Self Absorption

If I sound self absorbed lately, I am. If I don't sound self absorbed,
I sure feel like I am. And for once I don't think it is necessarily a
bad thing. Well, maybe for the people right close to me but you out
there can just click onto another page while I stay here in my self
absorbed circle. Actually for the people closest to me it isn't
necessarily a bad thing either. This time it is going to lead somewhere better. Wow. There have been times when I have felt self absorbed and being like that eventually feels icky. Like I want to distance myself from myself and be someone else or at least visit a different part of me for a while. Let me explain.

Yesterday we went shopping. I listened to my self talk and was a bit surprised at how much I put myself at the bottom of the list. Somewhere along the path of life I learned that to have no needs was safest. How much energy I have spent spewing the anger outwards at others for rejecting myself. Looking for a target. Yesterday showed me that either I take responsibility for putting myself at the bottom of the list or else live with an angry spirit forever. It's my choice.

I think there are patterns in our lives that keep getting repeated
until we get a clearer image of the pattern and how uncomfortable a fit it is. Like repeated episodes bring the pattern into clearer focus and eventually we can see the picture as it really is. The once comfortable pattern becomes visible for the imposter it is.

I see the pattern clearly now and I don't like it. I don't want to try and fit into it anymore. And I am the only one who can do anything about it. I see that the more I refuse to acknowledge my needs the more self absorbed I get. There are times when I feel like a toddler who is just learning the word "mine".

For a while now I have been tellling my husband that I just need enough
money every month to get a haircut, buy some clothes and have a little
spending money. He is not a hard man to get along with. He has
always been generous. But when payday comes and I see myself refusing to admit my needs it tells me something is out of whack. With me. And lately I have found myself making snide comments to him when he has come home with some agreed upon purchase that is for him. The anger I feel that he is free to have needs and fulfill them and I am not brings out the worst in me. I can't make too many of those snide comments though before I start hearing my mother's voice coming out of my mouth and it forces me to examine just what is sticking in my craw. I could see yesterday that I have a pattern of wanting to be a martyr and when given the chance to be free of it I hang onto it instead.

Yesterday I listened to my inner dialogue as I crossed stuff off my to-buy list.
The stuff that was important to me and only me. And how much time
I waste waiting for someone else to notice I have crossed this stuff
off my list - even when the list is only in my head.

I no longer want to be the martyr of the month every month. Or any month for that matter. And I do plan on doing something about it. At long last.

I See The Moon

We saw our daughter head back to college this morning. I thought I was doing pretty good....handling it as if I was an actual grown up and letting go of what is instead of pining for what used to be. We headed to town afterwards and while at the mall I convinced my husband to come look with me at Hallmark.

He made appropriate murmurings about all the stuff I liked but I knew it was only appropriate murmurings not the heartfelt kind I wanted. The kind my daughter would have made. Poor guy, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. And wouldn't you know it but they had some new giftware. Boy, the tears nearly spilled over when I saw this plaque. Saying this verse with my daughter, from the time she was a toddler, is a special memory for the both of us. Saying it today can still make us smile at each other.

Sigh. Tonight when I relayed all this to my daughter, she told me it was a good thing the plaque hadn't finished the verse. The rest of it goes, "...and God bless the one I want to see."

God bless you dear girl, God bless you.

Intellectual Problem Solving

One question that has been swimming around in my brain for months and months now is wondering how people know what to answer when someone asks them how they are. Is their answer based on circumstances of the moment - what does their life have to look like for them to say they are doing good? I have come to see that all I feel when someone asks me how I am is confusion. I don't know how I am.

My daughter, home from college for spring break, tells me that the counsellor at school told her he wasn't surprised that she was having trouble accessing her emotions because from what she had told him he could see she was raised to solve problems intellectually. She tells me this over tea one afternoon and I tell her that my first thought is that why would any one ask themselves how they feel about a conflict....that how one feels doesn't matter - it is just a cut and dried process to figure out how to deal with something and feelings don't play a part in it. I tell her this and she tells me she sees it the same way. We both see how skewed this view of ours is. But then she tells me that she is learning that even though how she feels might not change the outcome of some conflicts that her feelings are important to look at.

