The Elephant in the Mirror

Hair, how I loathe thee.  A woman's hair should be beautiful, but I've been battling this illusion for years.  My hair has been a source of frustation.  For a very long time I've tried to ignore the fact that my hair has been thinning a lot especially in recent years.  I've always had thin hair, aka wispy hair, aka flyaway hair; aka crappy hair.  I've given my hair a lot of nicknames over the years. I've never had full, voluminous hair....yeah, I lost out on having great hair from an early age.  When I was younger, I did all sorts of things to make my hair look fuller:  perms, curlers, curling irons, hair spray, etc.  But, after I hit a certain age, I kind of gave up trying.  I had surrendered and stopped creating the daily illusion that I had fuller hair.  But, you know sometimes it's easier to lie to yourself....you look into the mirror, angle yourself a certain way and you lie:  it doesn't look that bad.  Or you play the blame game:  I'm not losing hair, it's my shampoo's fault.  Yes, the elephant is in the mirror.  I can pay attention to my clothes and make-up, but MY HAIR is a sore subject.  It is evident to anyone that I have a hairloss problem as my see-through dark brown hair has become wispy strands against a white scalp.  Instead of a part line, there is a widening white scalp that resembles a barren terrain where a dying crop of sickly dark hair strands stand atop my crown of flyaway hair.  Ugh. 

So, I'm usually in the IGNORE mode, where I just treat my hair like it doesn't have a problem.  But, sometimes I have a panic moment where I realize that I NEED to do something.  Or rather I should do something.  I usually do some research like reading about remedies to regrow hair or stop the thinning.  I have read about DHT blockers which I will go into later.  But, lately I've been reading about natural home remedies to help regrow hair.  The other day I did this hair treatment cocktail of olive oil, lavender oil, rosemary oil, and castor oil.  I took about 20 drops of each and mixed it in a jar, then I used a dropper to apply to my hair.  I basically marinated my hair with this homemade solution.  I felt very oil and smelled of lavendar (aromatherapy ON me, lol).  But, I went to bed and slept with the solution on my head.   The only thing I noticed the next day was that my hair was smoother and slightly less frizzier on the ends.  Well, I'm going to try to do this 3 times a week and see what happens.  Supposedly I should expect some regrowth. 

Attacking on all sides is my strategy.  I've also started taking some vitamins and herbal supplements that are suppose to help my PCOS symptoms as well as help with regrowing my hair.  Or so, this is the theory.  Wish me luck.  I am open to any other suggestions as well. 

I am a sodaholic....are you?

The bubbly fizz of dark, carbonated liquid known as Diet Pepsi has been my poison.  Literally, I know that soda is bad for me, but it tastes SOOOOO good.  It's my anxiety go-to.  I started drinking it almost obsessively at my first desk job and ever since then it has become my constant companion.   It makes me bloated and gain weight.  I've been told by several people that if I gave up the fizzy,  I could easily drop 20 pounds.  Wow!  That would be amazing.  Why don't I do it?  Well, I've tried a couple of times.  But, I've never been able to find a substitute that would make me kick the craving.  Yes, it's probably the caffeine that I like and not so much the fizz.  The closest I came to kicking my soda addiction was back in 2006, I was able to wean myself down to one 20 fl oz bottle of Diet Pepsi per week for about a month.  But, then I started a new job and the soda intake increased again.  I have tried a few substitutes like water, juice, and flavored drinks.  It could be that I'm addicted to the sugar or whatever ingredient it is that makes me crave Diet Pepsi.  Aspartame, anyone?

We live in a society that demands availability and convenience.  Maybe if modern life allowed for more peace and less stress, people wouldn't have so many addictions. I sometimes think the balance that we want to achieve with eating healthy and drinking healthy is tied in to availability and convenience.  I used to be a huge vending machine junkie...I would hit it up on almost every break whether it was a cookie, candy bar, or chips to snack on and then a soda to guzzle between bites.  If vending machines didn't exist...would I really want to eat or drink something? If I were truly hungry couldn't I just bring something from home?  In theory yes.  But, maybe I just wouldn't feel like I needed to eat or drink anything.  I mean, where did this food/drink dependency come from?  I didn't do this in high school or even college.  So, why now?  I don't know.  It could be that the availability and convenience of vending machines has made me fat???  Oooooh, that seems too easy to blame.  Maybe it's my compulsive, emotional eating that triggers me to get comfort food at any given opportunity.  Ahhh, perhaps I have an unhealthy relationship with how I view food.  Food and drink are my emotional consolers.  Chocolate or salty snacks only promise a 10 second enjoyment and then the pangs for something to satisfy are still there.  I think I just need to address the fact I'm just not dealing appropriately with my emotional hang-ups. 

Addiction.  Everyone has one;  a compulsive urge to eat, drink, smoke, squeeze, or whatever something.  Mine is soda.  And yet with this post I'm not trying to say it's good or bad...I'm just saying what I know to be true:  I'm addicted to soda, because I can't give it up cold turkey.  I WISH it were as easy as saying NO or just stopping. It's not, it is hard.   I think giving up indulgences takes a diligent, conscious effort to say to ourselves: I DON'T NEED it (name the addiction) to feel good.  I CAN be functional.  It's hard to change bad habits.  They die hard.  It's like a smudge; an addiction is really hard to remove and once removed, the surface is never the same again--- sometimes ruined or damaged, but not the same as before.  So, if I'm addicted to soda...the temptation will always be there.  But, I can fight it.  I feel I have to.  I owe to my FUTURE self to kick the soda habit. 

