Slimming Down

I feel a bit better today. My mood is a yo-yo flipping around being banged into walls.

I haven't blogged about this yet (just like I haven't blogged about A LOT of things lately) and wanted to put out there that I've lost 26 pounds. Weight is my nemesis (along with depression) and I have finally been able to beat its butt while going on the HCG diet. I'm not a fan of fad diets but had to try this one out after watching a girl in my office melt pounds by the day. I visited hcgdiet.com and ordered the 40-day kit and lost 26 pounds in that amount of time. HCG is a hormone found in pregnant women and I used drops three times a day and the weight dropped off like flies being squirted with insecticide.

I'm now on the maintenance phase of the diet for the next forty days and hope that the pounds don't magically reappear. After being in maintenance for forty days I'll then go back on the HCG drops for another forty days and hopefully after the second maintenance phase I'll finally be at the weight I've wanted for the last few years.

I've gone down from a size 22/24 (whoa, nelly!) to an 18. I feel more physically healthy and not as tired. On the diet I lost 26 pounds but before trying HCG I lost a bit of weight and since July of last year I've lost a total of 41 pounds. Let's hope I keep it off and continue to slim it down.

Now let me go and eat a little chicken salad before attending the next meeting at work. I do have to admit that I am quickly tiring of chicken salad. Why does it have to be so difficult?

She's Really Gone

I can hardly see the monitor through crying. I've been crying for the past hour and can't seem to stop.

My daughter is gone...she is GONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I was a mother who had a child to take care of every day and now she doesn't live here anymore. How do you stop cold turkey like this? I can't believe she left the way she did. We have always been so very close. She followed me everywhere around the house like a duck. I couldn't even go to the bathroom without her barging in. When she barged into the bathroom she would have a huge smile on her face and say, "Yep, I'm here following you!", I would pick on her saying, "OMG, I can't even go to the bathroom!" and then she would plop down on the tub and chat about the world.

No one barges in on me anymore. It is quiet now and I never asked for that.

There is no patter of feet echoing after me in the house. The house is like a morgue. No music, no TV blaring, no lights to cut off, no mess to clean up.

This part of my life is over. It is over before it was supposed to finish. I'M NOT FUCKING DONE YET!!! I AM NOT FINISHED RAISING MY DAUGHTER, DAMN IT ALL!

I sound like she's dead. She's not. She lives with her father now. She feels like she's dead though. It hurts so much.

She didn't leave like some teens do saying "eff you, I'm outta here!". No...she made SO MUCH FUCKING DAMAGE that I don't even know what to do, where to turn or how to act. I don't even know how I can be a grandmother one day and have her children visit me. I don't know what the future holds.

All I do know is that it wasn't supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to be with me until she finished high school and then go to college. I was supposed to cry as she left for university and help her move to that next place. I was supposed to talk with her on the phone and ask how college was doing and start forging a life without her as I should because she went to the next step.

She took away my last school year of raising her. As a parent, don't you dream about your child's senior year? In a way, you feel that you accomplished something because you helped them get there. She took that away from me. Now her father can raise her the last year of school acting like the cool-ass dad letting her do whatever she fucking well pleases, whether it's good for her or not. He can now make up for all of those years that he didn't have much to do with her by letting her get her nose pierced, get gauges in her ears, tattoos, go out with "friends" that will most definitely steer her the wrong way and get addicted to drugs/alcohol and get pregnant all at the same time. Yeah, he's such a COOL FUCKING DAD!

If she wants to get gauges in her ears and tattoos/piercings everywhere, so be it. I just wanted her to get to the age of 18 before she decided to do it. Right now she wants these things because her friends have it. She doesn't want it for herself. She just wants to be a sheep and look like everyone else. I would talk with her a lot and tell her to do things for herself. If she wants her whatever body part pierced, it's her prerogative but ONLY if she wanted to do it for herself and not because Jane down the street has one. Am I so bad to say that? I just wasn't cool enough wanting her to be independent and doing things for herself.

