Author: Outrunning my demons

Still laboring

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On Labor Day we had our summer staff party. We didn’t have ideal sailing weather heading towards our destination. We had to motor against the wind into the waves. I forgot to tell everyone to bring a rain jacket, not because of rain but from the waves splashing against the boat. We did get a little wet. But it was a warm day, so all was forgiven.

Thankfully everyone felt comfortable sailing on rough waters. We did think about rescheduling but there was a schedule conflict on the rain date. We had a nice lunch and wandered around town. Quite a few places were closed on Monday, not just because it was a Monday but because it was a holiday Monday. There was a tattoo parlor open. Anybody up for tattooing themselves with the company logo?? I guess not.

 

Sometimes in the sailboat, I feel like a big fish when I look at all the other little fishing boats in the water. Then a big cargo ship drifts into town which makes me feel like a minnow in deep water. It’s all about perspective sometime. This is our sailboat with half of the cargo ship. Wow, now that is big time!

The sail back was nice. The wind pushed us back home. One of our employees got to experience her first sunset on a boat. 

We laughed and didn’t talk too much about work. Paul prompted me to tell everyone the sailboat name I came up with a couple of weeks ago. Here goes….. BOW MOVEMENTS… Terrible name, I know, but it always cracks a few laughs.

Our sales guy said that since I am so creative maybe I should do all of the writing for our website updates…

Wait….What??

Still laboring…

Up north photography

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Here are a few of my favorite up north photos of the season. Although it looks rather remote, it really isn’t. Just a few spots that I like to take pictures of.

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The lake is the habitat of a lot of wildlife. This eagle has a nest nearby our cabin. It likes to eat the northern, bass, bluegills, and crappies that live in the lake. We also see cranes, geese, loons, and lot of other birds. The most plentiful wild life are the people that make the lake their home on warm summer weekends.

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Early mornings on the lake are very quiet. The evenings, not so much…

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This past weekend we took out the dock. It was a sad day. We won’t be back until May.

Enjoying the present

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I decided to not audition for the next community theater musical. 

Oh, I am not afraid of being on stage. I have many fears, but that is not one of them. I find public speaking and performing fascinating. 

I decided to give it up to watch Angel perform in her first college concert. She told me that she was going to be given solos that are only typically given to seniors. Watching your child perform is as exciting as performing yourself with a lot less work. 

I wish my grandma was alive to see her perform. Angel and I got my grandma’s voice. I feel very sad that I don’t have a recording of my grandma singing. With an 8th grade education, my grandma never had the opportunity to use her gift. She never sang in a choir or sang a solo in public, but she could’ve been an opera singer. She just sang to soothe her tired or crying grandchildren or in church with everyone else. The only thing she was able to do was to pass it on to future generations.

This past weekend, I was looking through old pictures with Arabella. She wanted to know who was holding her in a photo. She didn’t recognize my grandma. My children don’t know much about some of the most influential people in my life. My grandparents, Uncle Harold, and Aunt Grace shaped me into the person that I am today. 

This weekend we took the dock out of water up north. It is sad to say good-bye to the cabin until next May. My great-grandparents built the cabin in the 1950’s. What a gift! But after reflection I found that I didn’t know a lot about the giver.

I know small tidbits about my great-grandparents. Little facts, but nothing about who they really were. I know for a fact that I couldn’t pick out the pictures of all of my greats if they were in a lineup with other photos. I might have their nose, but not know them..

How soon we are forgotten. Time moves so fast. When I was a child, a day seemed long. Now a day is nothing. 

These have been my thoughts lately. 

I am so thankful for the gifts passed on to me, but so sad that I know nothing of the gift giver. It is a strange type of nostalgia. I don’t want their memory to fade like an old picture in an album. But I can’t seem to grasp onto them anymore.

Instead, I will enjoy the present…the gifts we have been given. 

There will always be another play. 

200 followers!!

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I just want to say thank you. 

Thank you for following my story.

I am not a celebrity. I am not famous. I’ve never been popular.

I don’t use fancy clip art or moving images. Once in awhile I’ll share a few photos I took. 

My site doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. I’m barely computer literate. I don’t have an IQ of 152.

Thank you for taking a chance on me, for clicking the follow button.

I’m glad you are on this journey with me.

Thank you!

 

Summer, don’t leave me too!

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The Canadian geese are flying south. Just like that a light switch was turned off. Summer is ending.

I always have a hard time this time of year. It’s not that I don’t like the changing of the seasons. It’s just that I live for summer. I love the warm weather and sunshine.