The lineup of drinks I choose from these days:  uncaffeinated Diet Pepsi, bottled water, flavored drink, and wheatgrass aloe juice.  Now, this is my effort to wean off soda.  It's maybe not the best line of attack, but I think it's best to at least keep hydrated (drink H20) and consume some vitamins & antioxidants (wheatgrass aloe drink & flavored drink).  And at the same time cut out the caffeine by drinking the uncaffeinated version of my favorite drink, Diet Pepsi.   It's my strategy at the moment.  But, obviously not a cure-all.  Good luck to you on overcoming your own addiction.  We owe it to ourselves to becoming healthy especially as we get older.  No one ever said it was easy being healthy. 

Back from the Abyss

Life can be a jumble box of emotions. Sometimes, I don't know how to deal with my feelings so I stuff them in a dark corner of my heart.  But, unfortunately the "stuff" fills my heart up until it is too much to bear and then I just "have to" express myself to someone or someplace (i.e. facebook, or blogging).  I neglected blogging for a long while simply because life became too overwhelming to deal with and talking about it with other people was too difficult. Even writing about how I felt and what was going on...meant facing the truth...but honestly it was easier to be in denial of my own reality which was very dark and hopeless.  In the meantime, several "failures" happened in my life.  One of them being my marriage which was something I had worked very hard to save, but could not.  I suppose when anyone goes through a very stressful time...it can take you over the edge emotionally.  Goals like dieting and exercising become after thoughts. So, the outcome should be no surprise.  I gained weight, he lost a lot of weight.  He eventually wanted out of the marriage.  I tried to win him back even though I was miserable with him and had been miserable for years. Sometimes we don't want to admit when some things hurt us...whether it's relationships, food, or jobs.  But, when it's bad, it's really bad. 

You know a relationship is terminal when you see the end coming.  It's like seeing a car crash in slow motion, you know you are going to crash because you've lost control of your car.  That was me in the driver's seat, the marriage was going to crash, very slowly, but still hard.   The dismantling of my marriage was a slow and agonizing emotional process, but when I finally accepted the ugly truth it was amidst a loud argument where the words suddenly expelled from me.  I remember not even knowing where the words came from, but I said it...I want you gone.  It was a clear message and my heart knew it was the right thing to say.  It was the truth I had rejected accepting it because it had been too horrible to utter and here I was yelling it out. We both stood in silence and then he asked back whether I meant it...I nodded and said yes, I want you to leave.   It was then that I knew that our relationship had finally expired from its long term illness of resentment, disappointment, and frustration.  We as spouses had exhausted every recourse of love and forgiveness.  Instead-- emptiness, despair, and loneliness seperated us at every attempt at redeeming our lackluster relationship.  We could blame factors x,y,and z that attributed to the demise of our marriage, but the truth is I'm sure we both could only see a dark avenue ahead of us as a couple.  When the future is that bleak, the only thing you can do is let go.  If you ever really loved that person, it's best to let him go-- no matter how much it breaks your heart.  I let him go even though it pained me very much.  Frankly, getting divorced felt like a death sentence.  It took a little over a year for our marriage to be stripped apart until a brittle shell remained and quickly imploded.  In a matter of few weeks, we split up and divorce proceedings swiftly followed without protest.    In the eye of the storm, I oddly felt at peace, but I know that God was guiding me through the tempestuous waters of leaving my marriage behind, letting go of the man I had suffered though in love and years of trying to make things work. 

I remember the day he left, it was drizzling and dark outside at 5am.  It was surreal that the day of his departure from our married life had arrived.  I thought I might have a meltdown of sorts-- you know hot tears running down my cheeks and a last plea for him to stay.  But, instead my heart had resigned such behavior and I was rather emotionless.  I drove him to the airport so he could get what he wanted: escape from our life together.  I suppose I had loved him so much that I gave him this last indulgence.  It was an extremely hard thing for me to do.  And thinking back, I have no idea how I managed to do it.  But, he was my heart for so many years and my heart truly bleeds because I was not able to help him with his problems.  Many people say I should receive sainthood for my devoted patience.  But, despite all the frustration that I endured with him....I wish someone could have told me how to really help my husband.  I wanted to save him.  I wanted to save us. Our dreams died the day he left.  A piece of my heart will always be with him.  Now, I need to make room for new love.  Love that has hope, peace, and courage.  Love that will help me go forth with every day that lies ahead.  Now, I have to re-envision what my life will be.  Starting over is hard, but not impossible. 

I have returned from the dark depths of the abyss.  Life's most difficult moments require courage, faith, and hope--- sometimes it takes every last ounce of mental energy to get yourself out of the darkness and into the light.  In the light of day after the torment has passed, you can finally be able to see clearly and realize that it's possible to rebuild your life and that not all is lost.  You can walk away from a bad situation with some dignity left and be able to build a better, stronger you.  That's my hope for 2013 to work on being a better me...this is why it is so important for me to tackle this issue of losing weight, so I can feel better about me and not let food be an emotional crutch that I lean on.  I want to feel stronger and not feel so tired.   I'm in my 30s, but sometimes I huff and puff after a little bit of physical exertion like lifting boxes.  I'm too young to feel so weak.  If I am ever to have children whether they are biological or adopted-- I want to have the strength to play with them and not sit idly by just watching.  If I want to have a long life ahead of me, I need to take better care of myself.  My current lifestyle of being sedentary and eating poorly has left me weak physically.  In addition, for many years I couldn't stand taking pictures of myself or going out in certain social situations because I felt too fat.  It's not fair to me to keep living so unhappily like this.  So, I'm facing the mountain of changes that I will need to do in order to feel better about myself and finally take charge of the life I really want to live:  a happy one.  I deserve to be happier.  Life-- gimme a break, already!