Just a quickie!!

Hello Lovely Reader

It's 1.20am here, but because I slept late and have done nothing all day, except rest with my foot elevated, I can't sleep.

As I said yesterday, I'm staying at my mum's, and she has Sky TV (I have no idea what the US equivalent would be) and there is a great channel on Sky called TLC.  There are some brilliant TV programmes on there! (Sidenote; I don't watch a lot of TV at home. I will watch films and the dreaded QVC, and the programmes like The Hoarder Next Door, and BBC3 and BBC4 documentaries about mediaeval Britain, or The Regency or The Renaissance, but I can't bear soaps or programmes like Big Brother or Britain's Got Talent or, my personal nemesis, The X Factor).
But on TLC there are some programmes I'm finding really interesting; Hoarding; Buried Alive (makes me feel better about the bomb site that is my back bedroom!) and......Too Ugly For Love and My Extreme Excess Skin.  These two programmes really resonate with me.
Too Ugly For Love is about people that have some kind of medical condition that affects them so badly psychologically, that they feel they are not worthy of love.  Some of the conditions are harmless (hyper-hidrosis; excessive sweating), some of them more serious (ileostomy bags, colostomy bags, nodular prurigo etc), but they all affect the sufferers profoundly.  And they're all absolutely normal looking, some fairly ordinary, some very attractive.  And it made me feel a bit silly and slightly ashamed.  I'm just fat. I'm not an oil painting, but I'm not hideous, either.  I'm just..ordinary.  And, I'll be 50 next year.  At what point am I going to feel ok? Am I going to feel good enough? When will I feel worthy of love?  I dunno. I'm ok being single, but I see that I actively prevent people from getting close to me.  Hey ho.  I need to think about this some more.
The other programme that is extremely relevant to me; My Extreme Excess Skin.  This is very definitely going to apply to me.  Maybe not quite as extreme as some of the people on the programme, but it will apply to a large extent. It has been insightful to see others transformations, and to see the problems they have endured whilst travelling to the end of their journey.  The thing is, for most people, losing weight and getting to a size ? is the end goal in and of itself. But for others, reaching that size ? is the end of the first stage and the start of the second, because they will need surgery to remove their excess skin. I wish I'd lost my excess weight when I was young, purely because the collagen and elastin fibres that support the skin structure are more numerous and viable when you are younger.  But by the time you hit 35, you have lost up to 60% of your collagen and elastin, so, with the best will in the world, your skin cannot spring back.  All it can do is...hang.  And sweat.  And get in the way.
I've known for sometime that, even when I reach my end goal (whatever that may be), I will not have a beautiful body - it will be scarred, with stretch marks, with the natural skin ageing that occurs.  Not pretty. So, there is inevitably going to be surgery involved, definitely brachioplasty, breast enhancement, circumferential body lift, whatever else. When I last priced it up, it was going to cost in excess of £15000. Heaven knows what it will cost when I need to have it all done.  Highly unlikely I'll be able to have it done on the NHS, so quite how I'm going to fund it...?  Cross that bridge when I come to it!
My job now is to continue to lose weight, to build muscle, to get healthy and to manage my diabetes, to give myself the best possible chance of swift and strong recovery to become the woman I want to be.  Yes, I'll have scars that might be visible. I really don't care.  I'm used to having strangers stare at me, so bring it on!!

Okay, so this wasn't as quick as I thought, but I just wanted to share it with you. Please bear with me during the next bit, as it may sound a bit...flaky!

This week is an important week - it's a full moon and it's 22.2, and the number two in Angel numbers means 'keep the faith', amplified by the full moon, which is traditionally a time of releasing unwanted negative energy, habits, things (have a look at Doreen Virtue on Youtube; she's helped me since I started watching her in December when my mum started to be ill again). You may not believe any of this, but I do, more so as I've grown older, and understand that there are far more powers at work in the world than I know or understand.  Actually, my belief in these sorts of things has kind of increased not only as I've grown older, but also from me making an active decision to live a calmer, more peaceful life.  As you will remember from yesterday's blog, I recognised that I need peace in my life.  Life itself isn't kind of complying with that need, but I don't feel as much...overwhelm.  I'm much more chilled out.  I'm still bumbling around, trying to find what works for me, how I can help other people find their own path, but all I know is that I feel emotionally stronger. And that's helping me take care of myself.  I don't think it stops you from taking responsibility for your own actions, it just helps to support you as a person. So, it's all good!

Have a great week, please have the courage to let go of what isn't working for you, what is keeping you stuck and keep the faith that it will all work out, that you can do it!! WE can do it!!

Lots of love to you and yours,
Carol
xxx