She just gave me a piece of the puzzle as to why I don't know how I feel. Somewhere I learned that feelings didn't count. So we talk about it and she celebrates that she is facing this while she is half my age.

I know how I feel when I am angry or sad. Mostly when I am angry. I have no problem identifying that feeling. I just don't know what feeling okay or even good looks like. I can't get past thinking I must be lying if I tell someone I am doing good when they ask my how I am.

Soul Pukes

Quite the title isn't it? Soul Pukes is what my daughter calls doing Morning Pages. I have written about them before and how I have done them for about 10 years now. My daughter described soul puking as all those things that are swimming around in our pysche and how writing them down is like splatting them on the page. She tells me this while we are driving home from town and has no idea I have been avoiding soul pukes for at least a week already. That's never a good sign. Oh, I still do morning pages but I haven't let myself do more than scratch the surface of my thoughts. I don't want to hear how having a good soul puke will make me feel better. I tell her none of this.

I get like this when I don't want to face what is swimming around in my psyche. I am not sure why I try to dodge it all because sooner or later the only cure is to soul puke. But right now I am just letting those beasties swim around in my pysche. It feels a bit like being Jonah's whale and Jonah at the same time.

Sobriety

Here is something I posted over at the Brennan Manning Message Boards. Sobriety weaves itself into my thoughts, especially in March, when I celebrate 17 years of being on the wagon.

Posted: Mar. 19 2005,13:25

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Clare,

God bless you for your honesty and vulnerability. It is easier to do almost anything else than face ourselves.

When I sobered up I had been in Al-Anon for a year. I had been going to the meetings because my mom needed fixing and I was going to be her saviour. Thank God we can't see around corners. I would have never guessed in a million years that I would one day be saying, "Hi, my name is Cheryl and I am an alcoholic." But in my Al Anon meeting one week, one of the women talked about the alcoholic in her life and said, "You know how alcoholics are, they never sip their drinks, they guzzle them." Boom. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.

There was no going back. With her innocent statement I saw myself clearly and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I was an alcoholic. I had become one of 'them.' Memories of me finishing my drink before my husband even took a sip of his flooded my mind. The ensuing panic of how to cover up my drinking alcohol like it was water. Memories of being at a family gathering and standing at the liquor table drinking one glass of wine after another and then realizing I had no idea who was watching me do that and no idea how to turn around and act like what I was doing was normal.

I was so good at sneering at others as if to say, "What's your problem?" Once I went to a bush party and took my toddler and newborn and left them in the vehicle. Late in the night I brough my newborn out to feed him, and couldn't understand why these other women were sneering at me!

There were a few blackouts. Several times of almost choking on my vomit. Times had I not vomited I could have died of alcohol poisoning. I am grateful I hit bottom before I lost everything. I have no doubt that had I not sobered up my marriage would be a thing of the past and I would have lost my kids to social services.

After the revelation at the Al Anon meeting I knew I needed to be going to the AA meeting and doing so took every ounce of courage I had. I held the hand of a friend and shakily stood and said, "Hi, my name is Cheryl and I am an alcoholic." There were tears and I couldn't say anything more. My worst nightmare had come true. Not only was I repeating the cycle in my family by being an abusive mother I was an alcoholic as well. Two things I said I would never, ever become. And if my admittance of them put me on the same level as my mother where did that leave my anger?

It was like being sucker punched. It didn't feel like freedom. It didn't feel like relief. It didn't feel like hope. It felt like full blown disgust. Disgust towards myself for becoming the scum of the earth. No other person could have ever judged me harsher than I was judging myself.

Thank God the story doesn't end there.

Week after week I went to meetings and trusted the words of others when I couldn't trust them for myself. People held out hope for me when I felt hopeless. I reached out my hand. I read the big book. I learned it was possible to cope without a drink. Slowly my being relaxed into a place where I felt safe to take off my mask just a little. There is real beauty in being maskless. I remember telling my AA friend that I rarely looked in the mirror because I couldn't stand what I saw. Sweet victory is that I no longer avoid the mirror. Someone once told me I would look in the mirror one day and see Jesus looking back at me. I didn't believe it. I now see what He sees more often than what I can still negatively dream up about myself.

