Today was all about cleaning for the inspection, as will be tomorrow. Yeap, I’m not a good housekeeper. I’m simply not interested in spending my life cleaning so I will only clean when I have to and one day, I will have enough money in my accounts that I can pay someone to clean for me. So that means when inspection rolls around we have a fair bit of cleaning to do. Part of that was also getting the rest of the lawns mowed. I actually don’t mind mowing the lawns, it’s the emptying the catcher and the tidying part I hate. Beauty of that is it boosted my daily step count way up for the day! Along with the moving and dancing around as I was cleaning the kitchen of course. So I hit over 7500 steps today! Normally I barely make 5000 so, it’s good! I do, one day, hope to easily do 10,000 steps a day, maybe even by running.

I’ve had no appetite today funnily enough. That seems to happen when I’m active because as always, I’m an anomaly and I experience things backwards. I don’t even know what that is about but it means I haven’t been able to stomach anything but the shakes today. I’m worried that will be detrimental to my weight loss efforts but I just can’t force myself to eat. I have been drinking plenty of water though so… there’s nothing wrong with ‘fasting’ days right? I didn’t even fast, I still had 3 shakes.

I came to the realisation today that I really need to figure out how to forgive Voldemort. Yes, as my belief system goes, he is just me in a different life experience but from this Samm-experience of separation from other humans, I need to forgive his part in my story. He has had a valuable part really and I do appreciate the lessons I have learned, that’s not an issue. It’s the part where he gets to just carry on and do it all over again with someone else, that is the part that has been haunting me lately. It sadly means I barely got any sleep last night. It’s frustrating. I really do keep hoping he has changed and he will be a better person and she will somehow make him be a better person but then I see things or hear things and my spidey-senses tingle and I can see it for what it is now. I hope I’m wrong. That’s all I’m saying. I really hope I’m wrong.

It is quite interesting witnessing this from the outside looking in though and that does lead to better forgiveness toward myself for allowing myself to end up trapped and staying for so damn long. He really is a master manipulator, a deceiver, an amazing actor. If it wasn’t for my beautiful kids, I might not even see it. I might have just begun to think he had changed, he had grown, he had matured, maybe he learned stuff from our relationship but when your daughter looks at you wide-eyed in amazement as she tells you that he’s SO NICE when he’s around her… it just confirms what I know and I feel badly for her. But we all have our lessons to learn right? And learn mine I have. Now it’s time to forgive myself, and him, for what I had to go through in order to learn those lessons. Unfortunately, that is no mean feat.

So tomorrow makes it 2 weeks since I began the shakes in order to lose weight. It really is difficult to believe it’s been that long already because it doesn’t feel like it and I don’t feel like I’m flagging at all. The shakes are easy to make, easy to drink and don’t take up too much time and they don’t taste terrible. To the point that I think even when I reach my goal weight, I will still have them for breakfast and maybe lunch just for the convenience and also, to ensure I never get as big as I did.

Today, I won.

Went into Ikon today to have a group meeting. Felt like it was a waste of time but it had to be done and when I got home… got my letter of acceptance. I can now say I am officially a student working toward a Bachelor of Arts Psychotherapy. I am worried about how I’m going to fit it all in, find the time, afford to survive in the meantime. I have worries coming up about getting the triads done this time and finding placement. I am excited by the idea of it and I look forward to the future it affords me but this little anxiety-addicted brain of mine wants to run around like a chook without it’s head on.

I can do this… right? I can do this. I can call on my angels and allies and higher self and guardian angels and ancestors to give me strength, courage and tenacity to get this done. It’s a three-year commitment. Three years. But it will also be a #bucketlist accomplishment, which is to get a Bachelor degree. I was never sure what field I wanted the degree in but I always wanted it. A bachelor of arts is what I thought but I have always also had a pull toward psychology, so it turns out this bachelor of arts psychotherapy is quite perfect.

The food thing was fine, as it has been for 12 days now. I’m quite pleasantly surprised and super hopeful it means by my birthday I have the potential to reach my goal weight. That is if I can sustain a 2kg/week loss. However, all my research and all I have been told says that isn’t possible. I will hit a plateau, I won’t lose 2kgs ever week and of course, as I drop weight my BMR will also go down and I will need to up my caloric burn to sustain the loss. If I can keep up an average 1 kg loss all year then I can potentially get under 100 kgs by birthday and that is what I’m hoping for. I have hope for that.

Today, I won again!

It’s day 11 already? Really? It doesn’t feel like that long and I have to tell you, that’s a good thing. I know I do really well in the first few days, and even the first week but by week 2 I’m often starting to waver and I’m still not feeling any waver here. I still feel very positive, very strong, very determined and content with this OF path I’m on. I feel like I need to remember to give another offering to Erishkigal as I feel like she has a large part in this. She is there diligently working away to help me remove all that is dead and hanging off me, leaving just the wisdom and I am so grateful to her for that.

It’s been interesting too because all the stuff with Voldemort has been quite front and centre almost this whole time and I’m still good. I’m still strong. Normally he would affect me so profoundly that any good work, any progress I’ve been making will just go down the damn drain but this time, I’m still fine. In fact, I’m doing better than fine. I am finding I’m not feeling hungry very much anymore and if I am it’s simply because it is actually time to eat. It’s like my body has gone, oh, this is how it works. Because I am having ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’ and sometimes snacks as well, my body is happier because it is being fed more often. I wonder, is it possible to just live on OF forever? I worry about when the time comes to eat normally. I don’t think I can because I don’t know how to. But that is next year or the year after Samm’s problem. For now all I need to concentrate on is … well… Now!

It never ceases to amaze me how it’s all connected either. Your physical body, your emotional body, your spiritual body, all connected and intertwined and when you begin to treat one aspect better, another falls into place and then another. I mention this because I did a thing today. I did a thing, last minute, at the very enth hour possible. I applied to do a Bachelor of Arts Psychotherapy. BAMM!

