Doubting myself

I annoy myself. I think about life, and wonder if it always has to be such a desperate rollercoaster, a battle of good and bad days. One day I’m excited about writing, and believe in my abilities. The next, it’s all an illusion, megalomaniacal dreams that I can’t reach. Publishing a book feels as an abstract and unrealistic a goal as normal weight. I have been writing for years in English. I have hundreds of readers all over the world. People who want to read what I write, whatever it may be, people who follow my stories, who like them. I, myself, am happy with my texts sometimes. Sometimes I go back to a story that I’ve written years ago, and feel amazed about how I’ve managed to get the text to flow so smoothly. Could I still do it? I doubt it, although I don’t know why I’m so insecure. My imagination, or should I say my muse took off when my mother died. Work, kids’ hobbies and volunteering was a perfect hiding place, instead of dealing with the sorrow head on. I sowed, and I’m still reaping. No one probably could’ve told what I was going through, I myself haven’t really realized it before now, a year and a half later, as the brain-fog is finally clearing.

And just because I was on a writing course in real life, I have decided to try to become at ease with writing in Finnish (my native language), so here’s the same text, more or less, – in Finnish.

Ärsytän itseäni. Mietin elämää, pitääkö sen olla tällaista epätoivoista vuoristorataa, hyvien ja huonojen päivien taistelua herruudesta. Yhtenä päivänä olen innoissani kirjoittamisesta ja uskon kykyihini, seuraavana kaikki on vain suurta harhaa, suuruudenhulluja mielikuvia jostain jota en kuitenkaan voi saavuttaa. Kirjan julkaisu on jotenkin yhtä abstrakti ja epätodellinen tavoite kuin normaalipaino. Olen kirjoittanut jo pidemmän aikaa englanniksi, ja ympäri maailmaa lukijoita on jo monia satoja. Ihmisiä jotka haluavat lukea mitä kirjoitan, on se mitä vain, ihmisiä jotka seuraavat tarinoitani, jotka pitävät tuotoksistani. Itsekin olen teksteihini aika ajoin tyytyväinen. Välillä palaan takaisin tarinaan, jonka olen kirjoittanut vuosia sitten ja ihmettelen, että miten olenkin onnistunut kirjoittamaan noin sulavasti ja mukaansatempaavasti. Osaisinko vielä? Epäilen, vaikken tiedä syytä epävarmuudelleni. Mielikuvitukseni, tai sanotaanko vaikka muusani otti hatkat, kun äiti kuoli. Työhön, lasten harrastuksiin ja yhdistystoimintaan oli paljon helpompi piiloutua surulta, kuin että olisin sen käsitellyt järkevästi. Tätä kylvämääni satoa korjaan edelleen. Päällepäin tätä ei välttämättä ole kukaan nähnyt, en itsekään ole tajunnut asiaa ennen kuin vasta nyt puolitoista vuotta myöhemmin, kun sumu on vihdoin hälvenemässä aivoistani.

 

Clueless on vacation

Oh boy, I suck at having time off work. Day 2 of 28 and I’m already going nuts. The weather sucks, so I’ve just been bingeing on House of Cards all day.

I don’t know if I should be rooting for or against Frank Underwood. On one hand he’s appealing in a strange way, but on the other hand he’s a total egomaniac without a conscience. I wonder if the series is a somewhat accurate description of the congress, and politics in the US in general. Could be. Or not. I can’t help trying to guess who is the one pulling the strings behind Trump? How far will they let him stray before they admit that he’s doing the GOP and the US more damage than good. That CNN wrestling tweet… Seriously?

Enough politics. Back to my problem at hand. Apparently I’m a workaholic that is going through withdrawal, I feel anxious and moody. So basically I don’t know how to vacation. A change of scenery would probably do me good, but I don’t want to a) change out of my pajamas b) go meet people. I have only checked my work email once so far, and I didn’t reply to any so, that’s a step in the right direction, right? Hi, my name is H and I’m an workaholic.

Apart from going through withdrawal I’m also going through a food-crisis. I have to cook something for me and the kids (hubs eats at work), and I have zero, nada, silch motivation for it. We can’t eat out every day, or at least we shouldn’t. Could I just get myself a housekeeper or a cook? I wonder if anyone would be offering such services… Probably not. Days like these I really miss my mom. If she were alive, we could go over and she’d have lunch and dinner cooked, but now it’s all on me. Don’t get me wrong, I miss her for so much more than just her cooking.

There was something else I wanted to get off my chest, but can’t remember what it was.

Happy 4th of July to the US peeps!

 

Why, what and how come

Picture from Pinterest.

So, perhaps maybe you have noticed that I’ve been away. Probably not, but someone might have.

