110213 The Spark: Ch01. MY Story.
So I finally found a copy of The Spark, the book that goes with the site I use SparkPeople.com. I've used the site for years, off and on. They're also about goals and self-image, not just weight. Since I could use a little kick in the pants for all of the above, I'm going to do as the book says. Which includes journal entries. So, I'll break the pages down so you don't have to scroll through the wall of txt :)
I was (am?) Kind of a train wreck. Being the oldest of three I was the Big Sister, the one In Charge. "Yer not the boss, Miss Piggy!" I'm not even sure why my brother called me that, I wasn't heavy. It just irritated me. It's hard to be 'in charge' of a boy only 18 months younger than you. My sister was young enough to be loveable but old enough to be annoying. Still, _I_ was in charge. I got good grades (though my assignments were constantly late). I read like a fiend, for a seven year old. I climbed trees, talked to rocks, and didn't understand why people stayed mad at eachother.
Then I got older. My grades were expected, while my baby sister's accomplishments were all the rave. I don't blame my parents: I took psychology, I know it was programmed in. Still, I worked really hard to try to get attention, and when I was older and saw that not working, I was turning into that angsty, late-blooming teen who hated her parents. I placed an advanced Advanced (no really, SAGE was the advanced version of advanced English, History, and a bunch of other madness rolled into one.) My hard work for grades had evaporated into bare-minimum-for-an-A-work, and that didn't cut it in SAGE. I got a C. On award night, it felt like everyone got something but me. My only award was for being in the same group as Cathleen (who later was co-validictorian of our high school.) I became deeply depressed. That was eighth grade.
My first year of high school I was expelled for ditching. They'd tried everything: stripped me of my advanced bio class, stuck me in regular bio, forced me into Aerobics in the morning to 'lighten my load'. I just came later and less. So they did it. We appealed, and I was allowed back in. I missed the bus my first day back, and was expelled a second time. I still managed a C in Spanish; I'd done really well before the semester ended. My SECOND year I failed math, and still managed to miss almost a quarter of the year. My parents didn't catch on often, since all you had to do was pick up the automated phone call at 5pm as a wrong number.
My junior year I got a boyfriend, started going to church, realized I was tearing my life up. I DEP'd into the Marine Corps and started running. Me, the chick who hated running so much that she barely made time in the required mile in gym. I never threw up on these runs, and I was proud of that since some of the boys did. I stalked the marching band til the band director gave me something useful to do; I was the Pinball in Tommy. Not quite a flagget, but still on field. I passed my classes, dumped the boyfriend when he started rumors that I had when I wouldn't, and took Geometry over the summer to make up credits.
My senior year I took a correspondence course which counted for credit, took School to Work which gave me credit for having a job; and got a new boyfriend. I marched a 28" bass drum; performed with the Symphonic Band; played 'extra percussion' in the theatre's 'Into the Woods'; concurrently took Freshman and Senior English; had the DVSAP tell me I could recite Shakespeare but not count the pages; and kept running. I graduated on time, with a 2.8GPA and a letter in Band.
Boot Camp was short, and my military career short. I was RE3P'd out of the Marine Corps with four stress fractures and a time in grade promotion. I let it depress me something awful. I left the boy I'd dated in high school, and moved to California. While there I roller coastered through happy, sad, in love, lonely, and finally had to come home with a broken heart. I was more depressed than ever.
I tried to learn to run again. Fell into the SCA, a group of crazy people who live like it's the middle ages. I love those guys. I attached myself to a charismatic user who plowed 13k onto credit cards I didn't know I had, cut me off from everyone who'd just gotten me back, left me some pretty purple bruises, and ultimately kidnapped me in the car he made me buy. He drove me to a hole in the ground he claimed he'd spent all night digging, and I spent hours begging for my life while he threatened unspeakable things. With the insane promise that I would pack up everything and run away with him, he drove me back to the city, got in his own car to follow me, and I booked it to my dad's house where HE heard the tale only as I recited it to an officer on the phone. No one could deliver the order of protection I'd gotten when court opened that next morning: he'd fled.
I fell in love with a soldier. Strong, gorgeous, intelligent. Also a total cynic. He was me, but with confidence and blue green eyes tinted by the gulf he grew up next to. I moved to North Carolina, we got married, and life became a rhythm. At 27 I've been through counselors, a few self-help books I couldn't finish, a PTSD workbook that helped me work through nightmares that ended in my husband soothing me like a child, and uncounted flow charts with unset goals and programs I'd give up on in a week.
I was never heavy, but my yo-yo isn't diet or food based. I'm ten pounds over where I want to be, putting me back in mind of Weight Recruit Trays in boot camp. I joined Spark years ago for the MyPoints the sign up gave me. I never finish anything. I feel I never have. My goals are always HUGE, with little hurdles like they teach you. When I can't make the first hurdle I give up. I don’t want to do that anymore. I turn 28 this year, and though surviving should be an accomplishment along with graduating high school at all, the lows make everything seem... impossible.
It's in there, in The Spark. My false starts, my giving up before I begin, all the times I've said I WOULD...when I had more time. I found my first grey hair, I'm proud of it, but I want more to show for it than surviving a nightmare. No more roller coaster. No more ANTS taking over everything. Just.. a slow... steady... purposed crawl back up out of that hole in the desert at the unfinished corned or 163rd and Madison. Out of the back of the auditorium where I won no awards. Out of the belief that because I let things get so bad that they can't get better.
They can. I'm in love. I'm debt free. I'm in college (still!) I'm alive.