Now all of my kids are back in school. I had to say good-bye to my oldest child for the first time when I sent her off to college. It wasn’t just like saying good-bye to a child, it was saying good-bye to a friend. Over the past few years, the active parenting ended and a friendship began. I hope it will be like that with all of my children.

Out of all of the people living on this Earth, my daughter Angel is the most like me. She looks just like me. She has my mannerisms. We have very similar personalities, viewpoints, morals, and taste. We are both firstborns. We relate on all levels. Sometimes I think that she is an unjaded version of me. She is what I could’ve been. People have asked before if she is my clone. It was hard to let go.

My son Alex takes after my side of the family in everything but looks. Because of this, I understand him. Arabella is completely alien to me. We have nothing in common. To be totally honest, this has been a struggle for me. Sometimes we clash instead of click. It just doesn’t seem fair!

The morning after dropping off Angel at college, my husband went away on a week long sailing trip with friends. He will be back home tonight. This has made things more stressful for me at home and at work.

At first, I was fine. It seems like it takes me a few days to process my emotions.

Monday the anxiety and worry hit me hard. It probably didn’t help that I checked my phone before going to bed and noticed that Alex was not at his friend’s house that he was staying overnight at. Apparently they got bored and decided to aimlessly drive around much to my disappointment since I was the one filling up the tank with gas.

I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I waited until Alex got back to his friend’s house on my phone. Then I still couldn’t sleep because I stirred up the demon of my relationship with my dad. I didn’t realize that it upset me as much as it did. Of course, it is probably not wise to stir up painful moments in my life when I am feeling so emotional about my daughter leaving. My anxiety was through the roof and it kept me from sleeping most of the night.

The next morning I felt exhausted and depressed. I had to man the office by myself all day. Work was very busy and I didn’t feel like doing it. When I feel that way, I want to give up everything. I want to quit running. I want to stop blogging. I want to curl up in a ball and totally shut down. I will never do that though, somehow my mind beats out my heart every time. I don’t let myself shut down or even relax.

I will never give up this blog without telling people I am leaving. I am one of the least impulsive people I know. I am cold and calculating. I am schedule and routine. I am all or nothing. I overthink and underfeel. Like it or not, that is how I am. Yet somehow I can still manage to be fun.

Change has always been difficult for me, even if it is for the better. I have accepted that my daughter left home. It has to be a good thing for me because it is good for her.

Now I just have to accept that summer is over. This weekend we are shutting down the cabin for the season. The water will soon be too cold to swim in. By next month, we will be taking the sailboat out of water. The first few flurries will start to fall. My long outdoor runs will have to take place indoors on a treadmill.

Summer, please don’t leave me too!!

But I can’t look at it that way!

I have to be happy that my daughter is starting the future of her dreams. I still have other kids at home to bond with. I am married to a wonderful, adventurous man.

I have to look forward to crisp autumn days. Cool evenings spent in my hot tub gazing at the stars. Bonfires with friends. Photographing the beauty of the trees changing color. Reading cold psychological thrillers wrapped in a warm blanket. And having plenty of time to write…

No escape?

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On Labor Day, we are having our summer staff party. Seems fitting, right??

We are planning on taking our employees for a sail. The last couple of summers, sailing has been the staff request.

Winter staff parties are a little more tricky. I always try planning off the wall kind of parties. One year we saw a laser light show at a planetarium after eating fondue. Another year we went to an Irish restaurant followed by a comedian. Last year we went to the Japanese steak house after taking a painting class. Year after year, it is getting harder to top.

Then I heard of the escape room. It is all the rage. You are given clues and one hour to escape from a locked room. The only question I have is….is there a bathroom?? Yikes! What a great staff party team building event. Except no one wanted to try it.

Really, what is wrong with being locked in a room??

Then I remembered, I am terrified of being trapped.

I don’t like feeling like there isn’t a way out.

I can’t stand feeling trapped on airplanes. Every bit of turbulence makes me feel like we are crashing. I have heard that turbulence is not risky, but take offs and landings are. Great, now I am afraid the whole flight. I’m trapped on a plane. I can’t leave when I want to. The cold fear lasts for hours. I break out in a cold sweat. I grip the arm rest or person next to me. My hands shake. My heart races. I hold my breath or breathe fast. I gasp. Some of my best flights involved being medicated.

I can’t stand feeling trapped in cars either. I am prone to panic when I have to cross long bridges or drive through construction. The concrete barriers trap me. I have no option to pull over or escape. My heart races, my breathing is fast, the sweat pours, I open all the windows, and at times I get tunnel vision. I have to pull over at the next exit sometimes. It is suffocating.

