Back to the Drawing Board. (FAIL)

Today, I blog about me and for me.  Maybe you can identify with this, maybe you don’t want to read this, up to you!

According to my emails I am getting from 'The Raw Divas', while fasting/cleansing/etc, emotions come up.  We can either eat to stifle these emotions or we can move through them.  Yesterday, I made a choice to do the first.  Today, I am offering myself the opportunity to do the latter and start again.

I feel like I can’t be a part of my family, have friends and be myself at the same time.  As if it’s one or the other.  

I think back to the times when I was 100% raw, bartending, dj’ing, living in California, doing my thing there, and just being Andrea in general.  I wasn’t exactly humble, I did what I wanted when I wanted and didn't fringe upon the rights of anyone else.  I wasn’t the person anyone called when they needed help moving - because they knew that wasn’t going to happen.  I wasn’t the person people called on when they ‘needed’ something - even a good friend.  I wasn’t a daughter my parents beamed upon with pride and I wasn’t particularly worried about it, either.  I was doing EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED TO BE DOING.  Not worried about what they thought, trying to meet others’ expectations and not looking to others to define my sense of self.  

These days, I find myself bending to meet the needs of others, putting others needs before the needs of me and some days - like today - I get really sad.  I am not saying that the person I ‘was’ is in any way a better person than the person I am today - it is hard to compare the two, as I am in a completely different mindset than I used to be - and a completely different body, with a completely different set of circumstances.  I can’t even say I was happy back then.  It doesn’t stop me from looking back and feeling like I have lost something along the way to the person I am today, something I really would like to have back.  What that something is I am unable to define.  It seems like a combination of ambition, determination, perseverance, strength and being indifferent to what other people think.  Not even indifferent, more like completely blind, as if it what people thought of me wasn’t even on my radar.

I feel like I ‘know’ what you’re thinking:  ‘Congratulations, Andrea, welcome to the world of not being a selfish a**hole!’  Well, I’ll tell you if that’s the truth, this life and way of being sucks and I would rather be a sinner than a saint.  It doesn’t ‘feel’ right, even thought socially and familially it may be the ‘right thing to do’.  I think somewhere up in the cosmos, what seems like ‘the right thing to do’ as far as society is concerned, may be, in fact, the opposite - or close to it - of the right thing to do.

Being a parent, I am constantly concerned about what other people think and feel about me - even at the stupid grocery store sometimes.  I see people look at me and wear their opinions on their faces and I let it get to me.  Perhaps they are not even thinking of me and they just walk around with screwed up looks on their faces - why do I care anyway?  Perhaps it will wear off over time, but for now it seems to be in the front of my mind.  The way this shows up in my life is me compromising who and what I am to meet  what I perceive as the needs of people around me.

For example, last night I made chicken casserole for my family, went out to eat for lunch at The Olive Garden and skipped my bellydancing class.  Why?  To meet what I perceived as the needs of the people around me.  Aya’s daddy is in town for a few days and without even thinking, I decided that going out to eat would be a fun experience for him.  Granted, I ate soup and salad and a menial amount of pasta, which, according to my standards is straight up blasphemy and I didn't even need to do (lol) considering what I am up to right now with my juice fast and transition week.  I could have just sat there and had some lemon water.  But did I?  NO.   I also decided to take my indiscretion a step further and prepare my - infamous with my family - chicken casserole (yep, it’s pretty awesome) for dinner.  Of course, I had to taste it along the way and eat some too, resulting in me waking up with puffy face, crusty eyes, a stuffy nose and a headache.  Bleh.  Four days of smoothies and great eating down the toilet.

IT IS OCCURRING TO ME THAT I COULD BE USING THE PEOPLE AROUND ME AS SCAPEGOATS FOR MY LACK OF CONVICTION, COMMITMENT AND INTEGRITY, which is an interesting conclusion to draw - and likely the correct assessment of what is happening.

So, I have to ask myself:  what is this all about?  What emotions could I be stuffing down with food and lack of exercise, conviction and integrity?  What is the payoff for all of this ‘madness’ and why am I being lazy?

Yes, it is hard being a single mom some days.  It is a 24 hour/day job.  There are no breaks, there isn’t a lot of money and sometimes I just want to hang my head and cry.  I ache to ‘belong’ somewhere, to have friends and a social life and a good steady income where my daughter is included in my work.  All of those things come at a price, whether it's time and gas or tough decisions.  What I want is a lifestyle and social life healthy for us, why is this seemingly so difficult to create?  I feel I am creating it right now, at times I get scared when I think about how sustainable it is or isn't and what sacrifices I will need to make in the future to keep it going.

I have found that ‘like minded people’ who ‘seem’ to be into meditation and yoga, raw food, ‘health’ and those sort of things seem a bit heavy to me in general, conspiracy theorists and a bit on the negative side -  ok, totally living out the fear based lifestyle.  People who are lighter and more fun are usually out drowning their (insert whatever here) with alcohol and cigarettes, and other recreational ‘junk’ etc.  Where is that happy ‘medium’ that I belong to?  Where are the people who have fun doing things they feel good about not only while they are doing them, but also the morning after?  Where are the people who have little babies and love being around them enough to make the necessary sacrifices of nights at the bar, steady streams of income from jobs they hate anyway and 

What I want is friends who like to get together and do yoga and make raw food.  Let’s do a workout tape and make a raw cheesecake and some banana ice cream and eat it ALL while watching a cheesy rom-com (romantic comedy) or awesome action thriller.  Let’s relax and fold laundry and do some crunches.  Why does this have to seem so ‘out there’ for the majority of the people I know?  Are they wanting to escape from the life they have created that badly?  Or am I simply so outside of normal (and happy to be it, by the way) that these things are completely unfathomable to a lot of people?

What is the draw for the ‘normal’ activities that we are all drawn to that seem to me to be a waste of money and time?  What is the payoff in spending hard earned money that could be over a million dollars in our savings accounts by the time we retire if we just invested it right on junk food for our minds and bodies?  Where is the payoff in temporary stifling of conscious living?  

I am sad and a little anxious when I think about my future.  Conversely, I get excited as I know I am asking the right questions and making the right mistakes.  Still, it feels like I have SO FAR TO GO.  Yes, enjoy the journey, blah blah blah.  I get that.  This is my emotional outpouring for the day, this is my cryout for peace in my little mental babylon.  I want space in my mind and clarity.  I suppose the best way to do that is to really work on my personal integrity, I am the only one with the power to create in my life.  

“If I build it, will they come?”

“Do I really want community?”  

“Why am I so afraid of not having money?”

“What is this fear all about?  When will it end?  How can I take the right steps to transmute my fear into something positive?”

“How long will it take for me to get the right results?”

“When am I going to stop polling the people around me about my life and start listening to the voice inside of me?”

The answers to these questions will come within the next few days, says the voice inside of myself.  The real question, it says to me, is are you going to finally start listening again?

Transition week starts over again tomorrow.  It is today as well, but I had a little bit of coffee and to me, that means back to the drawing board.  I have learned from my slipup.

It is not always about the food.  It is about keeping my promises to myself and doing what I say I am going to do.  It is about not being afraid of the imagined consequences: the loss of love of someone(s), poverty, etc.  I think those are my two biggest fears, loss of love and poverty.  Those are big ones, but now that I have identified them, here we go!