Well, I haven’t been away, but I have been struggling ever since early morning Sunday 17th of January, when my dad called and said “I believe your mother has passed away, the paramedics are here.” Of course the conversation wasn’t in English but anyway… He sounded totally strange in that call, I remember. “Are you sure? No, that can’t be, I’m sure they will fix her.” I think I said, but it’s all a bit blur. “No, I don’t think they will, I’m sorry but she’s gone,” my dad said and we ended the call because he needed to talk with the people (paramedics, doctors, police, I guess even the firefighters because the emergency dispatch sends anyone who is near) there. I hanged on to the hope that they would get her heart beating again, you know like in the movies, where someone yells “CLEAR!” and then they jolt the person with electricity and they wake up. Yeah, apparently all the other things – except the waking up part happened. A few minutes later my dad called me again, and just repeated. “I’m sorry, but she’s gone.”

So, I called my brother who had just traveled on a working trip to the other side of the world. He was in the cab on his way to the hotel from the airport when I reached him and blurted out “You need to call dad. Mom died.”  I did apologize later on for not softening the blow, but at the time I barely managed that.

We had no real warning signs, okay, she had a bit of a flu and was coughing the last week, but nothing _serious_ that would’ve led us to believe she’s about to die. On Christmas she was doing her thing like all other years before. And then less than a month later she’s gone.

Basically her last words were (just a few minutes before she died) “Let’s go back to bed and lie down for a while, it was so warm and comfy, we’re not in a hurry anywhere.” Dad tucked her in and said he’d come to bed too in a bit. He sat in the room adjoining to their bedroom when he heard a strange sound, jumped up and by the time he got to her he couldn’t get any reaction from her at all, when he tried to wake her up. She wasn’t breathing anymore. He called 112 (our 911) and started with CPR. The ambulance arrived quickly, as did all the others, but there was nothing they could do.

So what a start to the new year, eh?

I notified my boss about what happened and then stayed with dad for a few days until my brother managed to fly back (18 hour trip one way, so that doesn’t happen just like that) and come stay with him. After that it has been a bit blurry. February went by, we had the funeral and all the legal stuff what needed to be done. March, April and May just flew by…

Work has been busy, in a good way but since my brain has been a bit off due to all of the stress of this spring, I’m now cleaning up the messes (not big ones, but I hate fixing my own mistakes) I’ve made working on overdrive when I should’ve taken a step back and said – I can’t do it.

Outside work, I’ve been arranging a two-day football (soccer) tournament, that is a week away, or actually less than a week away, because this time next week it’s over and done with. Yeah, I do question my own sanity volunteering for these things. Needless to say, had I known that I would lose my mother, I wouldn’t have volunteered. Why didn’t I back out of it, I don’t know.

So besides work, kids, tournament arrangements, I have taken on worrying about dad, checking up on him, first few weeks (months?) I made sure he always had ready food in the freezer that he could just heat and eat. After all, they were an old school couple, married for more than 50 years and mom always did the cooking and washing – so he has had to learn how to fend for himself. But he’s doing okay, considering he lost the love of is life.

So there you have it, my excuse for being AWOL, for leaving my stories hanging, for ignoring my blog.

I hope to get back to writing, but before that I need to find myself again, and I just don’t have the time or the energy to do soul-searching.

Okay…?

Got into my typical weekend funk it seems. Regardless of the amount of coffee, I just haven’t got into gear today. But hey, slouching around in your PJ’s all day is not a bad for a Saturday, right?

Do you ever get that feeling when you look around your house and go, oh crap. Yup. One of those days, definitely. It seems certain things won’t ever end. Cleaning and laundry… Cooking, doing dishes… Picking up Legos… Ad nauseam.

Although, I do feel quite proud about myself as I managed to filet a salmon. Okay, Gordon Ramsey would have died laughing and then thrown me out of his kitchen, but hey, I got that fish (somewhat) nicely into three pieces. So salmon soup on the menu tomorrow.

Now, I don’t know where you guys and gals are at, but over here winter has descended upon us. And not in the nice snowy way, but in the dark, darker, wet, rainy and generally blaaaah way. Mark my words, I want snow! Then at least there would be some light out. Because now it’s just dark. It’s dark when I go to work, it’s dark when I get back. And you know what? People need light. Ugh.

Anyhow… Got to go get my beauty sleep (baahahahahaha – like there would be hope left) so that I can drag myself to a Futsal game at 9 am on a Sunday… The life of a soccer-mom.

 

Stuck, busy and exhausted

That just about sums it up, really. I can’t get anything written, the infamous writer’s block has struck – well, that, or my imagination has gone AWOL. Either way, I hope it’s only temporary.