Here’s the thing. I’ve always love art and felt the pull of doing something with art. I’ve also always felt the pull of writing and know I need to do something with that too, more than what I’ve already done but something pretty constant through my entire life has been the pull toward psychology and the human mind and how it works, how thoughts work, etc. I mean, as soon as I found out I was pregnant with TeenBoy, I signed up and completed a Child Psychology course. I don’t even know where the certificate for that is but I know I completed it and got a certificate of completion for it and I know I loved every bit of it. I also know that I had tried to do a few other courses before then and never quite made it to the finish line but that one is the first one I ever finished.

It never occurred to me to pursue that path though. I guess my life just wasn’t meant to go that way.

Then I discovered an advanced diploma in Transpersonal Art Therapy and knew that was exactly what I wanted to do. Did the course right up until the last module. I want to say I failed because there just wasn’t enough structure and support at the end and while that was likely a big factor, it’s not the whole truth. I also failed because of my anxiety and because my marriage happened to be breaking down for real. This course was done in the year we were separated but I *thought* we were still committed to trying to fix the marriage and make it work even though many times through that year I said to my sister, he doesn’t want to fix the marriage. I’ve left and he’s discovered he likes his life better without me in it only he doesn’t have the balls to admit it.

So, I never completed TAT. Then late last year I got this email from the institute who runs the course that caught my eye and it just felt like a IN YOUR FACE message aimed directly at me. I ignored it. But it kept playing in the back of my mind. I knew I was being called to action. I know I can be really good in this role. I know I enjoy this role. I know I’m well suited to this role. Yet I ignored it. Over and over I ignored it. Then I noticed other emails saying how the intake date was extended and I thought, I should see what I can do to complete my advanced diploma. Yet, I ignored it.

I follow this amazing self-worth life coach on Facebook, Katrina Hahling. She speaks my language. Anyway, she posted this:

I smiled wryly to myself knowing exactly what I was putting off and exactly what I thought of when I read the meme. Yet, I pushed it away still. But it kept coming back. It kept plaguing me.

There’s another person I follow on Facebook that is a similar kind of life coach, Hannah Andrews. I’m not a big fan of the language she uses to get her messages across but I forgive her for it because 1) she is using her own unique voice and 2) more importantly, I find her messages of worth. She also posts card readings each Tuesday. Sometimes I read them and sometimes I miss them but every time I catch them, the card I choose is SO INCREDIBLY relevant it blows my mind. Last Tuesday, I chose card #1. I often choose 2 and 5 cause they are the middle ones and for some reason I’m always attracted to them but Tuesday I chose #1 and went and read the write up:

Card #1: Mouse. You’re overlooking some important details, so pay closer attention to what’s going on.

Hmmmm, what are you needing to look more closely at? Contracts, details, something at work? What has been on your mind, but you have brushed over and ignored? What and where have you turned a blind eye to? I am getting the sense, like a mouse hole on the cartoons, where the mouse hole is in the lounge room and can hear and see everything going on from his doorstep – what is right under your nose that you are not paying attention to? I keep seeing/hearing about paperwork and I am wondering what this means to you? Something about your house even? I am also getting about your Third Eye Chakra, your eyes, what have you been seeing in your reality that you haven’t been liking much lately? I am also getting the message that you have been shifting quite a lot lately in what you are seeing, in a sense of relationship dynamics, things that you have become aware of in the past, but not really known much, or paid much attention to and now it is quite ‘in front of your face’ but you are not wanting to believe the reality of it perhaps? Perhaps this is the confrontational space around the reality of the situation now, that you have been doing such work in your life, going places, moving forward in many different areas of your life and this is just a huge space to be in right now. I am getting the message if you need to cry – do? The eyes, something about the eyes – yes Third Eye – but this mouse also has light blue eyes. The deep dark indigo is relational to the Third Eye Chakra and the Throat Chakra is the light sky blue. I am wondering if there something you are needing to voice? Where are you turning a blind eye and actually needing to voice something as well? If you are not sure, if you were a mouse, peeping it’s head out in your lounge room, what it would be seeing and hearing? A different point of view or perspective is in need in the space you are in – have you just entered a huge life change and wondering which way to go? Has something dawned on you, or that you are needing to awaken to? What details do you need to check over before saying yes to? The blue on this card is also jumping out (lots of blue!) and the Ocean is coming to mind – is the ocean calling you? Is there something on your heart that you are needing to tend to and look at the details your heart is calling you to, instead of where your mind is telling you, you ‘should’ be staying to? Your Third Eye – sees your higher vision, your Throat is all about living your truth – are you trusting that truth, or are you burying that and turning a blind eye to what is in front of you? Yes, be compassionate to what is – but what is the Mouse really seeing? Hearing? Is that, what you want to be in? What other point of view are you needing to look at this from? Asking Spirit/Universe, for help in seeing and hearing another perspective of the situation and showing you important messages from what you a missing about these details, can help show you, the question is, are you ready to not just face the truth – but to live YOUR truth, instead of being trapped in someone else’s dogma and reality? Trapped, is a big word, yet, that is the sense I am getting for you? That is keeping you, in that one spot? Are you ready to allow Mouse to show you, another way out? Love xxx

“What has been on your mind, but you have brushed over and ignored?”

“what is right under your nose that you are not paying attention to?”

And the part about contracts/paperwork? That relates to the forms you have to fill out and agree to when signing up to the course and gaining fee-help.

I mean, there’s a bunch in there that also relates to Voldemort but doing this course, I knew that was the main theme. And yet STILL, I ignored it, pushed it aside.

Then Katrina posts this:

All the while every day getting another letter from the institution saying ‘time is running out, apply now!’