I have found most of the people in AA meetings to be the most honest, vulnerable and real people. There are times when that scares me. But it is better than church. There is hope in being honest. In being broken. In being in the company of others who readily admit their brokeness instead of scrambling to look like they are fixed.

Being sober is not easy. There are no quick fixes. It has been the most painful work of my life. To assume responsibility for me and only me? Are you kidding? I still want desperately to pin it all on someone else.

But - and this is a big but - there is incredible freedom in taking responsibility for myself. I get to choose. I get to stop giving my power away to others. I get to see what God sees in me. I get to have hope. I get to be free. I get to like me.

I have been so independent most of my life. I learned early that I could not depend on others and so have tried to handle everything on my own, on my own terms. I really regret not going into a treatment centre when I first sobered up. My pride was(is) so huge. I think had I gone I could have avoided some of the pitfalls along the journey.

Listen to your gut. Even my own family(siblings and parents) still find it hard to believe I am an alcoholic. They didn't see what it cost me because I kept up appearances. They couldn't see the self loathing that coated my soul.

Do I still want a drink? Yes and double yes. For the first 10 years or so I didn't. But the past few have been difficult as life has thrown curveball after curveball my way. There are days when the want of drink gets strong. But one tiny step at a time I maintain my sobriety. On my own I would be drunk tomorrow. With God's help I remain sober.

Reach out your hand Clare. You are not alone.

Passing the Stick

I need something a little lighter today. Thanks, Martha!. A good night's sleep can do wonders for a person's perspective on life. Plus the love and support of people who love me no matter how messy my humanity gets.

I couldn't pass up these questions because of my love of books....although I only just clued in that Fahrenheit 451 had to be a book cause all the other questions have to do with books. So I cheated and looked up Fahrenheit 451 on google. I can just hear my college age daughter gasping that I didn't know that Fahrenheit 451 was a book.

1. You're stuck inside Farenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

"Montag visits Faber, who tells him that the value of books lies in the detailed awareness of life that they contain."(copied from sparknotes.com)

I want to be the heroine of such a book or the author. I'll take being Esther from the Bible.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Still have one on Dickon in The Secret Garden.

3. The last book you bought was...?

Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors. Found this book in a discount bin and bypassed it a good 3 or 4 weeks before I bought it. My mom is a two time breast cancer survivor.

4. The last book you read was...?
Fragments of My Life by Catherine de hueck Doherty. Martha's quotes from this woman's life got me hooked and I ordered this book through interlibrary loan. It is now on my "must have my own copy" list.

5. What are you currently reading?
Religious No More by Mark D. Baker. I am finding I can be religious about just about everything. Ugh.

6. Five books you would take to a desert island...

1. I can't decide which translation of the Bible but one of them. And journals to write in.
2. The Way To Love. I read a chapter out of this book every morning.
3. Boy by Roald Dahl. If I am going to be by myself on an island I need some comic relief.
4. Get Fuzzy #5: A Get Fuzzy Collection. More comic relief.
5. The Little Notebook: The Journal of a Contemporary Woman's Encounters With Jesus. This book has had me in tears so many times. It has profoundly affected my spiritual journey.

7. What three people are you passing this stick on to and why?

I'm wishing outloud here but if I could choose from blogdom it would be Michael at The Main Point. Gordon at Real Live Preacher and thirdly Michael at Boar's Head Tavern.

These three guys enrich my journey on a daily basis.

No A's in Parenting

I remember my friend Carol telling me over a dozen years ago that no one got an A in parenting but you got an E for effort. I remember thinking how wrong she was. I would be the first parent in history then to get that coveted A. And today I sit here wanting to bail on parenting all together, coveting an E for effort over the F for failure that I feel I am.

Here is the situation. I homeschool my kids. Our oldest son is almost 19. It would be a long story to explain why he is still doing school at this age but let it suffice to say he is still in highschool. Except he is not delivering on the school work. He is a pro at excuses. He is a night owl. He is bright with tones of Aspergers. Can make straight A's with minimal effort. They do school via the internet with a teacher for every subject. It's all laid out fairly straightforward in a step by step manner. For a son who sees no logic.