I know, I know. I should take my time, and it will come back when the time is right, but still, I can’t help the guilt that spikes every time I get a notification for a new follower, a new review or a PM on FF. People are waiting for me to write (which is still mind-boggling BTW) and each day that goes by without a single word typed just makes me feel like I’m letting people down. I’m sorry, okay? Bear with me.

So as you might have guessed, NaNoWriMo, is so not happening for me this year. I’m seriously starting to doubt that I ever will manage to participate.

For the last x months I’ve been waiting for things to calm down. Real life has slowed a bit, but work is still really busy. My bad, I know. No one forced me to take on the projects, I wanted to do them. So I don’t have a right to complain. Right? I come home, my head buzzing with work-related stuff and even when the buzzing finally subsides and I sit down to write, it just doesn’t happen. My muse (or whatever) has packed her bags and left an ‘I might not be back’ sign on the door.

Then to my other permanent issue…Weight-loss. Ha! What a joke. I can’t get my head on straight, how am I supposed to keep track on losing weight? Trying to ignore the whole issue at the moment. Which really isn’t helpful. But stress and dieting (yeah yeah yeah, dieting doesn’t work anyway) aren’t really the best of friends.

Can you tell I’m in a foul mood tonight? Just waiting for the weekend so I can catch up on sleeping. Here’s to hoping I’ll manage without a headache this week. Stay strong, it’s soon Thursday.

Just checking in…

I haven’t quite fallen off the face of the earth, although I seem to be in a social media rut at the moment. Either it’s really quiet or Facebook has once again changed something and no one’s posts are popping up.

On the writing side of life, it’s been quiet as well. Or semi-quiet at least. I sent a submission to the Drabble and they posted it – yay!

If you want to read it, it’s here -> Waiting for Life by Henrika Frost

I posted a reply to the FWAR Flashers prompt as well, and I think I shouldn’t have done it… Because now Yvonne (the protagonist) has taken on a life of her own inside my head. And by the looks of it I won’t have any time to write it down in the next few days – unless I skip sleeping. Sigh. It’s just so typical.

August has also brought on another try at dieting. I’m starving striving to follow the FMD 28 day challenge, but honestly, I’m happy as long as I manage to keep myself from eating sweets (and junk food in general). So far so good. But it’s been like five days, so that’s not saying much. Let’s just say, I’m being realistic and not getting my hopes up.

Have a great weekend y’all!

… and nothing.

Yup. That’s writer’s block for you. I know I barely qualify as a writer, but I still suffer from a that devious thing called writer’s block at the moment. I want to write, the voices are whispering – no, I’m not losing my mind (I hope) – and story ideas are popping up even in my sleep. But when I finally get a few minutes to spare – to write – nothing comes out. The words feel wrong, unsuitable somehow, making it impossible to even get the first row written. Hence this blog post which will probably mostly be random thoughts stringed loosely together. I just have to get through this block.

There are so many stories somewhere there inside the dusty corners of my mind, but unfortunately they are all buried beneath work and football tournament stuff. Remind me again why did I voluntarily take up the responsible organizer job for the tournament? Like I don’t have enough to do without that? Must learn to delegate… This has to become my mantra until I get it. Because now I’m in the I’ll just do that myself-mode. And at some point this camel’s back is going to break.

I could do with a little less stress though – but I’ve brought that on myself so do I have a right to bitch about it? And if I’m not stressing over something else, then I’m desperate to get updates to my stories done. It seems that just being, and not doing something has become an impossible task. I can’t say I’m waiting for the summer holiday even, because I think of 4 weeks off, I only have one week that is truly free – as in not already booked with kids hobbies, games and travel. Sigh.

Oh, to be a kid again, to have a long, lazy summer, when the days are filled with lying on the beach, reading a good book or ten.

But alas, it is what it is.

Decisions and self-sabotage

Ok. I’ve decided to do it. I definitely am, or at least I’m going to try. The big D word. Diet. In real life I probably won’t tell anyone, bar my husband, about it, because I don’t want more people to judge me if (when?) I fail. – That’s how confident I am about losing weight.

As a fat person (I don’t actually see myself as a fat person, which is why seeing the numbers on my scale feels so horrendous.)- I try to appear unaffected by my weight. I’m a great person, smart, hard working, friendly – the fat exterior doesn’t define me, so admitting that I’m really not happy with myself – well, let’s just say, it doesn’t feel good.

I’m going to try the Fast Metabolism Diet for 28 days. If it works, it will be great, and then I will continue doing it. But if it doesn’t… Then I really don’t know what to do with myself.