Then today I had to go waste 2 hours of my life being lectured to about getting a job and how ‘easy’ it should be if we just follow his formula. Holy hell he just went on and on and on and none of it was really helpful at all. I felt annoyed by the time I left because it could have been time better spent earning the piddly amount of money I get from Medical Transcription just to pay rent. The thing is, during that 2 hour group session, AGAIN, the therapy course came up. Now, I did ring them on Tuesday, after reading the tarot message but I got the answering machine. I left a message. Still hadn’t heard back from them by today, two days later.

So I got home from this ridiculous group thing and rang them again. Still no answer, left another message. Super annoyed. Began to wonder if it’s just a sign from the Universe that I shouldn’t do it or is it a chance to put in the effort to show just how much I really do want this. How much do I want something better/different for my life? Got onto the website and started a chat with head office. Got my questions and answered and then BAMM! Applied!

And that is where I’m at today. No food stuff. No emotional baggage stuff. Just a lot of forward momentum stuff.

I am feeling stronger and more in my power. I will be honest, I am concerned I will fail with the Bachelor just like I’m concerned I will fail with this weight loss but what if I don’t? What if I succeed and both of these things make my life exponentially better like the nudges and pushes and LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME posts/emails keep telling me?

If I can find the meme I’ll post it here but I fully get that feeling where my guides and allies are all showing me the way, lighting it up like a fucking airport runway and getting really cranky with me cause I’m not following their nudges LOL. So now, it’s up to the Universe. If this is the path I’m meant to take, then I’ve taken the action to take the path and even though I am not sure I can do it and I have a lot of concerns about money and trying to balance work, study and kids, I’ve put it out there. I’m ready to at least try. It’s time for me to really, fully step into my power and own who I am and be the confident amazing human I am.

Today, I fucking won.

I was in a lot of stuff around the… it wasn’t an argument but we had a tete’a’tete if you will, around Bee’s hair and his heat intolerance. I don’t even understand why it is such an issue between us. I mean, I know how it started. Bee always had long hair, he was cute as fuck with long hair. Sadly, he is heat intolerant and gets easily sick with migraines and vomiting when he overheats. Voldemort was convinced he’d be better if we just cut his hair and so worked on Bee for over a year (he claims that’s not the case but I listen to the stories my children tell me). I know perfectly well he plays the long game, slowly working on you over time, constantly bringing it up and saying stuff about it, positive stuff for the decision HE wants you to make and negative stuff for the way it currently is that he wants changed, noting it in other people and in the case of the hair even bribing, then taking it back and bribing and taking it back but he just keeps at you, slowly chipping away over time until you decide to do what he wants you to do and it seems like it was your decision all along. I have completely convinced myself that’s how our marriage finally ended. He makes it so you think it was your decision and even has this way of making out like he doesn’t REALLY want it but you do so he’ll support that.

Anyway, he finally took Bee and got his haircut. No heads up to me. No warning at all. I mean, I’d heard the stories occasionally coming in from the kids about what he’s said this time and when he was harping on Bee that time for months but because I’d heard it for months and months and months and everyone knew I love long hair, I didn’t think it was going to happen. I had NO CLUE until Bee walked in from their weekend with Voldemort with his hair not much more than a crew cut. I was fucking gutted. I felt completely disregarded and disrespected and violated. In walked this kid who could have been any other 6-year-old boy, no longer my unique and very recognisable little boy. No warning. Just bam, in your face bitch, you don’t get a say at all I’m just going to go and get it done. I was seriously heartbroken and he still doesn’t get it to this day. He thinks what he did was nothing. He also insists that Bee wanted it… what he doesn’t understand is that *I* understand that Bee only wanted it because he was conditioned into wanting it over a long period of time and that just pissed me off so much.

I was forced to have short hair I hated growing up. All I ever wanted was long hair and I was never allowed to have it except for 2 occasions. My Uncle’s impending weddings, I was allowed to grow my hair out for those, then bam, cut really short. It was devastating for me as a kid to not be able to have a say in how I wanted my own hair and I refuse to be that way with my kids.

But it was done, so after the initial shock wore off, I plastered on a smile and exclaimed how great it must feel and at least he doesn’t have to brush out knots all the time and talked it up so he would feel good even though I was shattered. I thought ok… well let’s prove it then. Let’s prove that having his hair shorter improves on how much/often Bee gets sick.

Guess what?

It didn’t. If it did improve at all, it was very mildly and nothing noticeable. I was still having to pick him up from school sick, he was still waking up with what I called his ‘morning sickness’ just as often. I kept spreadsheets so I was well aware that there was simply no real difference in his health between short and long hair but Voldemort had Bee absolutely convinced he felt better and wasn’t getting sick as much. LOL what bullshit!

Do you know what helped him? He began to get older and more understanding of what he could do for himself to help himself. I gave him tools and taught him how to pay attention to his body and what to avoid and the things he needed to do to help himself. I told him over and over again in no uncertain terms that HE is the only one who can help HIM not be sick as much by doing all the things I was teaching. Once he really began to understand that and look after himself THAT was when he started to not get so sick all the time.

Of course, I’m sure Voldemort is convinced it is the hair because any time Bee broaches the subject of wanting his hair to grow out and not wanting it cut short Voldemort will harp on about how it makes him feel better. Bee was talking to me about how he wished he could just have long hair because he likes it but he can’t cause it makes him sick and I asked, does it? I asked him to think about it and if, in his opinion, he has been getting sick less than he did with long hair and he did think about it and then turned to me and said, no, I still get a hot head and sick just as much. All I said to that was, well isn’t that interesting to note.

