Making a Statement

It’s very easy to get frustrated with the world today. There is misinformation flying around like what is tossed in a room full of monkeys (I am referring to poop). The internet is a minefield of random data. Worse yet people are a minefield of misinformation. To ease my hatred of mankind I have made a list of things I would prefer not to discuss with you.  In no particular order:

   

Politics: Oh the dreaded politics. I know it’s 2012 I am well aware that there is a presidential election.  Here’s the thing, who I vote for does not concern you. In fact, it has nothing to do with you. It is a personal choice that I don’t feel the need to tell every person I meet about. What party am I affiliated with? Nunya. As in Nunya Business. I’ve been getting phone calls from campaign people and even if it’s the person I’m voting for I still “decline to say.” Why? Because it only matters to me. Also, I use Facebook as a way to stay connected to friends and family, not a way to push some kind of weird political agenda of how wrong or right one person/party is. If you want to have an actual discussion (oy vey) you can call, text or write your local congressman. Kidding. I’d be happy to discuss stuff with you in person or on the phone as long as we keep normal tones but if you think slamming Facebook with all your political hullabaloo is going to change my mind, you’re wrong. I will continue to post pictures of the meals I work hard to prepare, my dog, my achievements and hope that my friends will support me as I run for being awesome.

Religion: I was raised Catholic. To each their own. I am Agnostic (confused). Basically, I believe something could be out there but whether it’s God, Jesus, a Flying Spaghetti Monster, a 7-headed Lollypop Goddess, Pele or Odin it doesn’t really matter to me. I believe in the human spirit. I think that any amount of true prayer, dedication and meditation can lift someone’s spirits, create a positive feeling and enable people to do great things. I don’t put anyone down for believing what they believe. Just because we don’t believe in the same things, doesn’t mean I love that person any less. I hate everyone with an equal amount of spite. In fact, to truly believe in something sometimes take more strength than to deny it. Everyone has the ability to be spiritual, what form that spirituality comes in doesn’t matter to me. However, please don’t tell me to “Have a Blessed Day” I never know how to respond to that. Do I look slightly confused and say Thank You? Do I shot them hand guns and say “Back at cha?” Do I get the deer in the headlights look and say “You too?”

Dieting: Getting healthy is no easy feat, especially if you are dealing with years of bad eating habits. Changing your eating habits because of allergies, medical concerns or to correct your cookie monster attitude is a great idea. I talk about my weight loss a lot. 1 Because I’m super proud of it and 2 Because I learned a lot from it. I learned that I feel better when I eat better. I learned that I am truly allergic to some foods. I learned that carbs help me run. One of the most important things I learned is that no one thing works for everyone. The key in life is BALANCE and finding a way of eating that will support you for the rest of your life. For instance, I can’t eat red meat it makes me horribly ill. I wasn’t always this way but I am now. Does that mean I expect my husband to give up red meat or if we have kids I’ll restrict their diets? NO. I still cook steaks for my husband I still plan on cooking red meat burgers for my kids. It just means I will eat something else. I was a cake addict. There, I said it. There wasn’t a cake I didn’t love (honestly, I can’t think of a cake I wouldn’t devour). Does that mean I no longer eat cake? Heck no, did you miss the part where I said I love cake? I just control my portions and use it as motivation to run that extra mile. If you have found a balance in your life with your food and nutrition and it is something you will maintain for yourself (without inflicting your rules onto those around you), then bravo to you. I applaud your ability to correct your wrongs. This does not, however mean that I want you to try and convince me of your way of eating. Unless I generally ASK you what you are doing or why you are doing that, I could care less. As long as you are happy and healthy and will indulge in a beer with me every now and then I wish you all the best.