I’ve done my food plan for the first four days and I’m quite surprised by the amount of food I’m going to be eating. And at the same time I notice myself already sabotaging my diet, even before I’ve even started it! Can I live without coffee? No!? I probably could but do I want to? I don’t like to eat breakfast that early… Will it kill me to wake up a bit earlier to give me time to eat before going to work? No it won’t. It’ll be tough, probably not on the eating side of the equation but on the psychological side of it. Because in the end of the day, the real struggle is between my ears.

I hope that in four weeks I can report back, happy that I’ve lost some weight. But if it doesn’t happen… Well then I’ve again successfully sabotaged myself.

The reality is, that I’m now the same weight as I was when I was 40 weeks pregnant the last time (the junior is 5 years in June – so not really talking about baby weight that needs to come off). The weight gain has to stop here. The only acceptable direction for my weight curve is down.

The diet promises up to 20 lbs weight loss in 28 days. If I will lose 10 lbs I will be happy, but not satisfied.

Wish me luck.

Ramblings of a fatty

I thought it would be appropriate to start the new year by talking about…. Drum-roll, please… Weight loss. Yes that’s it. You never would have guessed right? Being January and all…

I could be politically correct and just say I’ve gained a few extra kilos during the years, but the truth is I’ve got excess weight about the weight of a person. There you have it. I admit it, I’m fat. Fatter. Fastest.

Now here’s the problem… I tend to have this ostrich kind of tendency of ignoring the problem. I could even say I go as far as living in denial. So far I don’t have weight related problems – bar that most of the clothes in my closet don’t fit. But I’m sure the problems are lurking right behind the corner. I like to think of it as inverted anorexia. Instead of seeing myself fatter than I am, I see myself thinner.

During the years I’ve witnessed a few amazing transformations as few of my colleagues have gone through weight loss surgery. But still I hope that will not be my future. I’m still young, right? 34-ish is not old, is it? I can lose the weight without surgery, right? It is doable isn’t it? I just need to find the motivation/courage to do something about this now, not with busted knees and diabetes later on. My only, well not only but biggest problem is that I don’t honestly believe that I can do it.

Like many times before, I’ve started counting calories, basically I’m talking about writing down what I eat on a site which gives me instant feedback on the quality of the food consumed. First week was great, but come second week and busy schedule which *%$&% all my planning for what I’m going to eat. So where the first week was good in regards to carbs/protein/fat, second week barely manages to keep the calories in control. I need to nib this behavior in the bud. My diet in itself is not that bad, there are a lot of veggies and fruit, but my problem is snacking and not moving enough. Btw. I got a Polar Loop for Xmas, haven’t got the daily activity level full yet.

And I have these irrational fears. What if I lose the weight? Does that mean that I wasn’t good enough as a fatty? I’m probably not explaining myself very well… I’ll use makeup as an example. I don’t use makeup. And I’m perfectly fine with myself without it. Now if I would start to wear makeup would I feel worse without it? Would it become a must? Would people not accept me without it? These are the underlying thoughts that I sabotage myself with every time. I told you it was irrational.

I do not have any rosy ideas of my life becoming amazing when thinner. My life is good as it is. I just want to fit into it easier. I want to find clothes in the normal sized section, I want to be able to stretch without struggling with the mountain of lard in the way. Sorry for that mental image. Here’s a cute kitten to wipe it away.

No NaNoWriMo… Will I ever get there?

I’m trodging along in a sunless, dark existance… That’s basically the Finnish winter until the snow comes. When I say it’s dark, I mean, sunrise is after I’ve gone to work, and sunset is before I leave work. Sigh. This added to the fact that I’m basically exhausted because the autumn has been crazy busy. And my poor writings are gathering dust somewhere behind the million other things to do. I played with the idea of doing NaNoWriMo, but didn’t even try. What would’ve been the point? When I’m having a hard time getting 5k words in a month at the moment… Last year at this time 5k words per week was no issue, but I have no idea what the duck is going on now? My confidence as a writer has taken a nosedive with the lack of practise. I’ve sabotaged myself, I guess. I have atleast three WIPs, and they are all very far apart from each other. I should concentrate on one story and get it done, but then one of my worst qualities kicks in… Finishing stuff. It’s hard. It’s much easier to start things, and even to keep them going than to actually finishing. But the stress would become less if I’d get something done, right? Oh, man. I’ve got to get my head back on track. Make a gameplan. Finish one story first, then the second. Maybe write a one shot or two to get in to the zone. But before that, I think I’ll post my crazy Fifty Shades Halloween story over here too. If you have any ideas how to overcome winter depression, please leave a note. Stuffing myself with chocolate hasn’t worked.