complaints

I'm cold, and I hate being cold. My skin feels tight, like the dry air has shrink-wrapped my ten-pounds-too-heavy flesh into this itchy, ashy human shaped bag, and I hate it. I want to bathe in cucumber and aloe and lotion. My face is freaking out, sore from too much scrub and chemicals trying to wipe away the havoc the new birth control is reaping. After meeting with my counselor this afternoon, I'm going to Walgreens to stock up on anything creamy and soothing. I should drink more water. Mental note. And I take a sip of Coke.

So I'm fat, broken out, stressed out, and poor. Husband's job is not doing so well lately. Who buys cars in an economy like this with Christmas around the corner? No one, apparently. Well, we're not really poor. We started an IRA last month and it's sucking money out of our checking account each month, and I haven't gotten used to seeing that usually extraneous money leave. Plus with the lack of commission coming in, it looks like we're poor. Makes me feel like I can't eat out or buy sweaters or presents though. And I hate that too.

All this hate is what's making me fat. All this stress. My body is hoarding carbohydrates, like a famine is coming, preparing. I feel angry and sad sometimes, because work is so draining, but then I remind myself it's just a job, that it doesn't really matter in the end. If I lose it, oh well, I'll find another one. But I've worked so hard. I'm tired of broken dreams. My last job ended in a broken dream too.

I want to feel free, like I can wear what I want, do what I want, buy what I want, feel and be and say and think what I want without some tiny voice in the back of my head whispering to me, building up uncertainty, saying "But your stomach looks big, your skin is flaky, your hair is flat, you aren't making enough to buy that, it costs too much, no one will understand you, you'll make people mad, people won't like you, you're crazy." I just want to be free of that voice.

I'm trying to imagine a life like that, free from nagging uncertainty. I can't even start. It would be like living on a cloud, high above anything that could hurt me. And that's as far as I can get, I guess because it doesn't exist and never will. We're slowly working toward financial freedom, but the economy isn't helping, and neither is my job. I'll never be free from feeling ugly in some way or another, which logically is absolutely ridiculous, but hey, I'm an American woman, that's how we're programmed. I have no idea how to break free of that.

I've tried to think of things that would make that voice go away, but all that comes is more self-defeatist thinking, like Lose weight, win the lottery, run away screaming. It doesn't help. I'm not sure the counselor is helping either. It definitely doesn't help that it's $40 every time I go, making me feel even more wasteful. I ramble about work the whole time, which is what I do to my husband at night too, and talking about it doesn't help. We need more money and more resources at work. I need the SBA to get off their fat government asses and actually support a new business rather than hiding behind "Oh, you're a software company? That means you have no collateral, you know, like an actual physical product. So sorry, we're still 50 years behind the times. Good luck." Talking to a counselor doesn't fix that, and the stress isn't going to go away until those problems do. I suppose. Maybe she's a miracle worker and can teach me how to ignore those things and still somehow get work done.

Right now, I want to jump in a vat of lotion and float around for a while, my Aimee Mann Pandora radio station being pumped into my ears, keeping all other thoughts out. And have someone serve me a nice dinner afterward. That would help.