Weighing In - Again

Hmmmph. I've been in bed for 10 hours now. I LOVE it when that rare occasional catch up occurs and I sleep and sleep and sleep. For a wiry, always busy person like me, it is a sign to stop and reflect and a welcome relief when my body occasionally overrules and shuts down to rest. I have ventured from the warm soft blankets long enough to brew some tea. Now I'm snuggled back in the down with a bowl of oatmeal and Jiggs - the family dog turned furry roommate since we relocated to San Francisco together following my divorce. Jiggs just crumpled to the floor trying to jump onto the bed when his rear leg caved in again. You and I are falling apart, sweetie, (he's 9, I'm 59 tomorrow) and the time feels right to weigh in on where we stand in our transitition since leaving the past behind and abandoning the familiar three years ago.

Ok. For the first time in years I have to lose some weight. I pinched the poofy ring of flesh as it expanded between my fingers over this past year and denied that it was actually adding anything to my visual profile. If I stand sideways to my mirror and tighten my Pilate's core, I can look deceptively at a sleek silouette. It's when I face myself front on and can't see any gap between my thighs that I know it's time to diet. However, since going car-free 2 years ago and relying on my bicycle to commute, my firmed up thighs legs betray the truth. And now I have developed a spare tire across the top of my hips and what my friend Terri calls a "muffin top" referring to a roll of fat that spills over the waistband of my jeans. A flap of flab hangs down from my extended upper arms. It's time. Yuck. I've dusted off the 12-week eating plan I used in 2005 to drop 10 pounds and am posting it on the fridge to start on Thursday after my birthday tomorrow.

Which brings me to the second of four things I want to weigh in on today. Alcohol. My diet has two versions - one with and one without alcohol. Lately I am alarmed by how much I drink and how it affects my personality. Again, it has been years since I had to worry about it because I didn't drink except for a small glass of beer with my sandwich. For the past year especially and since I started up with Rick, my consumption is increased. I just recently started drinking wine again to Rick's delight and my demise. I wake up thinking about it - rationalizing. The stuff makes me sweat and drives me crazy. Yet I insist and have now come to crave a glass of the red anesthesia after work. Rick's been holding up things I've said that I can't recall. It's undeniable - I've been there, done that and know better. My eating plan will be the no alcohol one. No doubt this will accelerate my weight loss not to mention clearing my head which needs to be clear because I'm making some big decisions.

Third thing on my mind is money. Damn I am going through the stuff in quantities and rates that exceed and deny reality. What I've experienced around spending scares me. I have developed a physical sensation around buying. It is compulsive and reckless. It's something I feed, bend to. I lrepeatedly defy my intent to walk directly to the bus after my haircut appointment in Union Square and will stroll headily into Macy's or Saks and relinquish control to my credit card.My CC balance has been over $5k for most of the year despite throwing $1,000-$1,500/month at the balance; hundreds of dollars of interest has accrued. It scares me. Annually for the past 3 years, I've been spending $10k more than I earned on stuff. After I succumb to one of these urges, I feel light and excited. I want to get a handle on spending. Yesterday I redid my financial income/expense summary - a nifty spreadsheet developed during our divorce. If I stick to my plan I can start saving for my 60th birthday celebration and get out of debt and stay in my apartment for another year. That's the goal. This will be hard. Spending money makes me feel generous, sophisticated, important, successful. sigh.

Lastly for today, the eve of the final year my 5th decade, I must weigh in on my relationship with myself and with Rick. Never have I worked so hard at being a partner only to be mistrusted and have my efforts thrown back at me as insufficient. Rick too feels that he is exhausting his resources. It begs the question of whether we are right and ready for each other. I recall at the start of our dating being concerned that I might be glomming on to Rick because I was afraid of being alone and wondering if I had spent sufficient time exploring the world on my own. Concurrently I agonized with my friend Diane through a decade of misfires and disappointments as her loneliness drove her to take risks with men (and briefly with women) only to face devastating loss and to question her self-worth. And she's smart, beautiful, successful, talented, articulate, pensive and sensitive beyond measure. Getting off the phone after one of Diane's fallen hero calls scared the crap out of me. I wondered why was it so hard for her? What would I do? How would I go about finding a man? Did I really want to find someone again?

