Time to peel the next layer of the onion.  It might stink around here for a bit – but the spice added to life with each additional layer. Magnifico!

It is time to not just be seen (in photos and sheer size) – but to again have a voice, an opinion and feelings. 

That said….here goes.

What do I want more of? 

• More physical exercise and work out.  Someone to be there with me while I am doing it and someone to at least more actively support and help in it.  It is a major challenge.  Personally – it hurts, I’m fat, I look ridiculous and feel like a faker at the gym.  Mentally – I’m not FIT and can’t do even half of what I could or want to.  Without some initial encouragement in some form – I will give up on it and by extension me.  This will and is sure to release some of the emotions and old fears inside of me.  And for those of you who know me – that scares the piss out of me!
• I want to lose about 100 lbs so I can get back into taekwon do.  That kind of work out was wonderful for me.
• I want more Zumba!  I know I’m that fat girl in the back – but it was fun, liberating, and just plain made me enjoy sweating.  Not an easy task.  Must get around the I can’t dance and I am fat screaming in my head!
• I want more time with Geoff where its okay to feel….sensual, alive, happy, sad, whatever the case may be.
• I want more people in my world like the Groves, Sue, Tiff, Chris, Susie where there is a mutual respect and admiration society going on.  Where people really are genuine in their appreciation of the other’s work, and wanting them to succeed as well.
• Spirituality/religion.  I miss those connections to old friends. The chance to make new ones, as well.  Most importantly – the connection to something larger than myself with others who share the same (yet sometimes different) beliefs.

What do I need to let go of? 

• The constant fear that “you’ll” leave me and the corollary that drama needs to exist for you to need me.
• The waggling finger of mom that I have so carefully preserved that even 7 years after she has passed, there’s a waggle and her voice.
• Being the best at something.  Sometimes Okay is really just okay. And good can still be fun.  Best often means obsessing and no longer having the joy in it.
• Not saying “NO” – need to learn those gut check moments where I want to say no, but am afraid that you’ll not like/need/be proud of me if I don’t.
• Excuses.

What things did I take on that hurt me? 

• Weight.  Don’t come close to me.  Don’t ask me to.  Don’t look at me.
• Trying to get it all done for jobs without asking for help.  I am Superwoman hear me roar.  Never mind that eventually at the end of getting it all done I am so drained you have to scrape me off the floor with a spatula.
• Food: egads is that a feeling?  QUICK!  Gimme a slice of bread and butter.  Lots of feelings – the whole bag of chips.  Need to be numb – let’s get McDonald’s.  We’ll just say we were running late.

Well – enough for this morning. Off to wake the boy up and send him out hunting.

I saw a quote today “Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.”  I’m hoping that is true for psychological states as well as flora.

The light outside is fading earlier each day and the days are getting shorter.  This weekend, Halloween comes.  The night where the veil between the living and the dead, the physical and the spiritual is lifted, and for a moment, all things are possible.

It’s a time of reflection.  The communitygives thanks for the harvest and for the days of summer now fading into a distant memory.  It is a time to find the light inside.

I recently left a job where I was doing things that individually I loved, but together formed an overwhelming sense of “should” and “must” rather than can and want to.  For the first time since I was out of college, I have no paying job to get up and go to in the morning.  Instead, I now look to myself as my job. 

Saturday evening, I will don my Halloween costume and hand out  the candy.  But when it is all said and done, and the doorbell stops ringing, it will be time to look at the year behind and the year ahead. 

What do I want more of?  What do I need to let go of?  What things did I take on that hurt me?  What things made life better? 

I look forward to more time to write, more time to read, more time to swim.  More time with Geoff, used better than playing computer games on two separate floors of the house.  I’ve spent all this time taking care of everyone else.  It’s my turn now.