11/08/10
Good evening, my dear. This weather has me all sorts of messed up. I think it’s because it’s the first dreary bit of the season and will just take some getting used to. I pause to reflect back to what I was doing this time last year, and I remember a lot of sitting on my neighbor’s porch in San Diego, listening to her trash the heck out of Stan for just leaving the way that he did, and then looking around my beautiful, splendiferous new house that the military had provided us for free in a gorgeous town with incredible weather and thinking, “I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.” Too bad the lovely weather couldn’t follow me to Utah.
Now, I am much happier, so very much happier a year later, but the cold always messes me up, at least at first. I get a little slower at everything, feel my body protesting the frigid temperatures and the early darkness saps my usually spunky mood. The kids seem relatively unaffected by it yet, but that is probably because I am doing my best to remind them of activities they can do indoors, and they are getting old enough to really start playing with each other and their imaginations.
Like this evening, for instance, they chased each other around the living room taking turns being the monster, and Krystal taught Phil how to play tug-o-war with her jump rope. Krystal and Phil both thoroughly enjoyed painting their lanterns and I had a good time making my own with them, too. I showed them how the oil gets absorbed by the paper and told them that tomorrow we get to glue them together. After some impulse shopping at WinCo (cold weather always makes me buy frozen pizza and chocolate for some reason), we had fish sticks and tater-tots for dinner.
Something about the summer makes it so much easier to use what grows in the garden, and winter is just the opposite – it’s as though the body is trying to store as many calories as it can to protect itself against the cold. I do believe I will end up gaining about 10 lbs this winter, though to look at it from that perspective is a tad dangerous for me, since it takes the focus off my recovery and puts it on a number that is meaningless.
For some reason, I am a little bit more panicked this winter than I have been in a very long time. It could be because this is my first holiday season in recovery EVER, and I don’t know what to expect yet, and also because the cold brings out my more impertinent side so I’m worried that you’ll catch me in a foul mood, or that this year I will gain a few pounds as opposed to last year, where I basically started my 85lb weight loss at this time. I mean, I was so sick to my stomach with stress that I could hardly eat anything, so of course I’m going to lose weight.
On the other hand, this time last year, I was still at 265. Feels good to be at 185 now. Weird, but good. Comes with its own set of challenges, I’m seeing.
One of those is my obvious (but fading) insecurity that I will lose the body I have worked so hard to get. I doubt this will happen so easily, and definitely not very quickly, so I’ll get lots of chances at early prevention. One thing that I do that I haven’t done in at least a decade is be active on a regular basis. I wasn’t even active until March of this year when I moved down here, so it’s a plus.
Another thing is that as we move into a time where I am facing a lot of firsts concerning my recovery, I am worried that I won’t have enough presence of mind to be receptive to you or anything you might be dealing with. I am still processing your mood this afternoon. You did look dog tired, but you also looked a bit embarrassed, for lack of a better word, that you weren’t able to get the image from your head onto the lantern paper with the watercolors. Are you afraid I will not be impressed, or were you just generally frustrated?
Now that I know that you delayed writing me an email because you don’t write as well as you used to and were embarrassed about it, I wonder if it is important to you to impress me? Do you think you have to do something you consider impressive for me to be impressed, Dearest? If you do, think again, my love. It is who you are that impresses me, and since that comes naturally, it requires no extra effort.
I love you for all of your weird quirkiness and your exhaustive patience and your sweetness and your gentle manner. And your shyness – love that, too. All of that impresses me, and here, you don’t have to do anything but be you.
Like I said, I’m not sure what sort of mood you were in when I came by this afternoon, but you did seem quite unsatisfied with your painting, and I’m wondering whether that’s because you don’t like it or you don’t think that I will like it, or your are comparing your painting to mine, or whatever? I will reiterate what I said about your email. It doesn’t matter what it says (or in this case, that you may be irritated that it doesn’t look better to you), it’s the thought that I love.
Making a Martinmas lantern with you is something I cherish – not because the lantern looks amazingly awesome (though it will, once you’re done with it) but because you and I are making memories together, and that is more important.
I hope I don’t sound condescending or cheesy, but I got the vibe that you were just unsatisfied with your work this afternoon, and I wanted to tell you that you’re missing the point if you worry about that.
Ach, my brain is so tired – this daylight savings has me all wonky. At least I found my necklace!!! There is tons more I want to say, but I will have to save it for another day when my mind isn’t already asleep. I can’t think of anything spiffy to bring for lunch tomorrow, so I’m just going to bring the stuff to glue our lanterns instead, after we oil them. I think we’ll oil them in the morning before our run, and then glue them just as I am leaving, if that’s okay, so they’ll be almost done for Wednesday. Wednesday, we put the candles in them.
You asked me once what you could do to help me through this season as I face my addiction in every store, commercial, window display, family gathering, etc etc, and I told you just to be you. I will say it again, you being you is the best help I could ever get, and that includes telling me when you need your own time to decompress.
I wish I could have gotten a chance to nap with you today, but maybe some other time. Still the closeness of you, hearing your breathing next to me, your arm around me and your heart beating – those things bring me so much comfort and give me courage to be myself – to not be afraid of being me (weird oddball that I am) and such a tender feeling of acceptance comes from you that I feel certain to be able to conquer any challenge armed with your love. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you love me. I hope my love gives you as much strength as yours does me.
See you soon, I’m going to go hit the hay. See you in 11 hours. Love to you.
Violet
P.S. Six weeks till Winter Solstice – then the days will be getting longer again!
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