Another Wonderful Weekend

This weekend was great. Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon gardening. My idea of heaven - and in the evening I rested on the patio amongst the beauty of it. I put in flowers of all colors, yellow dwarf sunflowers, purple Phlox, tall blue things I don't recall the name of, pink and white inpatients, pink petunia, and others. I moved things, I trimmed things, I dug and cleared and got muddy and sweaty. It was awesome. When I made my second trip for more stuff, I just hosed my legs and arms off and went in my short black swim trunks and my favorite men's tank undershirt over my swimsuit top. I still had a little mud here and there but I felt so comfortable in my own skin, fear being in public in shorts was all gone. I felt like a Gardner, because I am one.

Last night both kids stayed home. I reclined on the patio and they did their own things. But it was nice that we were all home. I went to bed fairly early so I could be rested for the trip to see my father today. That went nicely, too. The kids got up, but slept some of the way. I set my cruise control on 55 and went at my own pace while cars and trucks whizzed past. It felt nice. Going at my own pace and not worrying about whether it was fast enough for anyone else. They can pass me. I like where I am. I am talking about my life now. I am going at my own pace. And not worrying about if it is fast enough or good enough for anyone else. I am liking it very much. In fact, I am loving it. Peaceful time sitting on my patio in the morning and evening is so wonderful I do not have a word for it yet. Contentment, perhaps. Delicious contentment.

I have had moments of thinking I have no figure now, like I lost too much weight, which is clearly not the case. Now this is funny to me most of the time but it is also an example of the body obsession. The distorted thinking. The compulsion. It is as if it cannot just be OK. But it is really OK. I just have distorted and weird thoughts. I want to get used to the way I am. No more sizes. Stay where I am for a while. Adjust. Eat how I have been eating and exercise and just be. Live my life. Focus more on other things, while also making my healthy eating and exercise a normal part of my life. Like Helen says, the drastic is the normal.

The time I spent with the Weed helped me see how much I have changed. In a good way. The Weed is not at all interesting, or desirable to me. Or threatening. Another moment of clarity hit me when I went to see my father. He had his beard trimmed -the same kind of beard as my X not the Weed but the most recent X. He looked like my X in the face. It was striking. It put that X into perspective as well. These are people from my past. They are not my present. I still think of them, run into them, and may have a word with them at times, but they are the past. MF always reminded me of my father. Never in looks though. It was the oddest thing today. I never thought any of my boyfriends were like my Dad, but the shrinks always talked about that sort of thing. MF was very, very much like my father. I liked that at first, there was a comfort in it. I am losing my father to the disease of Alzheimer's. But the reality of my father as a partner is that my father was emotionally unavailable, controlling and unfaithful to my mother. He was a misogynist. I had to read a book when I was in therapy about that kind of man. It was not pleasant. I love my father. I always have but he is easier to love now that he has Alzheimer's. He has forgotten how to be a misogynist.

Sometimes I just want to take a break from all this effort to heal and grow and change and get better. I just want to be for while. Rest. I know one thing. This book, When Food is Love is helping me see myself, and understand my behavior and feelings in my past relationships. It also explains, as Lynn promised, why I picked and went back to unsatisfying relationships over and over in the past. It is a huge chunk of reality to swallow all at once. So I am going to let it digest. And go at my own pace. And let people pass me if I am going too slow for them. I may even stand still for a while.