Unlike Diane, I met Rick on a blind date within a year of my divorce and we've been together ever since. Despite all my self actualizing and recovery work, I realized not so long after we met that I used sex to win him over in our early days. And I was forcing our relationship rather than let things unfold at a natural pace. I was disappointed in myself when I recognized I'd fallen into an old pattern. But luckily my relationship with Rick has proven to be extraordinary. I fell in love and Rick has tested me in ways that I have both rejected and embraced. He is caring beyond belief and has an endless capacity to give and try to make this work. He loves me. He and I have fun together and we like to do many of the same things - ramble, drink and eat, talk, shop, bikeride, entertain, read, go to movies, help our kids, ski, travel. I have enjoyed activities that rock my soul with Rick that I have previously done mostly by myself for lack of anyone to enjoy them with me. He's willing and able and I love him and I don't want to give him up. Yet, I fear that my love for him is wrapped around this fear of being alone. Is that fear a false pretense or a natural one?

Rick is a bombastic debater (his word - I love it) and a pundit - reading and arguing about all that is wrong with the world. I'm passionate and a doer. I take action; volunteer. I have repeatedly disappointed him while I have undeniably been branded and benefitted by our relationship. I have little more than boatloads of moral support and intimacy to show for myself while Rick dreams of my being there with him in his home/studio to witness and support him in that private space between his work and the rest of his life. His frustration builds until he blasts me for letting him down and catches me entirely off guard. He exclaims in great detail how he has expended more time and effort than I have to fit his life into mine than I have into his. I can't argue with Rick - he is RIGHT, always. Nevertheless, I feel bad, defend myself and cry as I reel back from the old self-imposed constraints I held as a mother and wife in Marin all those 20 years and shed determinedly when I moved to San Francisco. Rick insists I'm just being stubborn. Well I am stubborn and I am also aware that my new life feels jeapardized when I return to Marin but it is more than that. Rick too is stubbornly holding on to a shattered vision of partnership that his wife wholesale rejected and left him wanting. His house/studio represents much of that. And we end up in this same bitter, lonely unresolved state time and again as we hold on and try to span the physical distance and unmet expectations that persist - and really for the last time I think. Neither of us thinks this relationship is working for us yet neither of us wants to undo it and start over.

So here we are and this is where I am for the record. I am convinced that I am ready and want Rick, and I am staying put in my resolve to be a partner, HIS partner; I will help him lease his house in San Rafael and move to a home we find and build together in San Francisco where he insists he wants to return. I will invest in making friends here and continue to put down roots and schedule in some long bike rides that I am missing so. Rick can focus more attention to getting his graphics design business back and on track with Pasha, establish his art business and creating new revenue and independent partnerships with Brian, Rick B, Steve and others. We will spend as much time as we can together in San Rafael and San Francisco but without trying to make either one of our places our home base. I truly hope we can make it work because I love him and I care about him. And I know for sure that I don't want to be alone and think that's okay.

I made my annual timeline for the year and sent it to Rick to fill in his wishes, goals and commitments. On my 60th, I'll weigh in again about how many we have accomplished together. I am hopeful it is most of them.

Happy New Year! Happy Birthday!

Hey Mom . . . I love you. Don't go just yet.

At 6 p today I'll be on the phone with my 3 brothers and my sister to talk about Mom. We will have results and recommendations from her doctors about treatment that will keep her alive. It's up to us to decide whether she stays alive or indeed has a life. She's trusting us to decide what's best for her. How many times in her life did she make that same decision for each one of the five of us? Now it's our turn. Meanwhile, I'm starting a journal to give her on her 88th birthday a few weeks from now on Nov. 8--trying to capture as many memories as I can write down that are running through my head like a fast-moving slide show. I hope, want, pray she will read and enjoy it. She loved one I gave our dad on his 80th birthday 5 years ago and not two months before he died. I'm sorry I've waited so long, this long, too long? Don't go yet, Mom. Two weeks ago she was her vivacious sharp self. That's how I see her; that's what I want to see again. But how does she feel? What does she want?

Barcelona Beckons

I pulled the postcard out of my mailbox, stopped short and leaned against the wall to stare at the aerial view of Barcelona. My friend Deb sends me the sickest strangest postcards from all over creation and for YEARS she's been doing this. But this is a normal picture post card and it stabs me right in the heart. I WANNA GO TO BARCELONA. While backpacking through Europe a zillion years ago I fell in love with The Ramblas, the tapas, the exquisite leather boots I bought there . . on the back Deb reminds me how long ago I was there. 35 years. Returning is on my to do list. I started saving for the trip, signed up for Spanish on Live Mocha, studied Rick Steeves. I announced it on Facebook for chrissakes! Rick and I went to Mexico last summer. It was great. It was not Barcelona. I'm gonna go. It's a sign. Leave it to Deb. Thank you my friend.