Day Thirty-Nine

All day long, I've thought it was day forty.

And I've wanted to quit.

Even though I only had a half hour for it, I went to the pool.  Walking in the pool for a half hour is good, refreshing exercise.  It invigorates me, and that is all I wish it took.

As soon as I ate my spaghetti lunch, which was ample, I started feeling bad.  I was a bit too full, and that brought on all my self-flagellating thoughts.  The thing is, I really haven't accomplished anything.  My weight this morning was the same as it's been lots of times in the past two years.  I've given up so many yummy desserts and fully participating in so many events, for what?  To accomplish nothing?  

I realized that it's been forty years since I started running in place at home, thinking my thighs were fat, et cetera.  Forty years of effort to stem back the tide of obesity.  What kind of a life is that for a woman?  Do all fit women fight this fight?  Are some just born lucky?  Is it a fate I cannot avoid?  Maybe I will just forever be a fat middle-aged woman with a soft, grandma back.  Maybe nothing I can do will change that.

I want to casually eat some of my Easter candy in the evening.  I want to say yes to birthday cake.  I want to not feel restricted and deprived.  I want to be healthy, but if nothing I do will work, what is the point in trying?  Is trying so hard to be, well, half fat, worth it?

I don't want to do this for another sixty days.  Not and end up in the same place.  I could add counting calories to this, but, honestly, I am really not eating all that much.  And almost everything I eat is pretty healthy.  I think, lots of mornings, "Well, I just won't eat," but I know that is a losing proposition.  And then I eat my eggs to start off a healthy day, and then I just keep eating normally every day.  I don't have days where I just don't eat.  Should I?

Being off sugar hasn't even cleared up my face.

I want to give up, to stop trying so hard.

So I had two pieces of pizza tonight, not just one.  And I grabbed a handful of snack on my way out the door to my son's concert.  I didn't need to eat that, either.  So, I felt frowsy and tired at the high school, and I thought again, "What's the point?" and "Why don't I just give up?" 

And then, when I was leaving the auditorium, I saw one of my friends.  And, for some reason, it got me thinking about other friends I had, friends who are no longer with us.  I thought of Christy, and Sherryl, and Jolyn--women who should be here but got cancer, or heart disease.  Women not very much older than me.  And then I thought about my own sisters, who were, let's face it, only a few years older than I am now when they died.  When I'm their age, I will still have minor children who still really need me.  

So I can't give up.  But I'll try to do my abs and get some sleep and hopefully do better tomorrow.  

But, man, is this all that there is?  Screaming into the wind, so to speak, and never being heard?