What I'm Afraid of

188.6 this morning - 1-1/2 pounds of last week's excess came off.

Here's a picture from April's fire.  I'm the only girl, at the fire and in the department. You can't tell in the picture, but my pants are hiked up because they kept falling down.

I ran/walked 3 miles at lunchtime yesterday, meditated for 15 minutes after work and went to fire drill after having a shrimp and salad dinner.  I've been avoiding fire drill for most of this year because some of the firefighters in my volunteer department are assholes and I don't enjoy spending time around them.  It wasn't so bad last night.

One of the things I like about being a volunteer firefighter is that when I'm there, I don't have this constant judgement in my head about what I "should" be doing to move myself towards the life I want.  When I'm doing firefighting stuff I'm present, in the moment.  The judging voice in my head is off. 

I woke up this morning more peaceful than I've been in a month, which is to say, about 1/3 as peaceful as I can be, just not completely upset and sad today - which is progress. It's funny how the only thing that changes in my life is how I look at it, and things can swing from hopeless and terrible to pretty OK, and then back to crappy.

Drazil wrote a list of the things that scare her and then challenged us to try it.  So I did. I don't like this exercise, but I'm gonna do it.  Maybe writing my fears will help me let go of them:

- I'm afraid I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life and die alone.  I'm afraid that there's something inside me that's afraid of letting people be close to me.  I'm afraid that I push people away without realizing it, even though my greatest wish is to be part of a loving family. Love and loss are tied so closely together for me  that I can't think of being in love without also thinking about the end of love.  I want laughter and energy and people in my life, not this poopy kind of alone, tense sadness.

- I'm afraid that the lyme disease I had last summer messed with my head and I'm not a happy person any more. I'm afraid I'm going to go through the rest of my life being a sad, downer person just faking being happy so people will like me. I'm afraid I'm never going to feel pure joy again.

- I'm afraid this summer is going to end up being the second sad/bad summer in a row.

- I'm afraid I'm going to regain all my weight so that in addition to being sad and alone, I'll be fat.

- I'm afraid of financial ruin - there's not much slack in my financial life, and I'm nervous about it every day.

Yuck!! That exercise stinks! Now my fears are out there like the stinking blobs of crap that they are.  Time to move away from those bad vibes! They are not helping at all!!

Anyway - I get lost in this being down and some voice inside me says, Must Get Moving.  Must Do Something. Find people.  I'm struggling. I know the tools and I'm hanging on to them like they're keeping me from drowning.  But I'm not stuffing fettucini alfredo in my pie hole - today.  I'm exercising.  I'm thinking about meditating.  I'm eating the right things in the right amounts.  Maybe this is what it feels like to feel my feelings.  It sucks. I heard a rumor that after I feel my feelings, they go away. That would be nice.