Immortal Mortal

I had a most difficult conversation with my mom. I was in a relatively good mood when she called and wanted to discuss her burial plot. Naturally, it makes me wonder if she isn't telling me something I should know - "so I won't worry" When I go home, she wants to make sure we go over all her financial records and her will. I hate these types of conversations, but I guess I can understand why it is necessary. It seems my mom has come to terms with her mortality. The problem is - I haven't. There is so much she still needs and wants to do. I don't know what I'd do without her - which I guess is why having that conversation is so difficult. I can't imagine my life without her in it.

I guess the impetus behind this most recent discussion stemmed from her sister's plans to buy a burial plot. Apparently she passed out a couple of weeks ago (why am I just now finding out about this?) because her blood sugar dropped too much. I don't think she was ever officially diagnosed with diabetes, but it is not surprising since it seems to run rampant in my family.

My biggest issue is when my relatives conveniently avoid telling me things because they are afraid that I will worry. My biggest worry is not being there, which is why this year I am making a concerted effort to go home as much as possible.

I have been feeling a strong urgency to see my family now more than ever. I will be home in a couple of weeks to celebrate my Uncle's 70th birthday. That is so hard to believe and I will go home again the following month for the weekend. I may try to go in August as well - this is much better than my once a year Christmas visit.

Although I am not comfortable with the idea of my family's mortality, I want to make a conscious effort to see them and enjoy them as much as I can.

Um Yeah...

Where did I get that awful phrase from? Um yeah, is usually preceded by something out of the norm that I am about to say. It's like a space filler at the beginning of a sentence. Um yeah, so I have some great news and by great I mean it's all a matter of perspective - it really depends on how you look at things and....so we didn't get that shipment....you know the one that we needed yesterday. On a good note, not a single hair on your head is out of place - it is hair perfection.... seriously what is the matter with me?

Um yeah, I forgot to mention I am the BIGGEST LOSER! I won probably by 1/2 pound. That is crazy. I lost 17.5 pounds. The thing that is disturbing is that I had that much to lose (and then some) - I'd like to lose 10 more pounds. None of my clothes fit - which is the only reason that I have noticed the weight loss. Other people seem to notice, but I don't.

So the next competition begins this Friday - and I am down. It will help keep me motivated.
I had an amazing weekend. Spent Friday night at a bar in Georgetown watching the game - went to see The Bachelorette Party which is a great play that some of my friends were in. Went to visit some friends and Sunday it was more basketball fun and then....just like that, the weekend was over.

Um yeah, what if I am upset by the news that one of my favorite people is allowing toxicity into her personal space - again! Arrggghhhh... that's all I have to say about that. Yeah, right... why, why, why?

Last Tuesday, I got a chance to see another one of my favorite people and my significant other was amazed at the similarities. My girlfriend is like the extroverted bubbly version of me. It is pretty crazy. So now we are going to see her and her husband in Tampa for the 4th of July. I really want to do a better job of keeping in touch.

I have been wanting to call one of my friends for awhile now, but I think she is upset with me. I miss her, but I things are just kinda weird and feels awkward to call, but I really want to see how she is doing and find out if we are still friends. Maybe I said or did something incredibly insensitive (which is not hard to fathom), but if I did, I'd want the chance to make things right.

So in classic msj style, I have managed to avoid my relationship issues for yet another month. I mean - things are status quo. I am content - and dealing with old relationship baggage is just so unpleasant. And what if after dealing with it, I don't change my viewpoint? Then I won't even have an excuse for being reluctant to commit.

Um yeah....

Anxiety Rocks

So the final weigh in for the biggest loser is in about 7 hours and I have to admit, I am really nervous about it. I have been in the lead for about 5 consecutive weeks, but the guy in second place only had 2 pounds to lose to beat me by .01%....so I am extremely nervous. Of course, since our last weigh in, I lost about 1.5 lbs, but this week has been brutal. I didn't really stick to my normal routine, because I want to win so bad, so I cut back on Starbucks (brutal) and I gave up my Wednesday splurge meal. Wednesday has been ny day off - no exercise and I can have a couple of guilty pleasures. But not this week - and I must admit that after the weigh in - I am gonna go eat something!