Your Trip To Hawaii: Yes, I’m a horrible person. I’m from Hawaii, I’m Hawaiian, I danced hula and surfed since I was 3, I can speak pidgin and I love pineapple. However, if one more person tells me about how they went to Hawaii for a week and “fell in love with the culture.” I will start flinging poop. Hawaii is not something you can grasp in a week or two weeks or even a year. If you truly understood Hawaii, you would not want to live there. Our school systems, cost of living, drug addiction, teen pregnancy rates and crime are atrocious. Yes, I LOVE Hawaii, it is my home and if I were a billionaire I would live there, on a farm and run a charity for children whose parents are meth addicts and can’t afford to give them proper lunches. The history of the islands pumps through my veins like the rhythmic pounding on a ipu heke. I hate that my culture is bastardized for money. Hawaii’s only source of income is tourism. This doesn’t mean that you have to have been a born and native Hawaiian to understand the islands what it means is you have to have lived there and truly understood the plight of the islands. There are no shortcuts, there are no compromises. Hawaii is a world unto itself. Putting a sticker of the islands on your car does not mean we are “sistahs.” It is a beautiful place but just like a beautiful women, it’s hiding crazy.

Running: There’s a peace for me that comes with running. I love it and it will continue to be a part of my life for as long as possible. It is a stress reliever, it gives me an endorphin rush and it helps me cope with my addiction to food (Ha!). I am flat footed and therefore have to run with special padding. I have sustained injuries from running. To stop running for me, would be like to stop pushing during childbirth just because you ripped a little (eaw). I will heal and hele on. DO NOT TELL ME TO STOP RUNNING. It is my personal choice and if I hurt myself to the point I won’t heal then you have to let me fall to fly. I cannot run barefoot or minimalist. Once again, I AM FLAT FOOTED. Running without my inserts is what caused my injuries in the first place. Since getting the inserts and re-evaluating how I run I’ve been much, much better.  I will happily support you with running and give you advice if you ask, but I do not appreciate being told to stop or being told HOW I should be running.

Phew! Okay that pretty much sums it up. If you read this and have an issue, guess what? These are my personal opinions and this is my blog and if I have offended you, I do not care. This is how I feel and this is why if you try to start on any of these subjects in a combative manner, I will button my mouth, smile awkwardly, scowl, roll my eyes and if you are persistent enough tell you to stop talking. Remember, the internet can be bountiful with misinformation. Go with your guts, quit preaching and start living.  

Losing a Same-Sex Parent at a Young Age

“It's just like waking up,
In that second and a half,
The bliss of not remembering,
Before it all comes flooding back.” – Ben Folds

Yes, everyone dies. Yes, sometimes it is sudden. Yes, you are never prepared for it. At some point you lose someone you love, whether that someone is a friend, family or even a fur baby, it hurts and cuts deep and is so permanent.  

Here’s the part where my story may differ from some. I was 13 when I lost my mom. When you lose a parent as an adult you have memories to hold onto, you have a life. When you lose a parent as a teenager, pre-teen or child, you have scraps of memories. Little pieces you try to cling to and you hold on so tightly they tend to crumble to dust. Some days I can remember my mom’s laugh, other days her scent but most days, it’s a wash. I can tell you she dyed her hair a red-brown color and wore green contacts over light brown eyes. I can tell you she was a cardio queen and taught morning aerobics up until the day before she died. I can tell you she hated western medicine and doctors and believed in healing crystals which helped contribute to her downfall. I can tell you I loved her with all my heart. I can tell you it hurts everyday like a scab you can’t stop pick at and it festers and leaves a scar as a constant reminder. Some mornings I forget she’s gone, or that I’m grown up or that I grew up without her.

Most of the time I just feel guilty, because I don’t remember her, because I’m supposed to, because I hold a torch for someone I was only just beginning to know. My mother shaped me and molded me, even put me in the kiln but I wasn’t done yet, I wasn’t ready. I had just started puberty. I had no mother to walk me through hair and makeup, clothes and shaving, bras and tampons. Some people tried to help, but it was hard and there was pain in their eyes. My dad, tried, but he’s a man. If I ran out of deodorant or shaving cream he told me to use his. I spent one year of my teens smelling like Mennen without a bra and rarely shaven legs. I spent another year shaving everything including my stomach and chest because I didn’t know any better. My hair was a mess, my sense of style a disaster and it has taken me years YEARS to find the woman inside of me. To understand my looks, my skin tone, everything. Losing my mom meant losing my guidance and I had to feel my way through adolescence. My mother wasn’t there to tell me there’d be other boys or spend the night letting me vent with cookies and ice cream and movies. It was just me. I was angry for a long time. But it’s no one’s fault, there is no one to be angry at, my mother had a brain aneurysm. She had a blood bubble that slowly leaked into her brain. It amazes me how a little bit of blood can destroy a life, a family, a child.