To me, it feels like we have bent over backwards to try and make this school year work. It ain't. Finally in frustration late last week we told our almost 19 year old he could come up with the schedule. He wasn't following the one I set out for him and tired of getting reminded that he was an adult I figured ok - be an adult - you figure it out. He has spent most of the time since then sleeping or playing computer games. Not one bit of school work completed since last Thursday. My blood pressure rises. It does bad things to my heart. I am a control freak still. I want to go and shake him til his head rattles and he gets with the program. I can't believe I typed that outloud. But I did. Don't worry I won't shake him. He stands 6 inches taller than me. I can't handle anymore guilt anyway.

So this afternoon - it's 1:30 pm and he is still sleeping. I tell my husband we have to do something. He goes and tells this son that he has two choices. He can either get up and make a commitment towards school or he can go get a job. He has til next week to prove he is serious about school or he is on the jobhunt. We will give him 2 months to save some cash and then he can move out. He wants to be an adult - welcome to adulthood. I feel cynical and mean and hurtful. I feel like I am the stepmother in Cinderella with my own kids. I feel like I can see into the future and predict just what he will say to a therapist 30 years in the future. It does not look good for me.

If you are reading this Michael I totally understand why parents could choose to send their kids your way. I desperately want to drop this adult/child of mine off on someone else. Fix up what we broke please. I'm assuming that is the story behind how some of your students come to you.

He interprets our consequences as kicking him out and tells us we always promised him we would never kick him out and furthermore if we kicked him out it would feel like he was no longer a part of the family. He is in tears as he says this. Some kids would be using the tears as manipulation. He is incapable of using tears that way - he works too hard to stifle them all the time.

He thinks that requiring him to show up faithfully 5 days a week for school is asking too much (considering his past record he says) and with no second chances he feels like he is doomed before he begins. He has no concept that he is freely choosing to leave home if he doesn't do the school work. I sit in disbelief. I will never get over the shock of realizing what I taught my kids when I thought I was modelling something else. It bites.

Choose well my son, choose well. His heart is super sensitive...always has been. It has emotional scars on it that are beyond my fixing. I have visions of him 30 years down the road tracing his path thus far to the fateful day we laid down the law for him. It makes me think of myself as a teen. I read once that kids are faithful recorders of history but lousy interpreters of it. I want to claim I was a great interpreter of my own childhood and entitled to all my hurts(perceived and otherwise) but my kids will flunk childhood interpretation 101. This son has no idea I have been praying constantly to be able to treat him with grace for months already. In his mind it won't count anyway. I haven't delivered the goods and that is all that matters in the moment.

I know we are not being unreasonable. I know that real life has real consequences. Tough love and all that. I can see it and I can't. It makes the tears just stream down my face. I know this could be a post about kids doing crystal meth or alcohol or so many things that make my reality pale. I know that. I really do. I hate how this situation makes me feel like a failure. How great my lack of perspective is. Be thankful it is this petty someone says to me. I know it is petty. I know it is the stuff that many parents would take in trade for the more serious things any day. But it still is my reality. And I don't know how to deal with it in a way that is befitting a supposed adult. I can't seem to let go long enough for God to work.

Maybe the problem is that I think I am God. I don't want to give anything over to God to fix. I want to fix it myself. If all I am getting is an E for effort I want to claim it on my own thank you very much. Ah, but you see I want to blame the F on someone else.

I got a set of luggage for my 18th birthday. I am sure my parents were being practical but after hearing for years how my mom couldn't wait until we were grown up and out of the house I took it as a hint that she was chomping at the bit for me to leave. I felt like I got kicked in the gut on my birthday. Her intentions about the gift didn't matter one iota. This is the kind of thing that drives me up the wall in parenting. I can't get past wanting to make sure my kids know the underlying stuff...the stuff that is in my heart that doesn't always get communicated in the heat of the moment. That, my God, son I just want you to make the best choices you can. I think of the years of unforgiveness I had towards my mom. I keep thinking my turn is coming and it makes me a bit batty. I see the hurt in my son's eyes this afternoon and it has me undone. Completely undone.

UPDATE: I phoned my sister Deb and told her not to give me an opinion but just listen to me. Being my sister she didn't listen to me but gave me her opinion. She's the only one I know that I can tell to f off when they tell me the hard truth. Tough love is tough to dish out. Hanging onto it being good and right though. Am open to opinions now. Wasn't when I typed this. Was in too much pain to accept it.