Now I want to get healthy again. Be happy. Show my husband the smiling girl he married isn't an on-again-off-again. I want to be me.
I think I can be... for the first time in a long time. I think I CAN.
I was (am?) Kind of a train wreck. Being the oldest of three I was the Big Sister, the one In Charge. "Yer not the boss, Miss Piggy!" I'm not even sure why my brother called me that, I wasn't heavy. It just irritated me. It's hard to be 'in charge' of a boy only 18 months younger than you. My sister was young enough to be loveable but old enough to be annoying. Still, _I_ was in charge. I got good grades (though my assignments were constantly late). I read like a fiend, for a seven year old. I climbed trees, talked to rocks, and didn't understand why people stayed mad at eachother.
Then I got older. My grades were expected, while my baby sister's accomplishments were all the rave. I don't blame my parents: I took psychology, I know it was programmed in. Still, I worked really hard to try to get attention, and when I was older and saw that not working, I was turning into that angsty, late-blooming teen who hated her parents. I placed an advanced Advanced (no really, SAGE was the advanced version of advanced English, History, and a bunch of other madness rolled into one.) My hard work for grades had evaporated into bare-minimum-for-an-A-work, and that didn't cut it in SAGE. I got a C. On award night, it felt like everyone got something but me. My only award was for being in the same group as Cathleen (who later was co-validictorian of our high school.) I became deeply depressed. That was eighth grade.
My first year of high school I was expelled for ditching. They'd tried everything: stripped me of my advanced bio class, stuck me in regular bio, forced me into Aerobics in the morning to 'lighten my load'. I just came later and less. So they did it. We appealed, and I was allowed back in. I missed the bus my first day back, and was expelled a second time. I still managed a C in Spanish; I'd done really well before the semester ended. My SECOND year I failed math, and still managed to miss almost a quarter of the year. My parents didn't catch on often, since all you had to do was pick up the automated phone call at 5pm as a wrong number.
My junior year I got a boyfriend, started going to church, realized I was tearing my life up. I DEP'd into the Marine Corps and started running. Me, the chick who hated running so much that she barely made time in the required mile in gym. I never threw up on these runs, and I was proud of that since some of the boys did. I stalked the marching band til the band director gave me something useful to do; I was the Pinball in Tommy. Not quite a flagget, but still on field. I passed my classes, dumped the boyfriend when he started rumors that I had when I wouldn't, and took Geometry over the summer to make up credits.
My senior year I took a correspondence course which counted for credit, took School to Work which gave me credit for having a job; and got a new boyfriend. I marched a 28" bass drum; performed with the Symphonic Band; played 'extra percussion' in the theatre's 'Into the Woods'; concurrently took Freshman and Senior English; had the DVSAP tell me I could recite Shakespeare but not count the pages; and kept running. I graduated on time, with a 2.8GPA and a letter in Band.
Boot Camp was short, and my military career short. I was RE3P'd out of the Marine Corps with four stress fractures and a time in grade promotion. I let it depress me something awful. I left the boy I'd dated in high school, and moved to California. While there I roller coastered through happy, sad, in love, lonely, and finally had to come home with a broken heart. I was more depressed than ever.
I tried to learn to run again. Fell into the SCA, a group of crazy people who live like it's the middle ages. I love those guys. I attached myself to a charismatic user who plowed 13k onto credit cards I didn't know I had, cut me off from everyone who'd just gotten me back, left me some pretty purple bruises, and ultimately kidnapped me in the car he made me buy. He drove me to a hole in the ground he claimed he'd spent all night digging, and I spent hours begging for my life while he threatened unspeakable things. With the insane promise that I would pack up everything and run away with him, he drove me back to the city, got in his own car to follow me, and I booked it to my dad's house where HE heard the tale only as I recited it to an officer on the phone. No one could deliver the order of protection I'd gotten when court opened that next morning: he'd fled.
I fell in love with a soldier. Strong, gorgeous, intelligent. Also a total cynic. He was me, but with confidence and blue green eyes tinted by the gulf he grew up next to. I moved to North Carolina, we got married, and life became a rhythm. At 27 I've been through counselors, a few self-help books I couldn't finish, a PTSD workbook that helped me work through nightmares that ended in my husband soothing me like a child, and uncounted flow charts with unset goals and programs I'd give up on in a week.
I was never heavy, but my yo-yo isn't diet or food based. I'm ten pounds over where I want to be, putting me back in mind of Weight Recruit Trays in boot camp. I joined Spark years ago for the MyPoints the sign up gave me. I never finish anything. I feel I never have. My goals are always HUGE, with little hurdles like they teach you. When I can't make the first hurdle I give up. I don’t want to do that anymore. I turn 28 this year, and though surviving should be an accomplishment along with graduating high school at all, the lows make everything seem... impossible.
It's in there, in The Spark. My false starts, my giving up before I begin, all the times I've said I WOULD...when I had more time. I found my first grey hair, I'm proud of it, but I want more to show for it than surviving a nightmare. No more roller coaster. No more ANTS taking over everything. Just.. a slow... steady... purposed crawl back up out of that hole in the desert at the unfinished corned or 163rd and Madison. Out of the back of the auditorium where I won no awards. Out of the belief that because I let things get so bad that they can't get better.
They can. I'm in love. I'm debt free. I'm in college (still!) I'm alive.
Now I want to get healthy again. Be happy. Show my husband the smiling girl he married isn't an on-again-off-again. I want to be me.
I think I can be... for the first time in a long time. I think I CAN.
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