Losing a same-sex parent at a young age means you don’t only lose your guidance, you don’t only live with guilt for not remembering, it means you also; don’t know how to respond or how to act. My husband told me at his father’s funeral, he didn’t cry and everyone thought this 11-year-old boy was brave. I didn’t cry at my mother’s funeral and everyone thought I was a heartless, cruel child. I’ve cried many tears for my mother over the years. What people don’t understand is as a child you have no coping mechanisms, you have no clue what you should be doing. You are in SHOCK. The gravity of the situation doesn’t hit you for YEARS. As a kid you barely understand your numbers and ABCs let alone death. Something so permanent, so absolute and final how can you expect a child to understand that? I cry at the drop of a hat, over anything, commercials, movies, breaking a glass, but my emotions are bewilderment even to me. I could mechanically tell you about how my mother died and what I had to do to survive without a tear in my eyes and usually with a smile because I know you’re just curious. My emotions have been severed and reattached and so they don’t work like you’d expect. You could be pouring your heart out and I will be dry eyed and supportive but maybe we could be shopping for clothes and I just start crying for no apparent reason. I never learned how to express correctly, how to be appropriate. My mom’s funeral showed me that people judge you constantly and it also showed me that it’s okay because I won’t force feelings, I’m me and that’s all I can be.

Today marks 15 years since my mom passed away. She’s been dead longer than I even had time with her. Each year the anniversary hits me a different way. Some years I completely forget, other years I am overjoyed thinking about the time I did have with her, some years it hits me hard and I can’t contain myself and other years I remember but am neither happy nor sad, it’s just another day. Losing a parent at a young age turns them into a ghost, they are a pale comparison to the person they were or we think they were. They are in your peripherals. They are misty and ambiguous. There are only so many pictures or videos to remind you of someone you can just see the outline of, like a mirage. When the pictures run out, when you've memorized them, when you look at yourself in the mirror and try to pull traits, there's not much more you can do. Some days I remember her voice and think I hear it in mine. Today, I remember everything, the way she clicked her tongue, the way she lost her temper, the way she danced, the way she laughed, her perfume, her outfits, her walk, everything. Tomorrow I might not be so lucky, best to hold on to today.  

Weight Loss & I

We are not two peas in a pod, we are not like-minded, we don’t even eat at the same restaurants. However, if weight loss & I were to have a relationship status on Facebook it’d be “It’s complicated.” I’ve always been the “big” girl in my family and among my friends. I lost weight once, 35 pounds totally gone I looked awesome but I gained it all back so now I’m on the road again.  

In January of this year, looking in the mirror I would comment Wow, look at that Buddha belly or Holy moon face, Batman! I also noticed I was rundown, burned out, tired and a glutton. I ate everything and anything because “why not?” That is the lamest excuse ever. That’s like saying well, all my friends jumped off the bridge “why not?” I was fed up with myself, my image, my lameness. All of it. All of it had to go.

Initially weight loss was the goal, the one and only goal and apparently there could only be one. As I started changing my diet and exercising more I kept having these little personal victories pop up like ethereal text messages. You just ran 3 miles. You have been able to sustain a nutritious 1,200 calorie-day and still be full. None of it was overnight it took me 3 months to watch what I put in my mouth and bring my calories down to 1,200. It took me the same amount of time to get up to a 3-mile continuous run. 

Healthy eating quickly became another goal. Making better food choices, paying attention to what I put in my mouth were very important. I wanted this because I figured out my body responds better when it’s got good food in it. Lean meats, veggies and a truckload of fruit make me smile physically and mentally way more than Jack-in-the-Box. Then came exercise. I got addicted to the rush. I love my runners high. I love feeling my strength grow. Now, weight loss is kind of in the backseat. It’s still trying to be a backseat driver but I’m more focused on how great eating and exercising makes me feel and I believe weight loss will come eventually and if it doesn’t hey, that’s okay.

