The season of good intentions

There's a kind of "end of term" feeling for me at the moment.  Eurovision season is (officially) over for another year - although the analysis and the post mortems will carry on for a little while yet.
I'm still in that post-holiday mood which I'm trying very hard to keep going.  My plan for the remainder of this month is to publish all my outstanding blog posts about a) Eurovision and b) Brussels.

From tomorrow, my latest in a very long line of fitness campaigns begins, After tonight there will be no more binge eating or overdoing it.  It's about weight loss and fitness from now on, and it's also about putting a bit more structure back into my life, getting back into a decent sleep routine, and generally sorting out a lot of things which have drifted and/or been neglected over recent months. I need to start looking after myself again and I'm not going to do that sitting at a computer for hours on end, so that's why I need some time away from the internet, and that's what I'm going to do for June at least, and maybe some of July too.  I did an internet detox a couple of years ago and it was very constructive.

The storm after the calm

I have had enough of certain situations which have basically f***** my life up.

No more will they wreck my happiness.
No more will they rewrite history and forget everything good that I have ever done.
No more will they undermine or destroy me.
No more will they make me feel inadequate or stop me from believing in my own worth.

No more of it.

As I said over on Twitter a few hours ago, I'm particularly angry with myself because I have allowed all this crap to sidetrack me from the things which always make me happy at this time of year: my holiday preparations and the lead-up to Eurovision week.  I have focused my attentions on all the negative aspects of my life at the expense of the people and things I love.

As they say in the movies, "enough already!".

But words can't describe just how bloody angry I am.  And not with myself.  Yet anger is not my default emotion: people always describe me as "nice" as if I am not allowed to have any other aspect of my personality on show.  But right now I'm angry.  And that anger will only subside if there is acceptance of who I am and what I do.  But that seems to be a long way off :(

Thoughts on friendship

Throughout my childhood and adult life I have always found it difficult to make friends, for the sole reason that I have always been introverted, quiet and shy, and that seems to be a problem for some people to deal with.   Yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy an enduring friendship with three other wonderful women, which has lasted over 20 years and continues to this day.  We initially met as work colleagues and formed our own little group in response to being left out of the 'cliques' which often seem to characterise workplace friendships.

My friends, who are a bit older than I am, are all retired now but we all continue to meet up for lunch or coffee. The other week, when we were fortunate enough to experience that rare thing called 'good weather', we all met up on my day off and enjoyed a very special lunch out in 'the country'.  I had such a happy time that day, being with "the girls".  They accept me for who I am, and have been there for me in good and bad times.   That is the nature of true friendship. 

This week I had to come to terms with the end of another long-lasting friendship, a casualty of the fall-out from my 'breakdown' (for want of a better word).  The past few months have been an extremely hurtful time, of mistakes, misunderstandings, misconceptions and mistrust.  I'm no longer relentlessly cheerful, and I'm no longer going to smile just because people expect me to.  But I am trying to move on, and being the typical Libran I am trying to make peace with those whom I may have hurt.  But what they don't realise is that I am hurting too.

EDIT: just when everything seemed dark and impossible to overcome, things started to change.  I went on holiday and came back free of the darkness which had overwhelmed me over recent months. And that friendship is back on, so all is well :)

Fitness plan 2015: week 8 round-up

Been a bad girl this week.  Did some walking though, but the combination of a sinus infection and some emotional stuff meant that a) I wasn't really well enough to exercise and b) the return of comfort eating, despite my vow that I wasn't going to do that any more.

Oh well :(

Last week I had to go and buy some bigger sized clothes for my forthcoming holiday.  I stood in the middle of one of the shops and thought, why am I doing this?  I have wardrobes full of lovely clothes, many of them nicer than some of the hideous garish patterned junk passing itself off as spring fashion, but the problem is that I have outgrown them.  So there was some motivation, but then real life got in the way again and old, bad habits returned.

It's funny when you read all these newspaper/magazine articles, these motivational stories about people losing large amounts of weight, that when you see the 'before' and 'after' picture, the 'before' picture is inevitably a holiday photo,  If there is one consolation for my spring diet failure it is that I am going on a city break rather than a resort holiday, so don't have to worry about how I look in sun dresses or shorts.  But if all goes well, we're hoping to get away for our main summer holiday in September, so I'll have just under 4 months to sort it out.  AGAIN.

There are still some negative aspects outwith my control, which continue to mess with my mind and get in the way of my good intentions, so I guess my main objective in the coming months will be to try and put all that aside and concentrate on improving my own health and wellbeing.  But Brussels beckons, with its beer and chips and waffles and numerous eating out opportunities, so all that healthy stuff will have to wait!