I really hope I win, but in a way I still have won. I have lost about 16 lbs since we started and I feel a lot healthier, despite my allergies to just about everything. I am down about 2 sizes which is crazy - my clothes don't fit at all, so I have invested in belts - but I think some alterations are in order.

I really have been sweating this last week - I was hoping it would be a runaway victory - but the suspense is killing me. My competition has been living on oatmeal and yogurt all week and biking like crazy....I can't do that...so my last push will be an hour on the elliptical in about 3 hours. My obsession with winning is driving everything right now - so much so that I can't sleep.

So....I changed desks this week. I have officially moved to my new spot. It's strangely quiet - not really sure how to work without a lot of chaos. It's kinda cool to have actual complete thoughts. It feels a tad unfamiliar - I may actually be able to get in touch with my own voice.

I have just perused Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office and now I have quite a few action items to complete. I read many of the mistakes and laughed out loud as I saw myself in quite a few of them. The first thing and perhaps the hardest will be getting people to call me by my full name. I even call myself CJ so....or "seige" so that will be an interesting transition.

I will simultaneously work on ways that I communicate - I am great at leaving long winded messages (not good) - I am also great at leaving short concise and to the point messages - which is what I need to focus on. And then I have to work on meetings. My new job will require me to go to a lot more meetings. So I will have to work on staying awake and then actually becoming an active participant. I need a prop or something that makes me appear to be rivited - quite frankly some of them are really boring...but I will play the game.

It will be a weird transition particularly because I am going from having a lot more autonomy to being almost completely bound to someone else's agenda. We'll see how that goes. It will be fun to see how I adapt. I am really just hoping to learn something from all this and grow - so if that happens, it will be a win-win.

Post Relationship RX

I was talking to one of my best guy friends on Saturday - just catching up (he lives in LA now) and he has known me for so long that I feel totally comfortable talking to him about everything. He is one of the few people who knows about all my skeletons and quirks and he still likes me.

So I had no problem admitting to him that I don't want to get married and I am not even sure I want to be in a relationship right now. I mean things are cool - I love my boyfriend, but the whole committment thing...kinda freaks me out. I don't want to ever lose my independence. I always want to be in control of my destiny.

I guess it was something in the way I said that, that triggered my friend to ask if I was sure my feelings weren't based on what happened in my last "relationship". I thought it was silly at the time, but perhaps there may be something to that thought process. He witnessed a lot of the hell I went through (including the demand to stop being his friend).

I would be willing to admit, that maybe the wounds from my last drama may not have healed completely, but I see that relationship as a life lesson - the lesson being - you should never lose yourself in another person or their dreams and you should never relinquish control of who you are and your value to anyone else - ever. So that being said, I don't plan on ever being dependent on a man - particularly not financially.

My friend was so great because he didn't try to convince me that I want to get married - he didn't even act as though something was wrong with me - he just asked me to think about it and reassured me that he wanted me to be happy and that he would hate for me to let a good man go, because I was still caught up in the past.

It was so refreshing for someone not to ask - "when are you getting married?" Because that freaks me out even more. I say, things are working out as they are now - why ruin it with all the high expectations of marriage? Perhaps I am a basket case. Maybe he's not the one - but the way I feel right now - there is no "the one".

I'd be content having a lover when needed and having great friends. I still haven't figured out how I get kids out of this deal, but once I figure that out....

Maybe I will consider some sort of therapy.

Vanity

So I have been all geeked up by losing almost 15 lbs. I would like to lose 10 more, but in the interim of all this weight loss.... why, why, why did I have to lose my boobs? That hardly seems fair. That was the one place I wouldn't have minded keeping a little extra weight.

On top of that, who gets a zit on the upper part of the ear - or any part of the ear for that matter.... and who breaks out in hives for random unknown allergies? That would be me. Is it stress, guilt, insanity?

My body is doing some weird things lately. I hope it is not thought karma.

I have been having some not so wholesome thoughts lately - I am trying to put them out of my mind. I certainly have no intentions of acting on them.

If there is some weird mind-body connection, then I will be more than happy to let the not so wholesome thoughts go.