Year round I drive with my windows open a crack so I don’t feel trapped inside my car.

Sometimes I feel trapped by my circumstances. I can’t stand that either.

It is beyond me why I would WANT to go in an escape room. I think it has to do with the challenge of facing fears and figuring a way to get out.

I haven’t figured out the winter party yet, but until then I am going to enjoy sailing with our employees on Labor Day.

At least I am not afraid of water!

Maybe I will find another group of crazy folks to get locked up with in an escape room.

The big skinny on weight loss

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My 13 year old daughter is on a diet.

I never thought that I would be buying weight loss products. What a racket!!

Now before I get a lot of nasty comments, let me explain. I am not the stereotypical mom depicted on TV. Although I am lean and athletic, I don’t harp on a middle school daughter that has a barely bulge. I don’t replace her chocolates with laxatives. I don’t tell her that she won’t be loved unless she is thin like me.

If I am guilty of anything, it is ignoring that there is a problem. I honestly don’t know what to do. Would you? I have never had issues with my weight before. Sure, there are times that I feel fat. What women doesn’t?

The only time that I struggled with my weight was during pregnancy and right after. Most women do, except for an enviable few. I distinctly remember looking in the mirror after my first baby was born. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I probably looked like it too. But I took a strange pride in my body that was able to produce life. I felt a  connection to my ancestral bearers of life before me.

The most I ever weighed was 186 lbs. That was right before giving birth to my almost 9 lb baby. This is how much my 13 year old daughter weighs right now. She is a few inches shorter than me. Her BMI is borderline obese. Arabella gained 20 lbs since her last physical.

Kids pick on her and call her names like Arafatta and Fattie. It never seemed to bother her before. She even nicknamed her stomach Jab. She was always hungry. She made comments about having to feed Jab. She would eat seconds, snack, and stockpile candy. For her birthday, all of her friends bought her candy. A lot of her weight gain was behavioral and some of it was genetic.

After the kids had their physicals last week, Angel talked Arabella and I into getting measured for body fat, muscle, and metabolic age. I won’t bore you with the details. At 42, I got the body age of 28. At 13, Arabella got the body age of 47 (her dad’s age). She has 10 more inches around her waist then I do. She is over 50 lbs heavier than me.

Arabella wanted to try their weight loss products. Over the weekend, she spent a lot of time exercising and eating healthy. She lost a total of 4 lbs. She said that she feels healthier eating healthy foods.

So here I am supporting my middle school daughter’s weight loss. I don’t want her to have a complex. I don’t want her to tip the scale in the other direction. But I don’t want her to be obese, have health problems, or be ridiculed. The body image of a teenage girl is delicate enough as it is.

I have found with children that I can try to force them to change, but until they really want to change there is not much I can do.

I am happy that Arabella is starting to break bad habits and has decided to make healthier eating choices. The best thing I can do is support healthy decision making. Hopefully, this has more to do with starting healthier habits versus trying to be skinny.

Pushing buttons

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I have been here over a year and never deleted a post before.

Yesterday was the first time.

I wanted to delete my blog, delete my existence in this sphere with a touch of a button.

How easy would that be?

Sometimes the truth sets you free.

And sometimes it keeps you up at night, gnawing at your insides and eating away at your soul.

Again, I feel trapped. I long to go away and never come back. Leave the stress behind. Start a new chapter in the last half of my book.

Maybe it is starting to finally sink in that my daughter left home.

I just can’t help feeling terribly alone.

Maybe I need a vacation??

 

Saying goodbye to Angelique Hope

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It is finished.

I survived!

It wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be. 

The hardest part of dropping off my newly turned adult daughter at college was watching her say goodbye to her younger sister. They hugged. Angel told Arabella to call her if she needs any advice. She told her to enjoy having her own room. A few tears threatened to escape when they told each other how much they will miss each other. 

Now why couldn’t they get along that well before??

For the first time in over a decade, I will be actively parenting only 2 children!

We woke up before dawn to pack all of Angel’s belongings, including her beta fish, into our truck. It was an 8 hour round trip for Paul and I. I am totally exhausted tonight, so this will have to be quick.

It was an emotional day. 

Bittersweet. 

It was hard to say goodbye. Hard to keep things together. 

I wanted to keep her forever. Instead, I let go of her hand today. 

It was okay. I know she is where she was meant to be doing what she is supposed to do. She is happy, healthy, smart, full of faith, and makes good decisions. What more could I want?

It is going to take some time before I don’t expect a response when I call out her name. 

She is not here anymore.

But my house is not empty.

I still have other children to raise..

I know she will be okay.

I will be okay too.