up down up down up down

up down up down up down. this week has been up and down more times than i can even attempt to count.

body-wise: mark and i started a new diet, and started taking hcg injections. i can't wait to reveal the finished product to yall complete with before and after photos, diet details, and if i end up cheating, i swear i'll be honest and tell you. we started the injections a week ago tomorrow. so in this loooong six days, mark has lost 14lbs (screw men, right?!) and i've lost 4lbs. BUT i will say i've seen a gigantic change in my inches! hello size 2 daisy dukes ;) sadly, though, that means goodbye c cup boobs. oh well. those can be replaced. i will say, the hardest thing so far is a tie between saturday and yesterday. saturday mark was working and the kids decided to race to see who could make me cry first, and i had to resist the intense urge to chug some tequila. yesterday i was absolutely ravenous and i had to go to walmart to get peanut butter. i had to walk by the cupcakes, the bread, the fruit, and the chips. then stand in a line for 20 minutes staring at twix bars and dr pepper. i even wanted to gnaw at the screaming child in the cart behind me. but i didn't. i came home and drank even MORE water. so pat on the back for me. i'm turning down liquor, twix, and dr pepper. that's how bad i want to look good naked. mark says so far so good. :)

hair-wise: well a few weeks ago i thought, "hey! i'm gonna go to great clips and get a trim...they can't mess it up that bad, right? plus it'll cost $10 instead of $40!" wrong. wrong, oh so wrong. pretty sure i told her what i wanted, and she did the complete opposite while telling me her life story including how she should just quit her job and get on state benefits because her ex is a deadbeat. i just kind of looked at her and agreed every once in a while, all the while cringing and ready to bolt. there was no saving my hair at that point. disappointed and pissed at my hack job, i thought; "what the hell?! lets bleach it for the summer! how much worse could it get?" worse. oh so worse. it turned orange. which i knew would happen. i'm not sure why i even attempted it. once again, trying to save that money! i managed to get it to a brownish mustardish color, and have left it alone since then. i've spent the past few weeks hating the mirror, sleeping in conditioning masks, and using zero heat on it. today, it will be chopped and hopefully put back to a normal color. life lesson number 5,632,964. just pay the money for the hair.

parenting-wise: i'll just start at the top and go down. girl child one will be twelve in less than 2 weeks. which means she's starting to test out this new found attitude she's found somewhere deep within herself. we had a stand off, over the condition of her hair of all things, on sunday. and there she sat, arms crossed, teeth gritted, eyes burning holes in her toes hoping we'd disappear. oh yes, i remember that feeling. we won, but i have a feeling we'll have quite a few of these stand offs in the next several years. i was so grateful when i had boys, because i knew if i had a girl i was in for it. i'd be cursed for all the shit i did to my parents when i was a teenager. (and i mean the NORMAL teenage shit. like attitude, slamming doors, sneaking out...not the other and completely abnormal teenage shit that cost me one family. like sex, pregnancy, and for-the-love trying to right all my wrongs. that's abnormal behavior, yall.) anyway, i thought i was in the clear. instead, i got the fast track to teenage daughter parenting. and in this case, i'm not just the step mom.

girl child two is 9 going on 19. no attitude in sight. thank god. i do appreciate the fuzzy legs and bruised shins that remind me she's not about to go jump in my truck and drive off to meet her BFFs.

as far as the boys go, they pretty much go from terrorizing us to being the cutest and sweetest little boys ever. up down up down. i love them all, but dammit. this parenting stuff doesn't quit, does it?!

up down up down up down.

spent an hour folded up in my lovers arms two nights ago crying and sobbing. he held me and let me be angry, sad, full of emotion, hopeless, and empty all at the same time. he wiped away my tears and just held me. that's all i needed. he's learned not to ask what's wrong, because i never know. i just know how i feel. and there's hardly any logical explanations for how you feel. especially when it's so up down up down up down.

this disease isn't fair. it takes from my happiness. it steals me from my lover. it hides me from my children. i've learned it's tricks, it's games. i've learned the signs, even the smallest hints of an attack. not sure if that's better or worse than not knowing, not sensing.

i can never (anymore) say, "i don't know what hit me, i don't know why i did that, i don't know what came over me." i do know, and i see it coming. so i brace, and i plant my feet to the ground. i warn others around me. then i wait. it's like weather. sometimes i'll predict a severe thunderstorm and get 5 minutes of rain. sometimes i'll predict a partly cloudy day and get a tornado. other times i'm dead on. hurricane. after it's over, i breathe and survey the damage. then i stand up and put my boxing gloves back on and face life head on, once again, with hopeful optimism. because that's what i do. i'm not a quitter, i'm stubborn, i'm strong, and i love my life WAY too fucking much to let some silly chemical imbalance take it over. it's my life.

i'm not naive enough to think that it will ever go away. no matter how much i medicate, no matter how much i pray or don't pray. i spent years praying, pleading, and quietly managing it all while trying to put on a face of normalcy. it was a shameful thing, not to be spoken of. now that i'm not afraid of a fairy in the sky or a group of men in suits every sunday morning, i'm facing it. and managing it better than ever, and with more support than ever. it doesn't define me, it doesn't control me, and i'm not ashamed of who i am. so i got up off my knees, dusted myself off,  started using my head and eyes instead of relying on mr. fairy to blindly guide me through my life solely on faith. fairies and faith got me through a lot in my life.

thankfully, i am now free.