Since his discovery he’s been trying to convince his father of this but his father just won’t hear it. Bee is getting even older now though, so he’s been absolutely adamant this time that no, he will not get a haircut. So, when I messaged Voldemort to give him a heads up that Bee wasn’t going to school today because it was going to be far too hot for him, Voldemort started about the hair and I backed up what Bee has been saying and then he basically insinuated I was borderline abusive because I wouldn’t force my child to get his hair in a crew cut. A number 1. Seriously?

I don’t take kindly to being passively aggressively called abusive because I won’t do what he wants me to do and I do not take kindly to being manipulated anymore now that I’ve learned really deeply what that looks like and I’m quite the expert on Voldemort manipulation-speak. He knew that would push my buttons. He knows anything to do with the kids is a massive hook and he uses it all the damn time to get what he wants. I don’t play that game anymore though. The funniest thing about it all, and I literally laughed at him via our sms’s, is that I was already coming to a compromise with Bee anyway and planning to take him to get a haircut before he started calling me borderline abusive LOL

I don’t disagree with him you see. Shorter hair is definitely better for Bee when it comes to heat but at the same time, if he wants long hair, he should be allowed to have long hair. So, I showed him a few boy cuts with short back and sides and longer on top and he agreed to it. That’s where we went today. To get him a spiffy new do and even got him a track. It looks great though I can still feel that he thinks it’s too short. He said in the car on the way home, I would never choose a crew cut, this one is much better. I also told him we can even grow the top bit out even more and that lit up his eyes. There has to be compromise. You can’t just force your kid to have a crew cut because that is your hairstyle that you find helps you the best and you like it. He likes long hair and chances are when he gets older, he’ll grow it out and find other ways to deal with the heat anyway. So, I told him, when he is due to have the back and sides done again, we’ll keep whatever extra length he has on top without cutting it too.

It occurred to me that Voldemort probably wants Bee to have a crewcut because it makes him look more like his father haha. Bee just doesn’t like it, plain and simple. If he can’t accept that, then we’ll just give him more to bitch about.

So that kind of consumed my day today, that and struggling through the heat. It really was a hot one. So hot I could barely work, it was so hard to concentrate. My point of this story is, that despite the emotional turmoil it had broiling way inside me, rage, anxiety, sadness… I still didn’t reach for food like I normally would. I love that. I didn’t even think about it and now that I think about it, I haven’t even heard Gimme all day! That is amazing! Even when I let the kids get a slurpee, it was easy to say no. I’m still not feeling safe in the fact that this is a lasting thing but I still really hope it is!

Today, I won big time. I really did.

Couldn’t sleep last night again. This whole him being able to open up to another relationship thing while I still sit here trying to pick up the pieces and questioning if I will ever be capable of trusting another human again is doing me in. I sit here and listen to my daughter’s experience of her father within the realm of this new relationship and I see and feel the sheer amazement in her that he can actually be so nice like he is around this woman, then hearing how they are doing this and doing that and then looking back at the start of our relationship and realising he was the same with me… it makes me sick. It makes me sick for this woman. I really truly hope he has grown and he has changed and maybe he loves her more than he could ever love me so things will be different between them. Maybe she will be good for him and he will become this really lovely human who has tolerance and acceptance and understanding and good humour and nothing will ever change for her. Because if stuff changes for her, it will be so damn slow she won’t even realise she has been buried and is struggling for life until she’s sitting there at 1 am one day thinking about how she could kill herself in a way that when the kids wake up they won’t freak out at all the blood just to have him placid look at her as he walks back to bed from going to the toilet, and after hearing the struggle his wife is going through, just look at her and say, “don’t do that,” then go to bed as if his wife, the woman he’s meant to love and cherish didn’t just say she was contemplating killing herself… You would think I would have left after that. I didn’t. I was still confused and hopeful. What a fucking idiot am I haha. But hopefully it won’t end up that way for her.

So I managed about 5 hours of sleep after a good cry that blocked my nose and made it difficult to wear my CPAP mask wondering when the grief will ever end and how unfair it is that I’m still here dealing with it years later while he’s completely moved on. Still, I didn’t cave today. I didn’t eat anything extra… wait…. I ate one spoonful of mash potato that was probably more melted cheese than mash but surely that won’t ruin my efforts? On the food front I’m still going pretty strong at day 8. On some level, all this grief coming up now is helping. It’s created a lack of appetite in me and a lack of desire to even eat. So that is interesting and a bizarre turn of events. My go-to when I feel like shit is usually eating and I have to admit as I sat there last night in the depths of my anguish a part of me was thinking, if I was just eating crap this wouldn’t be hurting so bad right now. But I’m done. I’m really done. I’m done being morbidly obese. I’m done being a victim and I’m done holding on to a horrible marriage that was no good for me. Yeah, it sucked, it was brutal, it was completely unfair and all of that is made more obvious as I watch what he did to me from the outside now as he does it to another but that isn’t my present anymore. I get to make a new present. I get to make a new life. I get to be happy because I’m away from all of that now. Yeah, I still have to deal with him when it come to the kids but anything more than that is just unnecessary.

It’s just not so easy though unfortunately. I find myself still wanting to please him, still wanting to make him happy, still wanting to make him think highly of me. Like, what the fuck even is that? He doesn’t give a shit about me. If he had his way he’d take the kids off me because he thinks he’s a better parent than me and he thinks he is doing everything right and I am … I don’t know what he thinks I am but my parenting style was never his favourite thing about me just as his parenting style was never my favourite thing about him. He probably thinks the only reason these kids are going to grow up and be ‘successful’ is because of him. It’s just that, what he thinks is successful and what I think is successful are worlds apart. He will consider them successful if they grow up, waste their whole life working to make money to buy a house and things, get married, have kids and die. Okay, I see that. I can see that can be a mark of success. For me though? For me successful will be if my children grow up to be kind, nurturing, generous, helpful, understanding, considerate, happy, loving and they get to do what they love and they love what they do. They don’t just end up in some job because it makes them money but they earn money for doing what they love and what they are passionate about. They will be successful if they feel comfortable enough in their own skin to show up in the world in the way that makes them the happiest even if that doesn’t look like what society or their father or even I think it should look like. That is what growing up successful would look like to me.

