Afterall, it is a work of art.

I have to admit, after yesterday morning's weigh in I was feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was REALLY tired of all the menu planning, the squeezing in time to exercise, the encouraging and motivating of my son to do the same week after week for almost three years now and remaining at this hellish stuck/quicksand/plateau for the better part of two years. Constantly having to think up healthier alternatives for every single event that comes along for the three of us, creating a homelife that would serve as a haven to the challenges that we face, dealing with my own hormonal insanity , and seeing the numbers go up. Yet again. It is one thing to see my own numbers go up. PCOS makes weight loss very tricky and when you add perimenopause to that equation, you have more success spinning a chicken over your head and offering to hook the scale up with a handsome Droid phone next week if it gives you a good number than any moves to eat less, move more, eat only___ calories /fat/protein/grains/gluten/pink foods/foods bought only on the left hand side of the isles and so forth.Hormones rule like a Communist Dictator in a police state in my case. It bites, but it is. However, when the guys ( who have no hormone issues) gain for absolutely no reason, it makes me crazy. Crazy , stressed, analyzing every single meal/day/activity/additive and so forth. If that happens to hit at a time when other life issues are also pressing ( let's not even begin on those), I do not do well at all.

We had plans to attend a concert last night. It was a fund raiser put on by a Missionary order that involved a singer and a jazz quartet doing selections from "the great american songbook". We decided this would be a good event to attend for several reasons, but some juggling of stuff had to happen in order to go. We would have to go to Mass as a family, as Bob was scheduled as songleader/cantor, then out to dinner and back for the concert.Both Mass and the concert were held at Church number one, of the Catholic denomination. I was baptized as a Catholic, we were married in the Catholic Church, Nick was Baptized as a Catholic, and Bob is an Ordained Deacon, but I am not Catholic. I enjoy the artistic flow of mass ( what is not to like about statues, stained glass, music to fit the moment and readings from some good literature as well as someone's observations on those readings ?) , but as a non - catholic there are certain parts that I do not participate in , and I always joke that the church is going to collapse on me because I entered in. I do love watching Bob do his thing and hear him sing. He has a very good voice , and it seems that as he ages his voice is getting a richer tone to it than it had when he was younger. And being a church, God speaks to people, in rather mysterious ways. God chose to remind me of the reasons I began this journey and hog tied the guys into this. Bob sat in the front pew and Nick and I sat in the pew behind him. Nick was having a weird day because he got to wear his very first pair of pants with a belt and a zipper. He has been too big to wear anything other than stretchy pants his whole life, and dealing with the whole mechanism of constricting pants, a fly and a belt is a rather daunting thing for an autistic with texture sensations. As we sat down on the pew it began to creak, which instantly reminded me of the fateful day the bench collapse under the weight of the two of us, which began the whole journey. I instantly became VERY nervous, and Nick picks up on my feelings , and he starts becoming very clingy. Then an elderly woman sat next to us, and we were pretty much trapped in for the whole service. Bench creaking, Nick hanging and clingy and disconcerted because the pants and having mom there for the first time in a long time, me thinking God is going to colapse the bench under us as a joke, watching my husband and having numerous spontanious reiki energy draws happen due to several ill parishioners ( as a reiki practitioner there are times when a person , without their knowledge, taps into a practitioner for healing energy and there is no way to stop it. It is not bad or painful, just a little disconcerting). !

We made it through the service with no bench collapse( Thank you God), then out to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. Good ole salad bar and soup, no longer a problem since gluten was not found to be the culprit. Leisurly dinner, and I realized that it has been about 19 years since we have been out on a Saturday Night other than going to my mom's house or some other family thing. Last "date" Bob and I have been on was 6 years ago, and that was to go Christmas Shopping. Last thing we have gone out to as a couple to have fun was a month after I found out I was pregnant with Nick - before I got placed on total bedrest.19 years ago- no wonder I felt odd ! It felt very odd- fun but odd ! We have no babysitter, and while Nick is technically old enough to be on his own, mentally he is far from that point, and it becomes even harder to find a "babysitter" for him, so we do everything as a family. After dinner it was back for the concert. It was small. intimate, and at points Nick was beginning to look like he was going to start "stimming" from the volume of the music and such, but he controlled it. There is an energy exercise called The Wayne Cook Posture that helps to settle a neurological "storm". I taught it to him a while back to help when things get really tense with school and so on. He remembered these and discreetly did them when he was getting tense. The concert was nice, but it reminded me of how Bob and I were when we first got married and how very much our life has changed . Ministry is a wonderful thing. Homeschooling is a wonderful thing. Parenthood is a wonderful thing- but with all of those wonderful things there is a cost. Suddenly I found myself looking at it all, wondering if the paybacks were worth all of the costs. Was healthy living getting me anywhere ? Were the commitments of ministry worth all of those trade offs ? Would life not be a whole lot easier packing Nick off on a school and letting someone else sort him out and educate him ? Wouldn't it be easier to just tell sick people to go back to yet another doctor or accept the fact that no one lives forever ? I felt myself judging things by the value scale that seems to be the norm for the rest of the world , and it felt like we had failed on almost every level of life. Lots of sacrifices, few rewards and time running out like grains in an hourglass. Then on the way home we flipped on the radio and heard the song Pride/In the name of love by U2, and it hit me hard

"In the name of love, one more in the name of love"

All of the choices we have made were based out of love, and like many other love based actions it felt like we were being crucified on a lot of fronts because of each. It's not a good place to be at mentally. Then Nick kept asking if we could stop for ice cream, I told him no and felt a huge wave of mommy guilt for that answer. I was denying the kid of so many things in the name of love/doing the right thing. We did not stop, went home, and I was feeling really unsettled. We turned in and I said some things that I never should have said, and in doing so I was reminded of one of the great big truths that I have come to learn. It is not important that my life or actions are perfect according to the world's guidelines, but rather that my life is perfect in accordance with MY life. With OUR life. We are not like everyone else for many reasons. Normal is simply a setting on the dryer and every living being is a work of art. A Picasso is brilliant when you place it in a cubist classification, but really sucks when viewed as an impressionist work. Beethoven's 5th comes off as really bad if performed by The Black Eyed Peas ( "da da da..gotta get get"). A fish does not do well on a bicycle. Our life is what it is because we flow through many different channels, and it is perfect to facilitate the whole package. My reiki clients could care less what my number on the scale is, and same is true with the people Bob serves through music. Nick's sens of compassion and humor is not driven by that number either.He will also never be beaten up for his lunch money or placed in a special classroom, but I don't think those things are necessary to become a contributing member of society. Being able to juggle things so that we can be available to serve does not involve how much we have lost or gained in the previous week either. However, eating healthy , getting in some exercise and avoiding less healthy choices most of the time will fuel the soft machines that we require to get us to the places and things we must do.

This morning I feel better. I do not want to beat someone to a bloody pulp with a kettleball and then skin their carcass with a treadmill because they toss at me information about how to lose weight. I know that what I am doing is making me the best that I can be with what I have been given, and that is enough. It may not fit many people's definition of success, but I bet none of then can channel an energy that can and has healed things like canceous tumors or heart abnormalities.They also would not have the sensitivity to preform a piece of music with the nuances necessary to bring another human being to a mental place of worship. Nor would they be able to see an emotional need of another as clearly as a color of a flower.They are artists at making a number on a mechanical device stay within a certain limit, and that serves as an inspiration for many people. It is there very good thing...but I must remember that just because it is not my good thing does not mean I am bad or flawed. I am just an artist who works with a different medium.