I remember wanting a tattoo badly as a teen and also wanting my eyebrow pierced. My mother completely forbid it and I just KNEW I would do it once I got out on my own. Guess what happened? When I got out on my own, I thought about doing it and didn't. Why? Because I just wasn't in the same phase. It wasn't as important to me as it was when I was younger. She may feel the same way. The problem is she'll have a hole in her nose and ears that she'll be able to fit a DVD into if she wants.

I saw her Saturday. We went to lunch. I took her to work afterwards and watched her walk inside as I sat in my car. It hit me so powerfully that....she's gone. She's really gone. This phase of my life is over and I don't know how to let go.

I Am That Person

I can't believe how I don't blog any more. I really need to get back into it. It's just I am sick and tired of talking about how sick and tired I am. Do you ever get to a point where you don't want to complain? I am there and have been there for a while.

In my everyday world I don't complain. I am that person you see walking down the hall at work who nods and smiles at you. I am that person in the grocery store who smiles if eye contact is established. I am that person who doesn't talk about her personal life. I am that person who even my friends don't know what's going on or how I am feeling. I am that person who is there for her family and friends but don't know how to be there for myself. I am that person who always asks how you are doing when you ask how am I doing.

This blog is the only place where I can really say how I feel. Unfortunately, because I do not express how I feel to people who actually know me, I feel free to express how I really feel here in this blog and what comes out like rusty water from a gushing faucet? My shit, my woes, my anger, my depression, my dissatisfaction and you, reader, have to subject yourself to it if you decide to read.

I feel that it's a disservice to you. I don't want to do that to you. Even though I don't personally know you, the blogging world makes you feel like you do and I find myself wanting to be that person in the grocery store giving a warm smile instead of showing my sadness.

I have thought about turning off the option for readers to comment. I feel awful when I don't reply to all comments. I feel like I am using my readers for self-gratification. On the other hand, you have all helped me so very much. More than family and friends because you know what's going on. So, what to do?

I haven't had time to even visit all of your blogs either and that is another reason to feel guilty.

So, I've stayed away from the blogging community.

Do you have any advice? Should I turn off the comments? Should I feel guilty? Should I continue to blog? If I do, how do I stop feeling guilty for complaining so much?

Everything is Falling Apart

So much has happened. I haven't posted here in forever because frankly I felt tired of complaining. I feel that complaining is all I do here and I wanted to end the cycle. Because I was tired of complaining, I didn't know what to write about anymore. There was no urge to write.

The urge to write isn't back. It's just I had to voice something. I am completely devastated. My daughter is now living with her father. She moved out two weeks ago. I still cannot believe it.

Every day is an effort to continue. Every day something happens in a negative way and I have gotten numb to it. I want to stop this cycle of negativity. I want to stop the tragedies. I want to stop the bad news. I want to stop the depression and loneliness. I want to stop the blame and the shame and the anger and the confusion. I want to stop everything. I want to stop my life.

I'm surprised I'm not dead or in a hospital.

Happy Halloween!

My husband remembered my birthday around 10:30am yesterday. He then brought roses to me at work with a card. It was nice to see him and the roses were beautiful. He also ordered a cake for me which we enjoyed last night.

My daughter was acting like a strange bird yesterday. She never said anything about my birthday and when I asked her about it, she said that she kept remembering it was my birthday and then forgetting and doesn't know why she didn't say anything about it. In the past she has forgotten, but this time to know that she remembered and didn't say anything is very strange to me.

She didn't act like herself yesterday at all. I asked her if everything was OK and did anything happen at school and she said that she was fine. I could tell that she did feel bad about not saying anything about my birthday. It's just so weird the way she acted. I really don't understand.

I'm still celebrating my birthday. I love that it comes right before Halloween. I always squeeze more days out for my birthday every year.