I always thought I was a really good mother until he came along and tore me down. I still think I’m a good mother now and I still did when I was with him but he definitely made me doubt myself, he had me wondering if I was wrong and if I was a bad mother. I am a good mother though and the fact that my kids love me more, want to spend more time with me than him and would choose me over him… that tells me I’m a good mother. I love them for exactly who they are and how they want to show up in the world. I’m not going to manipulate them or control them into being a certain way. I want to sit here and hold the space for them to grow into whoever they actually are. I will guide, I will tell them my experiences that relate to what they are going through so they might see it through another perspective, I will warn them of when they could get hurt or do harm to someone else, I will give them a very firm no if absolutely necessary but I will also nurture their personalities and allow them autonomy over their own body with what they wear, how they have their hair, if they want piercings or tattoos or wear jewellery or want to still run around at home naked at the age of 8, I will let them sleep with the light on if that helps them feel at ease and better able to sleep at night. They will grow up one day and be adults and they will do all the things they want to do and show up in the world the way they want to show up in the world anyway so rather than make them wait until they are teenagers or young adults to find out who they really are, I will let them be who they really are now and do silly shit, make mistakes, make choices that aren’t necessarily good for them but will give them an opportunity to learn and grow and they can do all this while they are still young and their decision don’t affect their lives quite as much. And while that is all happening, hopefully I will be teaching them how to be kind and caring and that sometimes in life you just have to do what needs to be done like cleaning and brushing your teeth or walking away from a friend who isn’t really a friend. Maybe too, they will learn from me that it’s okay to walk away from people who are toxic to your well-being, even when those people are someone society says you should never walk away from.

I’m not that mother who lets her child get away with everything. I’m not that mother who lets their child have whatever they want whenever they want. I am not the mother whose children are disrespectful or rude and won’t do what they are told but I am also not the parent who demands their children act a certain way and do things the way I want them to and how I want them to do. I feel like I’ve found a happy medium. If I tell my kids no and they ask why, there is always a logical reason and I will tell them and they will understand and they respect me for that. Even if sometimes that reason is that I simply don’t have the patience to deal with that happening right now or I don’t feel like letting you right now because I’m cranky haha. They also know if it’s a reason like the latter, chances are, I’ll let them do it on a day when I am not so cranky because why the fuck not? So my kids, they know when I say no I mean it and they respect it and when I ask them to do something, they do it. My kids are fucking good kids and while I know Voldemort will want to take ALL the credit for that, too fucking bad. At the same time, I’m not taking all the credit either. He’s not the worst parent on the planet. He truly cares about our kids. He provides for them well, he encourages them to learn at school… which isn’t my thing but hey, society does have a certain expectation of humans and it’s probably best for my children to conform at least somewhat. That’s not my path, my path is the opposite of conforming but that is a hard path to take and I don’t wish that on my children. So, he does well to encourage our kids at school. I don’t always like his methods but the intention is good. I’ll throw him a few bones, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t have much to do with him as adults to be honest.

All of this stuff has been coming up hard and fast and thick as I battle this weight demon in me. As long as I keep reminding myself that this stuff is coming up for me to release and let go of as I release and let go of my weight, then I’m good. I can take it. Let it go bitch, let it go. I just need to remind myself that I don’t have to please him anymore. That’s not my job. I don’t have to parent our kids the way he wants me to anymore than he has to parent them the way I want him to. The most important thing here is that we both love them and we care about them and we are here for them and we support them. That’s all that really matters at the end of the day. Also, a little adversity in their life is good for them. It will toughen them up and help teach them compassion. He will, in the end, make them better humans and if nothing else, he’s going to teach them how to manipulate and lie and deceive and let’s face it, those in this world who can do that, they go places.

I just need to start forgiving myself. I forgive myself for the choices I made. I forgive myself for staying as long as I did. I forgive myself. Simple as that.

Today, I won.

The dreaded weigh-in day. While, as you know from a previous blog post, I did get lower than this through the week, I only take my Monday weigh-ins as the truth and nothing but the truth. So according to today’s weigh-in I have officially lost 1.9 kgs! That is a mammoth effort. For those who do the imperial that’s 4 pounds! I feel very accomplished and I’m not missing anything yet which is a bonus as well. I mean yes, Gimme likes to speak up and have a sook every now and then but for the most part, I’m good. I hope this continues, I really do. It would be so damn nice to get under 100 kgs.

For now, I’m just hoping to get into the 120’s before witch camp. I’ll still be morbidly obese but maybe the extra 10 kgs off my body means I will sleep better and have better energy to really dig in to the happenings at camp. I’m super excited for it especially as I have been journeying with Ereshkigal leading into the camp and realised how familiar with her I am and that my whole life feels like an extention of her. I’m definitely very ready to let go of my marriage and that entire relationship. I’m ready to let go of all the pain and stuff that accumulated on me around not being good enough or lovable enough or not being worthy enough to fight for or make an effort for, the deep knowing that I was never really loved but merely tolerated for the normality I gave his existence as far as the rest of the world saw. I’m very ready to just let go of it all, all the pain, all the brokenness and just walk away with the wisdom which I will need moving forward so I never have to be deceived again like I feel like I was with Voldemort. He comes across as an average neuronormal person with actual feelings and that was not and continues not to be my experience. All I keep seeing now is how shifty he is and how adept at illusion. I feel for his new partner because I know she is already trapped and she has no idea yet. I see the masks he is putting on for her and the rest of the world. I see through them now. I hope I will see through everyone’s masks moving forward because I’m so done with being deceived in this way.

