It's My Birthday...and I'll Cry if I Want To...

Actually it was my birthday yesterday but I couldn't very well blog on my birthday. Jeez. Okay and I'm not actually crying.

Yes I am another year older. 34. It's a strange age. I don't feel old which I'm not but I'm not really young either. Right now my hair is some horrible red color highlighted with gray. Yup gray. I am now in the camp where I have to dye my hair. Oh yeah I could be totally hippie and let it gray but I just am not ready for that yet. I have fine lines around my eyes and my mouth but I'm not trying to stop smiling. I no longer try to be hip. I'm not as worried about my clothes. Hell, I leave the house with out make up all the time now. And I feel wiser, less stressed, less freaked about little things than I used to be. I don't care what people think when I pretend to be a t-Rex at the park with my kids. Those things don't matter.

But new things do matter. I'm a lot more political than I used to be. This strikes me as odd because this is supposed to happen when you're a teenager. But I realized that there is a difference between my political concerns now. When I was a teen I was very idealistic, and very harsh in my perception of what needed to happen. I was so liberal, and so dedicated to that view that I had a hard time seeing anything else. As I have gotten older I have realized that things are much more complicated than I used to think. I have to think about things before I'll join a protest or sign a petition. I am now more concerned with simple actions like recycling and teaching my children to respect the Earth and her creatures. I want to end war because I know it could just easily be my children being bombed as someone else's.

And it's funny because we are so unsettled in many ways at this point. We're both grad. Students. We don't own a house. We drive junky but good cars. We're still in that gypsy mentality. Yet we're also more settled in many ways then so many people I know who own houses and minivans. I see so much discontent, so many dreams left on the side of the road to stability. We have not compromised that which makes us whole people. I am so proud that we managed this. We may not have what others see as a complete and mature life but we do have a sense that what we're doing is right for us. I don't think Horacio or I will ever look back and say "Shit why didn't I do that?"

So close

I have, as of Saturday, lost 38 lbs.

Whoa. I did this! I did it without starving. Without smoking! I love to exercise now. I go to sporting good stores and drool. What happened to the old Ginger?

And yes it comes to that doesn't it? This whole new identity thing. Saturday at our meeting, I was looking at the WW levels of change. At the core is identity. I kept thinking I was at that one, and that I would occasionally wander off but really it's much more complicated. I have been slowly building this identity since January and there's a long ways to go. I don't know if dwelling is the right word to use in terms of this identity.

This whole identity thing is definitely the most important and the most difficult part of WW. And it's not just because I'm used to thinking of myself as a fat girl. It has to do with the fact that most of my life has been spent and shaped by a certain weight. I created an identity for myself that was forged when I was a big girl. As I shed this weight, there is a part of me that feels like I shedding her as well. She has been slowly shed through other life changing events of course but there was a part of her still clinging on in the back closet of my head. Now as I lose the weight and I make lifestyle changes that ensure that this weight will stay lost, I find that she's putting up quite a fight. I'm not the same person, and I'm not ever going back to that person. So even while I'm so happy, I'm also scared. I don't know what life will be like with this new person that's me.

Maybe it's just me, and everyone who reads this will think I need some serious meds, but it seems that getting to identity in the levels of changes is more than just seeing ourselves as thin people. It involves a lot more work in figuring out what it means to be smaller, and what it means to have a healthy lifestyle. I'm not saying that we become drastically different people. I'm still a snarky bitch but I'm also a snarky bitch who loves to go to Dick's Sporting Goods and drool over exercise equipment.

Piper Blue

I have finally come to my youngest. It is the nature of the youngest to fall behind in photos and explanations. By the time, I reach three, I am tired. It is not that I lose the words but more that I lose the energy to go through another explanation. Another exploration of the characteristics that form a human being.

Piper Blue is my sweet lovie. She is the mellow anchor to our craziness. She kisses and loves on us as we bounce from chaos to crazy. But make no mistake that this child is not a pushover. She makes her stand against the older two without fear.

Piper wants so much to do everything that the other two do. She's determinded to not be left behind. And while she rushes toward age with her arms open, she gladly returns to my arms to become once again my baby.