However, that desire, that want to lose weight never fully goes away. I could be blissfully entertaining “eating healthy” and “exercising more” in my home when the doorbell rings and who’s there? Weight Loss with a box, trying to sell me stuff I don’t need. Trying to get me to pay more attention, to eat more or eat less, to do math equations, eat less carbs, bring in science, make a spreadsheet, measure things. It’s trying all the schemes. It’s bringing in all my friends. So-and-so lost weight this way however this person did it this way. Weight loss comes to your door backed with endorsements. It’s a pyramid scheme. Once you buy into it you’ll start enlisting your friends to how THEY should be losing weight. The next thing you know you’re the one with a box, knocking on your friend’s door, interrupting their healthy dinners telling them about all the fine things they should be doing to lose weight.

I’ve decided to put a stop to that for myself. I’ve lost 20 pounds. Would I like to lose more? Sure. It wasn’t easy to lose the 20 pounds I lost but in losing that weight it opened me up to much better things. Exercise and healthy eating those are things I will maintain for the rest of my life, not because I want to lose weight but because I WANT to feel good, I want to feel confident; I want to live a long life. Losing weight is not a forever mission. You can’t spend your entire life losing weight. What you can do is spend your life maintaining a healthy and exuberant lifestyle.

What works for you might not work for me and vice versa if your main mission is to lose weight like mine was, then good luck but know that once you lose the weight it will come down to maintenance so you don’t gain it back. Are you going to measure out your foods for the rest of your life? Are you going to reject your child’s birthday cake in front of their smiling faces because it’s too many carbs? Are you going to abstain from enjoying in eating? If yes, then I wish you the best. If you envision a lifetime of limiting yourself or using math and science as your tools, good for you, go for what makes you happy and what gives you the results you want.

Personally, I’ve found my tastes have simply changed. Instead of chips I crave baby carrots, I turned my breads and pasta to whole grain and they’re so much more filling. My meats are lean, like my muscles. I understand my change will not be the same change for anyone else who started on a weight loss mission and found themselves smack dab in the middle of fitness-burbia or a nutrition wasteland. I will no longer start a sentence with “What I did to lose weight was …” or “what worked for me was…” instead unless you want my honest advice, I’ll just LISTEN. That’s what people who are struggling need. Someone to JUST listen.

There are a lot of paths, a lot of routes and A LOT of unsolicited advice (knock, knock) from EVERYONE you know. Here’s what you do – put on your headphones, tune everyone out and do what works best for you in regards to losing weight, eating better and exercising more. Find your own groove and revel in the fact that once you find it you’ll never have to worry about getting your groove back.

The Definition of Blog

According to the Oxford Dictionary a “blog” is a personal website or web page on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis.

Some key words to pull from that – personal and opinions – a blog is something that took me years to be convinced was a good thing. I thought blogs were fads and they would slowly fade out. But they haven't and though I hate the name of them, I decided to start one (or two) to better exercise my demons.

I actually liked my wedding and created a blog to discuss my Hawaiian roots, my love for my furry caramel shadow and wedding frustrations, ideas and enjoyments. Working for a wedding company I come across a lot of really cool ideas for wedding and just having a wedding helped me to utilize some nifty things. I also use this blog to vent about the frustrations and issues I had with planning to help any bride-to-be out with their upcoming nuptials. If you don't like me being open and honest about my experiences or you think I'm not being grateful or respectful here's the beauty of blogs, you don't have to read it. This blog is about me and while it is open to comments and I do appreciate hearing peoples thoughts (I love a good debate when it's backed by facts), if you find my personal opinions, thoughts and emotions to be rude, overbearing or “too much,” you can click that little red “x” in the upper right corner and read no further.

My second blog is dedicated to my writing. It's where I'll be throwing up my thoughts on my writing career, my ideas, even some short stores or perhaps dreaded poems. While I do like receiving comments and I will not turn down anyone’s suggestions on writing skills, tactics or a good site for telecommute jobs, please do not tell me what I should be doing with my life. Please do not advise me on how to better my life and that I can reach my goals if I only believe and, you know, actually try.

The truth: I love my life. My life is freaking rad! I just married a amazingly, perfectly weird and wonderful man, I have a pooch who is my life, I have a job that takes care of me and has provided endearing, wonderful friends and I have a life outside of work full of family, friends, concerts, movies, comic books and love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.

It's my blog and I'll vent if I want to. Let me throw my pity party, bridezilla explosion or wailing wisdom around and get it out of my system.

Thank You.