I have to acknowledge though, that today got really fucking hard after I picked up the kids and heard about how fun a day they had with that other woman and hearing about how much nicer Voldemort is around her, almost like he becomes Tom again but you know there’s something underneath… well, we do. Those who have experienced him. We know. She doesn’t and I feel for her, I really do. She’s already hooked in thinking he’s the sweetest, nicest, most wonderful human, I know, I remember. Again, she’s not wrong. He is those things. Absolutely there is those things. It’s just not all there is. I hope she is enough for him so that she never has to, or rarely ever has to, experience the Voldemort I and my kids know. Maybe she will make him a better human even more than I did. But it’s hard hearing about it you know. It’s hard knowing that already he does stuff with her that he rarely did with me in 10 years. So after those stories, I had to do the grocery shopping :/

Those who have been following along know the shopping is hard for me as it is but when your stomach is hurting from the pain you’re carrying and you’re shopping for the kids who get to eat the stuff you wish you could but you’re chosing not to anymore, potentially for life… it’s so fucking hard. I don’t have the words to describe it. It was a CONSTANT battle in my head between me and Gimme. Yes! No! Yes! No! This! No! This then! No! This! No! This! No! Relentless. Seriously. The longest 20 minutes of my life. I won though. I didn’t get anything for me and just got stuff for the kids and the house. So, winning there! I so much didn’t get anything for me I even forgot to get my OF! So after we got home I had to bloody go back out again and get it, thankfully that stuff you can only buy at the chemist so at least I didn’t have to fight my way through the grocery store again. There’s only so much a woman can take you know?

I’m strong. I hope I stay strong. It’s time for me to dig in my heels and climb those steep mountain cliffsides like the Capricorn I am. It’s time to take charge of my life again and be who I am, who I know I can be.

Today was a win!

Today was a little easier on my emotions. I stopped thinking about it all the time so the pain wasn’t there all the time. I didn’t even cry once. So that was a bonus. I didn’t feel that hungry through the day either.

I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to but at least I didn’t cave. The only time I heard Gimme was after I’d eaten my dinner and had all my shakes. She screamed out pretty loud for some chocolate but she was easy to ignore.

Today was boring and quick and uneventful. I really do not have anything to report on it at all…

 So all in all, Today, I won.

Did I say yesterday was brutal? I could laugh. Yesterday was nothing. Seriously, nothing.

It took me forever to get them out of my head enough to sleep last night and all day it’s been a recurring theme. In they pop to punch me in the gut and shred my heart to pieces again. I haven’t cried this much in so long. How unfair is it that when you choose to leave because you know it’s the best thing, even though she still love them deeply, that you’re the one that ends up in more pain? You’re the one that grieves the longest? How is that even fair?

I realised through the day today that the reason I keep coming back to the pain and how it just isn’t fair, is because he is so unaffected by me, he got over me so easily … 1) because he never truly loved me, he merely tolerated me for what I gave him but he is and was so unaffected by me because I jumped through hoops and walked on egg shells to please him for a decade that my – what he called – tantrums that inevitably came around because he wasn’t giving me what I needed no matter how much I told him what I needed, even they weren’t that bad for him. He would just do what he did best and bury his head in the sand until I “got over it” and by got over it I mean like the crying baby in the dark room by itself wanting to feel safe and loved who finally stops crying because it concedes defeat, it has lost all hope… that. That is what I mean by got over it. He would just bury his head in the sand or make some feeble effort to change until I got back to just looking after myself as if I wasn’t even in a partnership because that was all I was left with. So because he was so unaffected by me, he has come out of our marriage, our 16 years-worth of relationship, relatively unscathed. He did his grieving, he fought for what he wanted and he now has everything he thinks he deserves and now he’s ready and capable of moving on – well let’s admit it, he was ready and capable just a couple months after I called time of death but that’s a different woman who has moved away now and is out of his reach. So now he has moved on and formed a new relationship with a new woman and he gets to have that without any cares in the world. He gets to trust that she will love him and be a great human and perfect for him and that maybe she is the one. He gets to be happy in the throes of newness, he gets to have hope and build something while me? I’m here not sure if I can ever trust another human being again.

I am so affected by him and so damaged by our marriage that I don’t think I am ever going to be capable of trusting someone enough to let them into my heart ever again. I opened my heart to him more than I have opened my heart to anyone and he mistreated it. Don’t’ get me wrong, he’s not a bad man, he just wasn’t good for me. He mistreated my heart. He was incapable of the depth and maturity and self-awareness and willingness to grow enough to be able to handle who I am and to nurture who I am. This is by no means entirely on him. I stayed. I stayed long after I knew I should have left. I wanted to make it work. I tried. So hard I tried. I did so much work on myself but that just made it worse really, because here I was delving deep into myself but not getting to go deep with him because all he is capable of is surface relationships and what I need, what I need is depth. He complained that I was so serious all the time and I couldn’t have fun. That wasn’t true. I could totally have fun but I needed to go deep. I needed to explore the depths and he is completely incapable. That is not his fault, it is just who he is. I am pretty sure our daughter is the same. Our son on the other hand, I think he has a lot of swirling depths to explore but Voldemort and Baby Gurl, they are surface dwellers.

But what that all means is, I have been so damaged by the marriage, by my experience with him and within the marriage that I am terrified I will never let anyone in again. I have an image of my inner child sitting on a locked chest wrapped in chains and secured with big fat deadbolts and she has a stubborn look on her face with her arms crossed over her chest and shaking her head no. No, you shall not pass. You shall not get in here. My heart is securely locked away and there is just no getting to it anymore. There are very few people who have access to my heart now and unless you have the set of keys, you ain’t getting in. No one is getting in, possibly ever. So he gets to let someone into his heart but I don’t. I don’t because I am so damaged I wonder sometimes if it is beyond repair.

