Subsisto

It's amazing how i am confronted on a regular basis 

with the ways that i continue to manufacture the life i think i want...

for example,
while discussing our current plans to visit Ireland and Scotland this year and at what point during the year we are going to do that i said "while we might as well do it in July because that's when i'll have 16 days off and can you imagine me staying HERE the whole time? i'm gonna want to go somewhere". to which he replied "why do go always want to get away? you avoid this place like the plague. why can't you stay home and be responsible like an adult?"

well, that caught me a little off guard to say the least. probably mainly b/c john doesn't naturally express his true feelings and that is something that we've been working through. sooo, maybe that's why i wasn't offended- because it was so good to hear his true thoughts- but anyhow, i've really been thinking about what he said... because it's true.

so this past weekend he took some time off work and went to a classic car show with his dad.
what did i do?
stayed home.
i didn't make any plans and just stayed home and did do things i've needed and wanted to do.
no exercising, no new diet, also no binging or feeling sorry for myself that i have all these stupid ailments that keep returning and not matter what i do, won't go away.
i LIVED. purely, responsibly, wholly.
(which is a LITTLE difficult after having a bit of a hopelessly depressing week.)

but... it felt GOOD. good to overcome the frustrations, disappointments and difficulties by simply going on. doing normal, daily activities, completing responsibilities instead of following my normal ritual of running, exercising, and running some more. and then wasting the rest of the day in front of the computer...

ANYWAYS,

consider this excerpt from Women, Food and God:

~  "The bottom line, whether you weigh 340 pounds or 120 pounds, is that when you eat when you are not hungry, you are using food as a drug, grappling with boredom or illness or loss or grief or emptiness or loneliness or rejection. Food is only the middleman, the means to the end. Of altering your emotions. Of making yourself numb. Of creating a secondary problem when the original problem becomes too uncomfortable. Of dying slowly rather than coming to terms with your messy, magnificent and very, very short- even at a hundred years old- life. The means to these ends happens to be food, but it could be alcohol, it could be work, it could be sex, it could be cocaine [or it could be exercise]. Surfing the Internet. Talking on the phone... We need it- a lot of it- to go unconscious. To wipe out what's going on. The unconsciousness is what's important, not the [addiction]...

It's about your desire to flatten your life. It's about the fact that you've given up without saying so. It's about your belief that it's not possible to live any other way- and you're using [your addiction] to act that out without ever having to admit it."  ~

so you see, while exercising has never been a "bad" thing, it has been my numbing agent of choice. a good, safe one, but for the intent of numbing nonetheless. simply the difficulty of staying away from it- literally being addicted to it and truly feeling that i cannot live without it- the purifying, cleansing effect i feel b/c of it- has made that REALLY obvious.

and i was explaining it to my husband last night as this...
"being athletic, fit, able, has been my identity for years. not so much of an addiction as it used to be- or so i thought- but always there. it's like when something happens in my life that makes me feel insecure, unable, defeated, athleticism is the "costume" i have always been able to run to my closet to grab and throw on saying, 'but i'm still this! you can't hurt me. this is my redeeming factor. THIS makes me worth something!'"

and HONESTLY i'm tired of running back to my closet to find my worth.
(ps- i'm really the only one that's ever looking for it)ha

~subsisto~

means to me now at this point in my journey.

the word is truly always evolving...

(the alternate routes of escaping fear and hurt are continuing to shut down one by one.

Perhaps one day i will make this all easier on myself and entirely accept what my mind knows-

that Jesus Christ is the ONLY true route to fulfillment and acceptance...)