I Want...

I want to become a runner. How do you do that? 
I have never been athletic at all but I have always kinda wanted to be. I have always struggled with my weight and I don't want to anymore.
So today my question into the void is, How do I become a runner? 
What do runners do when it is snowy and icy outside? What do I do to get started? (I am REALLY out of shape) And, how do I stay motivated to keep running? 

Any suggestions, answers or advice are more than welcome.

Thanks
Mrs. S

Enough whining. Now for a real question.

Don't you hate it when your husband does something really really stupid right before a special event. Yeah that was my Thanksgiving/his birthday.  He was brainless like boys can be and made me really mad then we spent the day at his parents. Let me rephrase, I spent the day at his parents alone with his parents pretending everything was good, while he was off playing. The only bright side, his parents laughed when they found out I was mad at him because, even though they didn't know why, they were pretty sure he deserved it. They know him well :D  Oh being married, wonderful and awful all rolled into one (somehow they forget to tell you about that awful part though, go figure.)

Now, on to the thought that kept me up last night. Maybe someone has some insight.

Recently I have been considering, quite a bit, this person I have become and how it came to be. I realized that I am completely apathetic to most things and angry about the rest.  How does one become this way. 
Now, not many people who may read this knew me 3 years ago so I guess you will just have to take my word for it that I was bright, bubbly, enthusiastic, motivated, outgoing, determined and a perfectionist. I got things done and made things happen. 
These days I find that I am jaded, angry, apathetic, reclusive, prone to failure and content with that. I didn't ever have any specific life goals, it was more of a general help people be happy and make a difference idea but now I just don't care. I hide in my house, or in the back of the classroom wishing time away. I hide from people, even those who could be friends.  And, I find that the more I am this way, the more weight I gain(yes I binge) and the more weight I gain the more insecure I am and the more I withdraw.
You probably are saying that my answer is right there, it is all just insecurity. While I do whole heartedly agree that that is a huge factor, I think it is something else as well. What made the change in the first place?
I guess it was probably a slow transition- moved to a new town and was invisible because I knew no one and was shy so then I just stayed invisible, feeling like a no one?  (maybe if I had a Camille when I moved to this place everything would have been different?) I tried but I couldn't be everything I was "supposed" to be, the best wife, the best student, the best employee, all at the same time (I think this played a huge role in spurring the depression) so I just decided that everyone fails at things and I could too, but since I basically must give everything all or nothin, I failed at everything? 
Then at the same time Husband is changed too. He doesn't hope like he did, doesn't laugh like he did, isn't excited about life like he was. Did I break him too?  Is all of it my fault? Or have we just been dealt a really hard hand? (I know other people have lots of hard things too but a lot of the time I feel like we always have lots of really hard things that most people don't have, maybe I am just not as good at dealing with them) If it is just lots and lots of hard things, how do we get back up from being kicked so hard so many times? I think we have almost given up. We used to believe in good things, now we just believe that something worse could come and probably will.

I know that we can't go back, as much as I would like to, we can only go forward. I know that because of the experiences and struggles that we have had we will never be those same starry eyed 20something newlyweds but can we ever get back hopeful? happy? motivated? ambitious? Or did I break us?

Leave it to me to be the one person in America pissed as hell on this Thanksgiving day.  Oh and it is Husbands birthday and  i don't even want to look at him.  Been up since 2:30 am not seeing any possibility of sleep in the near future.

Happy holidays.

Calm amidst the storm

Today I am grateful.
It has been a while since I have been really truly grateful or really believed that that the kind and loving God that is so often spoken of in church and by friends and who I once had a very close relationship with still existed or cared that I existed. 
I think it started because of the depression, I felt like I couldn't do enough to make God happy with me, and over the years it has become much worse. I offer not-heartfelt prayers because I knew God didn't want to hear from me anyway. I only did it because I was supposed to and I respect the fact that he could make things in my life so much worse. God didn't care about me, I was bad and nothing I could do could make it better.  I stopped trying hard to be good because it didn't matter anyway. If I was good, awful things happened. If I wasn't so good, awful things happened. Why bother making myself more sick trying to please a being that would not be pleased. It wasn't worth it and I didn't have the energy. 
It has been this way for a long time now, my heart kind of frozen against anything I used to be; happy, spiritual; creative, all of it. Even with the medication that has slowed my mind and helped me drastically, I am still not that girl. I am jaded, cynical, "realistic". 

Then there was last night.

I ran out of my lithium prescription and haven't been able to get my refill. With a lot of drugs this isn't a problem but the lithium has basically no half life. If you don't take it one day, you aren't ok. Actually, if you are like me and take it twice a day, if you only take it in the morning, you don't sleep because your mind won't stop. This is what happened yesterday. It is hard to explain what my mind does without the lithium, it is like a spinning carnival ride that is ok at first but just gets faster and faster and keeps going and going and you are starting to get sick but you can't make it stop and you don't know when it will stop or if it will ever stop.  I was laying in bed, not feeling well, sick husband, stressed out about school and a wedding cake and I felt that ride switch on. And laying there in bed I said loudly,"Heavenly Father, My mind won't stop and I can't do this anymore. Please make it go away!"

And it did. The ride stopped.

I have begged and plead for 2 1/2 years for all of it to go away and nothing and in that moment last night when I couldn't handle it anymore I found my God again.  I found the God that cares that I am here and wants to help me, who loves me when I feel so alone and understands when I am broken and there is no one who can help. I found the God who loves me even with my broken thoughts and spinning mind and messy house. A God who thinks I AM good enough.

And for that, today I am grateful.

Distance

It is interesting that the only people I feel inclined to share any part of my life with right now are the ones who are going through really really crappy hard things. (aka similar situations to my own)

Why?

Because then I don't have to listen to their cheery little faces talk about their happy little bright shiny lives and tell me that everything will be better if I am patient and positive and blah blah blah.

I am not a naturally negative person, I have tons of faith, tons of gratitude and even in all of my crappy situations, can more often than not find a good side. Sure I could have more patience but I am human and I really handle hard things better than a lot of people would.

I didn't tell you that I am not working right now and that makes money tight, or I sprained my ankle badly and now I can't walk or do anything, or that I can't keep up with the amount of food that Little Brother consumes on a daily basis because I wanted you to feel bad for me or because I wanted your all knowing input on why the state of my soul is causing all of my problems.  I told you because you asked and you are my friend and I don't like to lie.

So if I seem a little distant, maybe just maybe I am sick and tired of the well meaning fixing.

(this is not in anyway a reflection on any comments I have recieved from this blog, I appreciate all of your insights, advice and comments. It is some of the responses I get from "real life" that I cant really handle.)

(on a lighter note: I was just telling Husband how interesting it is that the only things that has been stable around here lately is my mind (thank you Lithium!) and how ironic it is that after 2 1/2 years of fighting to get my brain stable, we finally start to get there and the rest of our life falls to pieces...that Man Upstairs certainly does have some sense of humor.)