Every time I think I’m making progress with the grief and the healing I’m thrown a fucking curve ball and feel like I’m right back where I started, or even worse than when I started because there are layers and the layers are so damn deep now and sometimes it is difficult to surface from them. I’ve had random moments over the past 6 months or so where the grief has hit me out of nowhere and I was blind-sided by it and wondering why it was there and why it won’t just go away and when it will go away for fucks sake. As I sit here typing this I wonder if those moments were moments where their relationship got a little bit stronger or went to the next level and somewhere in my psyche I felt it and that was why the grief hit. I can tell you this though, I’m so fucking over it. If I could make it go away I could but how do you stop it? How do you make it go away? How do you make it stop hurting all the fucking time? How do you stop crying over something that ended 3 years ago… well 4 if you include the year of separation where I *thought* we were still working on the marriage and trying to repair it but it turns out we weren’t, only I was. Seriously, 4 years, isn’t that long enough to grieve a relationship I was NEVER happy in? Please? Please let the grief end. I need it to end cause it hurts so much knowing they are going away for a romantic valentines day weekend getaway. Something he never did with me. In 10 years we went away ONE TIME for an anniversary together. One time in 10 years. I never even got a honeymoon. Even the proposal was lame and uninspired. It’s not fair. It’s not fair if he didn’t love me enough to want to treat me like his queen then why fucking move to the other side of the world and marry me? Just … don’t do it. It’s so wrong. It’s so unfair that she gets to have more wooing than I ever did with him. They go away for a weekend together one more time (if this is the first, who knows if they’ve gone away already before) then she will have gotten more of him than I did in 10 years.

I don’t think someone good enough even exists in the world for me. I really do think I am single for life.

So I don’t know if it is because I cleaned the kitchen and tried to clean the bookshelf today so I was more active (but was I really? I don’t think so) or if it was all the crying and the releasing of yet more grief, yet more pain from my relationship with that man but I have been starving all fucking day. So hungry. Yet I haven’t caved. I’ve stuck to my 3 shakes and one salad. I still feel strong even though I’ve had moments of real hunger today. I’m just so ready to be better you know? I want more than anything to be better and not like my mother.

I’m going to Witch Camp soon and they are focusing on The Abula, the kur, Ereshkigal and Inanna and I can safely say I’m already journeying it for sure. The journeying began on the December full moon where we began our decent through the abula into the underworld, where we had all but what we are at our most basic removed from us. So here I am, naked in front of Ereshkigal asking her to take pity on me and help cut away all the dead rotting parts that are hanging off me leaving only the wisdom from these experiences behind.

Today has been rough. Today has been pretty difficult and it won’t be the last I’m sure but today, I won.

Today has been a bit brutal. The hard pit of pain that radiates adrenalin outward has come in waves all day. I haven’t really been hungry though so that is a good thing right?

Went to the shops again today to get stuff and I have to say it was difficult. My eyes just latch on to one thing after another and my brain thinks of one thing after another. Gimme says, Get this, get that, what about this, what about that, but we have to get this, we neeeeeed this. So today it was almost a non-stop onslaught and I just wanted wanted wanted. Yet I didn’t cave so I have done well.

I found out today, well rather it was confirmed today, that Voldemort has a girlfriend. He took the kids to dinner to introduce them officially. Even kissed her a few times. I can’t tell you how that makes my gut wrench. I thought we had an agreement to let each other know before we introduced our significant others to our children but there was no heads up from him. As in our relationship, he keeps himself to himself and doesn’t bother to share anything of himself with me. No wonder I always felt left out in the cold with him. He never included me in anything really. I was his symbol to world so he could say he was married, I looked after his children and cleaned his house (not well enough if you ask him), did his laundry, did the shopping, cooked dinner, made lunches, etc, etc, oh and I was a good place to get his dick wet when he was horny but other than that, I wasn’t a part of his life. I was never invited to go out or along to get togethers for drinks, I was never really told anything by him. So it really shouldn’t surprise me that he has had a girlfriend long enough to be fucking her no doubt and long enough that they all got together happy little family style and had dinner together without letting me know it was happening. He literally left the dirty work of telling me about it to our 12-year-old daughter. Seriously? Grow some fucking balls and just let me know shit.

But, in other news, I guess that means I don’t have to tell him shit about my future partners or bother to ever explain to him that I am polyamorous and thus have multiple partners that I plan to spend time doing things with. He has set the precedent and shown me that I do not have to tell him diddly fucking squat. Also, he may never find out anyway because my kids don’t share a hell of a lot with him because he’s a douchebag and nobody likes him.

Still… I hope she is lovely. I hope my children like her and get along with her and her child. I hope she makes Voldemort happy in a way I never could no matter how much I tried. I hope she is good enough for him in a way I never was. I hope, thanks to me, he treats her better than he ever treated me. I hope he did go to a lot of psychology sessions and get some help in self-development and anger management and he is a better human for it and therefore he is really good to her. She looks super sweet and I hope he doesn’t break this one like he broke me. I really do hope they have the relationship we were meant to have, the one he promised me but never delivered on.

So yeah, today was brutal but I made it through.

Today, I won again.

As I went for my walk last night on Day Three, I realised I was feeling down. I had this small burn in my gut. It’s still here today. Clearly, as the fat comes off, the pain has room to come out. I practiced some FasterEFT on it last night because I wasn’t sure what it was about or where it was coming from then today it has hit me. This weight coming off right now is the pain I suppressed from my divorce. Well ouch motherfuckers :/ This is gonna burn. How do I know it’s gonna burn? Because it already is. I can feel it from the pit of my stomach right up to the bottom of my jaw. This long line of burning sensation that grows and retracts, grows and retracts and it has the shape similar to a yard glass, you know the ones they chug out of at 21^st b’days?  It bubbles, it burns and it radiates but the most intense part of it is right over my heart chakra.