For Liesa

Liesa - this post is for you. There I typed a new sentence and kept it in place of the one I usually write first: I don't know what to write.

The worst part of not knowing what to write is that I get nervous about what is going to come right out of my heart and onto the page courtesy my fingers while my mind is distracted elsewhere. It can feel like playing a game of jacks and missing both the little red bouncy ball and the handful of jacks and having someone else snatch them right out from under me. I do like to be in control. Just ask my kids.

And my kids are the ones who have been weighing heavy on my mind of late. Well, one of them in particular. I hate feeling like a failure as a parent. I can't believe how I can make parenting all about me. Parenthood can be very selfish. I thought I was past this. But I am not. I want my child to smarten up why? So I can feel better. Secondary is that it would make his life go smoother but in all honesty I want to feel better first. Man, I didn't know a person could hyperventilate to this extent, long after the labour and delivery were over. I am talking nearly 20 years post labour here!

I can't believe how much I make my world all about me, myself and I. Today I asked myself how could I still be this dysfunctional this late in the game? You'd think after nearly 17 years of sobriety I'd know better. Does this mean I don't walk my talk? I can't tell anymore. There are days when I think I have spent 17 years on a dry drunk. Ugh.

I will often look anywhere other than the mirror so that I can feel better about me. I know enough to know that is such sick thinking. But still I keep these thoughts for company, averting my gaze from the mirror. "Would you just smarten up already?!" I want to tell my son.

But eventually I do start asking myself what exactly has to change in my circumstances for me to feel better. Nine times out of ten it is someone else's behaviour needs to come within my range of sight. Ok, once I put that into words I can see it for the sick thinking that it is and I am ultimately left once again with knowing that only I can do anything about ME. I know that if I am waiting for someone else to change before I get happy I doom myself to a life of unhappiness. Shit. I don't want to give someone else that much power in my life.

Out of my heart and onto the page, courtesy my fingers. Ok, time to go look in the mirror.

Questions Answered (Almost)

This is a blog game. I found it on Matt's site.

Here's how it works:

I answer the questions from my 'interview' here.

Matt gave me the questions. Then if you want to play you do this:

1. The first five commenter to type INTERVIEW ME in the comments.

2. I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same as you see here).

3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

OK.. Here are the answers and questions from My Interview.

I lucked out and got 6 questions!


I. Do you have a favorite family vacation that you remember?

I am really grateful for the family vacations I had as a kid. When I asked my mom how we afforded them (after I was a mom myself) she told me that they just saved my dad's holiday pay. I know that money could have been used so many other places and then some. So to have spent it on holidays makes it extra special.

My favourite would have been the year we went to Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC. We went other places this holiday but Stanley Park was the highlight for me. We went on this holiday with my cousins and as a bonus each of us got 5 bucks a day spending money(this was just about 30 years ago)and that felt like we had won the lottery. I remember going on horse back rides and playing on a lot of beaches. The best part was that my parents were usually happy on holidays. No fighting. No getting drunk. We were left to do as we pleased - within reason. I had just turned 14 before this holiday and it was the summer that my husband and I started writing to each other as penpals.

II. Do your children plan to escape you or remain within reach?

When my kids were little they used to talk about how they would all build houses in our back yard when they grew up so that their kids could come visit grandma and grandpa whenever they wanted.

Not too long ago my 21 year old daughter and I were talking and she told me that she knew it would not be healthy for her to live in the same yard as me. Reality bites.

I hope they stay within a distance that lets me be an active grandma in their kids' lives. The reality that they will live in the same community is remote as the job opportunities are few. My guess is that one out of the three will stay in the vicinity at least. They want to escape me as far as wanting to have their own life without me sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong but hopefully that won't mean they have to move far away to accomplish it.

III. What is the most beautiful thing about living in Canada?

How to answer this one when I have only ever lived here? The vastness of the country is beautiful. The enormity of the sky. The freedom to live as we choose. And I am still a fan of universal health care even if it has meant long waiting lists and havoc in our lives as a result at times.

III. Good friends are hard to come by. Who is your longest standing friend?

Hmmm. My sister Deb. There is a 6 year age difference between us and we didnt become close until after we both became mothers but we share a long history. Then comes my friend Liz from College.

