mutter...

"You can smile in the picture, Bug."

That was said by Sandpaper after I took this picture:

Yup.  Now my sweet little Bug is a yellow belt.  Despite his expression, he was really very happy.  The adult class meets right after the child's class, so Bug does his homework while we practice, and then he plays on the iPad.  Anyway, usually he changes right out of his kempo clothes to do his homework in his normal clothes - but he didn't this time.  He stayed in his white dogi and new yellow belt. ^_^

I don't know if you can see close enough, but the colors are different.  The one that Sensei first gave him was a size 1 (the same size as his white belt), and as I put it on him, it was too long, so then he got the other one - a size 0, and the colors were a bit different.  And you guessed it, that's Sandpaper in the background.

When I showed Bug the picture of him posing in his yellow belt, he tried not to smile.  I thought it was great how happy he was.

After all this excitement, I had a different kind of excitement.  ...... well maybe excitement isn't the right word.  I think I may have mentioned before, that I did 100 push-ups during kempo one time, but the first time I actually accomplished that, near the end I bent my elbows... not really enough to call it much of a push-up.  This time, however, I actually tried to move my torso at least midway the whole time.  I admit... I missed one in the last batch of 10, but I did an extra one after Sensei stopped counting.  And I did all 100 twists, though I hate them so.  Saying that I did all the 100 squats doesn't say a whole lot because I've done that from the beginning.

I can't remember if I mentioned how we do our warm up... first we do some preliminary stretches, and just shaking out the joints.  Then we move onto the push-ups.  40 of them, all in a row.  Then 40 twists (or bicycle crunches).  Then 40 squats.  Back to push-ups - 30 of them... repeat until we have done the last 10 of them all.  And then we stretch again.  Stretching is my favorite.  It comes from being in dance for 13 years, I'm sure. ^_^

So yes.  I did all 100 of all those things, and now I'm sore... pretty much everywhere.  But push-ups I have never been all that good at.  I've never really had the upper body or core muscle strength to be able to do it (keep in mind, though, that my knees stay safe and secure on the ground throughout the process), so being able to do 100 in one day - is quite an accomplishment for me.  The baby fat is still stubbornly clinging to me, but I can see and feel muscle growing underneath.  Hopefully some day the fat will just drip off and leave me be, but maybe in a less disgusting manner.