I know it’s from the divorce, 1) because logic. The weight from around 110 kg onward was all put on during my divorce years, which means the past 3 to 4 years-worth of gain. So of course, that stuff is going to come up first for me to deal with in order to release the weight I carry around with me every moment of every day. I can tell you right now, I’m not looking forward to the 60 kg to 80 kg range, I already know what that stuff is :/ 2) I know it’s about divorce stuff because the end of my marriage has been on my mind a LOT the past few days and isn’t it funny how meme’s will pop up about the stuff that is on your mind. For instance, this meme

I DID go through hell and back, for many, many years, to try and make the marriage work to make it last to make it healthy to keep my kid’s mother and father together in the same house. Ultimately, the thing that ended up keeping me strong in following through with leaving Voldemort (that is what He shall henceforth be known as), was the fact that I didn’t want to teach any of my three kids that it was ok to stick around in a relationship that doesn’t work, where you are miserable and nothing changes no matter how much you try. Because it isn’t. At the end of the decade, during that separated year where we were meant to be working together toward a better marriage so the kids and I could move back into the family home, it became abundantly apparent to me how little Voldemort tried, how little effort he put in to the actual marriage, how little value he gave me and just how many excuses he had for not doing it. One of my favourites was the one where he used me and my self-development as an excuse to not work on our relationship, that was a good one. His words, “You have spent a lot longer working on yourself than I have, so I feel like I need to work on myself before I can commit to working on the marriage.” His excuse for not going to marriage counselling was that he needed to do his own counselling first, as if he could ever catch up to where I was at. That excuse cut me pretty badly but I still had such hope that we could make it work at that stage, so I believed him and I let him get away with it. Even though when he said it all I thought was that it is possible to do both. He could work on himself AND work on the marriage. We finally went to counselling about 10 months after I moved out and, as with almost all other co-counselling sessions, they became about him. You know why right? Let me tell you. It was because *I* WAS doing the work, *I* was making the compromises, *I* was doing everything any counsellor suggested already before they even suggested it, so the marriage failing… it wasn’t from me, it wasn’t about me. I cannot tell you how many times the counsellor would look at me and say, have you tried doing this (likely because I am a strong woman and come on strong and he is weak and shuts down so they assume it is ME and that I don’t know it’s me when it’s me) and I would look them in the eye and give them examples of when I tried doing ‘this’ and ‘that’ and then tell them two or more other things I’ve done to try and help the relationship and Voldemort would sit in the chair and snicker or flat out laugh because it was true. They would ask him, is that your experience of it? He would agree, yes, that was his experience of it as well. So of course, every session would end up about him and eventually, we’d just stop going somehow until I brought it up again.

Same thing happened with our very last counsellor. By that last session I was so fucking angry cause it was always all about him and I just felt like I was sitting in on HIS session. There was no work being done toward healing our relationship and when there was, I would come up with suggestion after suggestion and compromise after compromise and butt up against a big fat brick wall of, No – followed by excuses for the no. It’s amazing how hindsight is so clear isn’t it? It still took me over 6 months after calling time of death on the marriage for me to really begin to understand what really happened.

I may have physically walked away from the marriage. But he killed it. I might have called time of death. But he struck the fatal blows. I left still loving him, not realising that he didn’t love me. He didn’t even like me. I think he though he loved me but if that is love? I don’t want it.

That is so painful. To walk away from someone you love because they don’t have the balls to do the hard work. It is painful to realise you were merely tolerated, not loved and rejoiced like you deserve to be. It is painful to look back on all the fucking effort you put into the relationship day in and day out and see how little the other person ever put in. It is painful to end a relationship you still have hope for. It is painful to grieve something that isn’t dead inside you yet. It takes a really long time to grieve that. Then you get another stab when you realise almost from the second you called time of death your husband of 10 years, who you’d been in some kind of relationship with for over 16 years, began flirting with the next woman and you wonder secretly if it was even before the marriage ended. You wonder briefly if he cheated, maybe not physically but emotionally? It hurts.

So, I did what I do. I pushed down that pain with food, I fill that void, that great big hole inside myself with food. I stopped caring about everything except my kids and my new cat that I was finally able to have after years of wanting one.

What that means is, all that pain I pushed down? It’s going to come back up and it is going to ugly and I HAVE to deal with it. If I don’t, I simply won’t lose the weight. My weight is literally all my pain, clinging to my frame, like armour. Sadly, the armour doesn’t help, it doesn’t protect me at all, even though it thinks it is. I still feel the emotional pain. All this means I have to feel it. I have to be strong and I have to allow the feelings space. It probably means a lot of crying on the cards for me in the coming year. The thing is, I can cope. I can deal. I am capable. Time to be strong. Time to acknowledge and name the pain and keep feeling it until it’s done so I can release it and move on.

Today is pain day. Super pain day as I found out Voldemort has a new girlfriend and he introduced her to our children last night without bothering to let me know first as I thought was our arrangement. I’m allow the feelings to be there, I’m trying to be present with them without being overwhelmed by them. I’m even doing some FasterEFT with them in the hopes it will help me release them quicker. The best thing of all? I haven’t stopped doing what I’m doing with OptiFast.

I’ve had my 3 meal replacements and I’ve had my salmon and salad for dinner and yes, I have this rumble in my stomach like I could happily eat all the carbs in all the world but I’m ok. I’m still feeling strong. I’m doing just fine and that makes me hopeful. Hopeful I can reach my goals this time. I still have no faith in myself but at least I’m hopeful right?

Today, I won.