my first venture into the depths

today has been a rough day. my yesterday ended with one of those painfully honest chats with the spouse that is said in love, but still hard to hear...you know the kind.

so that was still with me this morning. i got up early and made breakfast for the husband (despite feeling hurt by last night's chat) and then got ready for my morning "run." the run was phenomenal. i loved it. i was in such a great mood when i got back home (thank you endorphins!) i was dancing in the shower (oh yes...i love the way you move...brilliant shower dancing song!) i thought my day was off to a fabulous begining.

i'll skip all the details about how it went steeply downhill from there. because griping is not the purpose of my blogging. the reason i'm here now is because i promised myself that i'd explore the things that have led me to this weight issue.

i'm craving ice cream, or basically anything i can shove in my mouth. and so i'm trying to breathe, go slowly and take a look at myself. i'm sure none of this will be deep and philosophical...but i've got to get honest with myself if this is going to be a real and lasting change inside and out.

so i think i'm obviously trying to fill some emotional holes with tasty treats. i don't know that i would say that eating "numbs" the emotions, it more distracts from them. more than that, though, i think it gives me the temporary control of bringing something pleasurable into my life on days when i feel like a victim. i live with a lot of fear...which all basically boils down to fearing that i'll be rejected from those i love, that the things i love about life will be taken from me. that is the lesson life taught me early on that i have spent the last 8 years trying to unteach myself. some days i do pretty great at it. other days, like today, it all feels insurmountable.

even deeper? i've watched other women, women i admire tremendously, be nearly perfect wives. these phenomenal women who seem to do everything "right" have been cheated on and abandoned. this terrifies me. i can handle things not being great because of something being wrong with me (which is, conveniently, easy to blame on my weight even when it's an entirely unrelated issue). but i don't know if i can handle accepting truth that raw...even perfect and gorgeous women who are faithful and kind and supportive and all the other things i want to be...even they get their hearts broken. so what's left for me, with all my faults and all my fat? these are the things that spin in my mind. the risk. the what-ifs. the fear that all those people who promised me i'd never be loved and never amount to anything will end up being right in spite of all i've done and sacrificed to prove them all wrong.

i'm hungry for unconditional love. i'm hungry for the comfort that comes with being accepted regardless of my measurements. and since i'm pretty sure that's not something that exists for me right now, at least not in the ways i want it to, i want to add any amount of feeling good that i can, which lends itself to the two things i've struggled with all day...spending money and eating.

but today, at least for today....i didn't. and although i still feel empty and emotionally hungry, i'm proud of myself for looking for a more lasting satisfaction instead of settling for instant, short lived gratification.

so i'm going to have a one point WW fudge bar. and then i'm going to go to bed, and hope that "this too shall pass."