I'm excited about next weekend because my best friends from high school and I are going out for my birthday. I went ahead and told my family that my birthday doesn't end until November 7. :)

Tonight my daughter is babysitting and won't be home. My husband and I both have homework to do, so I think that we will just lay in bed and do homework to get it over with. Tomorrow night my daughter is going to her boyfriends house to pass out candy with their family. My husband and I will be passing out candy at our house. I always enjoy doing that because I love seeing the little children in their costumes. My favorite costumes are the little bumblebee and ladybug babies.

I hope that you all have a wonderful and safe Halloween weekend. Thank goodness the time changes and we get an extra hour this weekend!

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I am 38 years old. Having Facebook is nice because I woke up this morning with a load of birthday wishes from a lot of people, which was very sweet. I received a text from my ex-husband with birthday wishes as well. This morning I saw my daughter and husband before leaving for work and neither of them said a word. It's now 10:31am and I still haven't heard from my husband. My daughter called me this morning from school asking if I could bring her blue binder because she forgot it and she never said a word about my birthday. Maybe they have plans for tonight and want to act like they forgot? I'm not sure. If they did forget though, I need to get them both a Facebook account so that it will remind them next year.

This entire week I have been in a depressed funk. Thankfully, today I feel better and am happy at this birthday present from depression. At least it's not tormenting me as badly today.

I apologize to everyone for not posting responses to your comments in my blog. I receive them all via e-mail and wish that Blogger had a way that I could reply to the mail and it would post a response back. My laptop is almost dead. I sit and wait for 15 minutes just to power it up and load Internet Explorer or Firefox. I need a new laptop badly and try hard not to use it. It's really cut down on my Internet time. I do check others blogs on my cellphone, but it's really not the same.

Hopefully, the birthday fairy will bring a new laptop to me tonight. :) I highly doubt it, though!

Oh, to be Skinny...

Today on the elevator at work I was riding up with a very skinny woman. She must have been in her 40's. I stood there and thought to myself how lucky she is to look like that.

I've lost seven pounds so far. Just under 250 finally and feel that getting to 160 will take forever. It is a huge mountain to climb. I fortify myself with raw vegetables and I am tired of it. Why does it have to be so difficult?

My husband and I still haven't had sex. I don't even know how long it's been now. At least six months? He says that he wants to now, but I just can't after what he's said about my weight in the past. We talked about it last night and I cried myself to sleep.

We talked about what he said in the past about my weight "changing the sexual experience" for him. I asked him to explain more and he said that for him sex is a physical act and not emotional like it is for me. He said that the actual mechanics of having sex are different now and not as comfortable because I have more weight on my body. From a rational perspective, I understand what he means. From an emotional state, it destroys me.

What gets me is that he looks at porn and masturbates to it. I know that he does. He really doesn't need me. He has told me in the past that he prefers masturbation anyway. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty positive that he masturbates to porn at least once a day if not more. I feel so disgusted with myself that I don't masturbate at all. I have been horny lately but I do nothing about it.

He said last night that he feels really bad about the way I feel. He said that he wants to be honest because I kept asking him in the past why we weren't having sex but that he also feels that he can't or shouldn't be honest with me in the future about stuff like this because of how badly it hurt my feelings. He says that he feels like he is "paying" for being honest now. I completely understand that as well.

He said last night once again that we need to go to a counselor to talk about it. He really is pushing the counseling, though I haven't made an appointment yet.

He has been feeling better physically and mentally lately and has been quite nice around the house. It's times when he is feeling good and isn't stressed out and full of anxiety, being angry all the time, etc. that I'm happy to be together....except for the underlying problems that are buried quite deep.

I told him last night that even if I lose weight and we do have sex again that I will feel having sex with him is conditional and that if I gain weight again, he won't want to be with me. He said that sex isn't conditional with me and that he doesn't want me to feel this way. I told him that I work (am the breadwinner) and provide for the house and bills and try to be a good wife and mother and feel that I'm still not good enough for him. I feel that I have to be perfect in every way for him to be interested in me sexually. He said that it's not true.

I really don't know what's true anymore other than I feel very ugly.