That statement was my mothers “Good morning” to me today.  We missed church, and we are going to my sisters where she is going to feed me beef and cake.  Not on the same plate, but you get the idea.  Anyway, the statement got me thinking, and not that she’s right, just that I’vee been climbing back into my head and not leading with my heart.  True, she meant it because I’m fat, not that I’m regressing and retreatimg into my old world, living an internal life instead of forging forward and moving away from the bleeding edge. Let me explain….

I’ve been sort of planning life after Mom’s funeral.  How I’m going to decorate the house, what I’m going to get rid of and I’m not really going to keep anything.  Part is purging for my move out of state and dreaming about what that will be like, and part is just I don’t like the style of the crap we have.  I took time on Friday to go through the consignment store and took pictures of furniture I would like to use to make a salon in the front room, something Mom would never be for.  How I’m not going t show relief at the memorial no matter how much I want to.  It’s crass and cruel and even in some ways vicious to wait with baited breath for a loved one to die.  What can I say, I’m only human.

The other part of living in my head is the idea that I can eat anything I want because my doctor would rather I focus on my stress level rather than the diabetes at this time.  Apparently the heart is more important than the sugar.  So, I’ve been allowing myself the simple pleasures denied to me as a diabetic.  Safeway’s Colossal Carrot Cake is my current “stress relief” of choice.  They have got the cream cheese frosting down to perfection.  It’s sweet without killing your sweet tooth and moist with a lot of raisens.  It’s divine.  True, I shouldn’t be praising the virtue of carrot cake, but it is the best I’ve ever had.  And like the name says, it’s colossal.  Yum.  But it does count against me, though I’m not supposed to let it worry me.  I’m sure I’m stretching the doctors good advise to fit my palate because I have a great doctor and she wouldn’t give me advise that will only hurt me in the end. But the emotional stress relief has been so wonderful, that I can buy something so yummy and be content for days afterwards is wonderful.

Okay, praise of the food is over, the reality I’m avoiding is starting to over flow my waist band.  To begin with I’m starting to see the extra girth it has added t my already generous form.  There is a new layer of fat on my body, brand-spanking new fat. You you can tell when your skin looses that crappy look and sooths out like a baby’s bum.  That doesn’t last long whenyou are over 40 (and in my case pushing 50).  I’m starting to get too big for my britches and my credit card is maxed.  So I need to figure out some way to make things work for me again. 

The main change that has to happen is not living, or truthfully, hding in my head and leading more with my heart.  No more planning on my Mom dying before my bad habbits killing me.  I know that’s a bit extreme, but I feel it’s true.  I want to live the life I’ve planned, I want my library and my own house that is just mine.  I want to be published, and to be able to support myself as a writer, having a simple job to hold me over between royalty checks.  I can’t have that if I don’t hunker down and start now.  I’ve forgone a lot of my life for my writing, I don’t want to loose any more for it.  Spending the time consoling myself with redcoration plans and my library I should be writng, I should be sending out my manuscripts and offer letters to other publishers until I get a bite.

If I can pick up speed with the amount of drag and hill I’m cruising on now, how much faster I will go when the girth and baggage is gone will make up for most everything I’ve had to give up for present, for the birthdays past and the girthday present.  I’ve only ever wanted to be published,  it would be a sin to die before that happens.