IV. Pick a figure from history. You get to meet this person for lunch.

This means I should know history right? The urge to sound knowledgeable and find some impressive figure through a google search is great. I am going to pass on this question because I will fake it all the way through it if I try to answer.


V. What would the discussion include?

However, whoever it would be I would want to talk about the journey of life. What it means to be human and how to live in the tension that results.

Note to Self: Don't Be A Story Stealer

I've been blessed with having several people in my life who honour my journey. They not only honour my story but they want me to own it for myself. They don't want my story to match theirs. They are comfortable with their own story so they don't have a need to control mine.

Part of my story right now is that I am a recent convert to Catholicism while still attending an evangelical Protestant Church with my husband and kids.

There have been people in my journey who I feel like I have to protect my story from so they won't try to contaminate it. It only happens with people who I think won't agree with my story - who will feel the need to correct my story and make it match up with theirs.

The other day I was listening to the sermon and judging the Pastor in my head for where he is in his journey when this thought came to me, "When you judge the journey of others you are trying to steal their story from them. Don't steal their stories."

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Oh God help me stop being a story stealer.

Secrets

I found a blog the other day about secrets. We all have them.

One of the most freeing things I have ever done is a step 4 and step 5 in AA. The first time I wrote for 7 hours straight to get every skeleton out of my closet and onto paper. I left nothing out. I figured if I left one or two things out the rest would be pointless to expose.

Sharing it with another human being was freeing. After I got over the cringe factor. Part of me wanted to hold the confession out at arm's length, shut my eyes tight and say "Here, take it." and then run far, far away. Sometimes I wonder how the minister(she was a stranger to me, picked at random from the phone book) reconciled what was on the page with the person in front of her. I made this step 5 at a point in my life when I had adopted the dress of ultra conservative Mennnonites. There I was in my modest calf length dress and head covering confessing things that must have seemed very confusing to the minister. That's okay. It was confusing for me too. Please don't misunderstand me as if I am saying someone who dresses a certain way is beyond certain behaviours. I am not. Lord knows my mode of dress made not one iota of difference to my heart issues. Jesus' thoughts of cleansing the inside of the cup come to me here.

That day ended up being one of the most peace filled days of my whole life. My friend Ron came over later that day and we had the greatest talk. There was something about having laid my heart bare to another human being that made human beings in general not such a threat.

Secrets have been on my mind lately as I prepare to go to confession during this Lenten season. I've been mulling over my sins. I still have ones of course that carry a sigificant cringe factor but I know to God they are no surprise. His mercy knows no bounds.

There are a few thoughts in a publication(sorry I don't know the name of it) given to me by my priest about the Sacrament of Reconciliation that have comforted me:
Confession "allows us to experience the mercy of God". and
The priest "is simply the human instrument for the action of Christ the Priest."
"God already knows the sins, and does not need the confession."

I need the confession. It's like taking a breath of fresh air. Cleansed. From the inside out.

Withdrawal Pangs

It's a no spoons time of day. Has been that way ever since I sat down at suppertime. I haven't been able to get on the computer for a few days and am in blogger withdrawal. All those thoughts running rampant in my head looking for an escape hatch. I'll let them out as soon as I get a supply of spoons.

Leaving On a (Jet) Plane

Have been to and from my medical appointment already and survived quite nicely the ride in a 182 Cessna. Didn't even take any medication to calm me down. The view was wonderful. It was great to see the mountains again. Our pilot was a wonderful guy who thanked us for giving him a reason to fly his plane. It was a good experience and I would go again anytime. There were just a few times when I looked at the tiny plane that surrounded me and thought how absurd it was that it was keeping us up in the air.

The appointment itself....well. I'm about fed up with doctors. It would be so nice if they would stop giving me conflicting information and come to a consensus about my health issues. There are 5 different doctors involved and they all see it differently. But I did speak up for myself instead of just thinking certain thoughts. It was a huge step for me to tell the doctor that I didn't feel listened to.

For now I will just continue to lose weight. There is a bit of discrimination going on from the medical establishment concerning certain health issues I have and confusing them with the extra weight. I sat there and wondered what they would be saying to me if I weighed 50 pounds less. I am going to find out. Stubborn girl that I am.