Tuesday, August 02, 2011

I'm Not Going To Let Myself Go! Part 5

And so here we are again. Or should I say, "sew, a needle pulling thread..."???


"Far, a long, long series about letting myself go!!!!!"

Maria, stop changing the words girlfriend!
And what's with the soccer mom bowl cut BTW?




I just can't seem to get off this The Sound of Music trip I am on. I even sang Edelweiss to my son Noah before he went to sleep last night. Really.


"Edelweiss, Edelweiss, You look happy that I'm not blowing that whistle at you anymore!"

OK, Captain, you know the words too! And WTF is Edelweiss anyways!?


Brief horticulture lesson: THIS is edelweiss.

"Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me."

But then I sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" to my oldest son Julian...so we're back to The Wizard of Oz... which, I believe is kind of where we left off last we were here on this "I'm Not Going to Let Myself Go!" story.

Rainbows look much prettier in colour.
Maybe they should have thought of that when they put the song at the start of the movie
when it was still in black and frickin white!


Recap!
If you have a brain you will read: I'm Not Going To Let Myself Go! (Part 1).
If you have a heart, you will read: I'm Not Going To Let Myself Go! (Part 2).
If you have courage, you will read: I'm Not Going To Let Myself Go! (Part 3).
And if you think this whole Wizard of Oz thing is really stupid but want to keep going, you will read: I'm Not Going To Let Myself Go! (Part 4)

Happy Halloween days with my gal pals circa 1991 at The University of Guelph.
I'm the Scarecrow. And yes, that is real hay that I stole from the campus farm.
Too bad I have hay fever. Made for an interesting evening.
(I warned you, I really like The Wizard of Oz)


Whew. If only I were the King of the Forest. Oh frick, I hear another song coming on...

My favourite song in the movie.
My dad does a great impression.
I like to wear broken pots on my head too.
Perhaps that is part of my problem.


Never mind. On with Part 5...

******

So not only was I feeling as though I had let myself go in the physical sense, but I had realized that over the course of over 11 years of marriage and three kids, I had slowly been letting my self go. The person that I was...that I thought I was...that I wanted to be....that I thought I should be...could be.

This is me (really...this IS ME!) dreaming of impending motherhood
before the birth of my first of 3 sons, Julian - 2001


Not that I ever regretted having any of my children, or being their mother, or spending time at home with them in between going back to my jobs - I have had several different ones with more and more responsibility and pay and travel and overtime and...well...you get it. I was being pulling in way too many directions, trying to be what I have sad I now know does not exist - "Supermom".

My Three Sons
Sweet Julian, Sweet Noah & Sweet Drew.
My "beauties" as I call them.


While I would like a constant, trusty sidekick/personal assistant, I do not have a cape (although I have been known to wear one while running around the house pretending to be Spiderman, Batman, Darth Vader...but I draw the line at Captain Underpants...my boys take care of that. With or without the cape. With or without the underpants now that I think about it.) But I digress...


"You're not my father!"
I have no idea what that has to do with this post...
but I love that line.


So once you start to understand that you feel like the person you have become is not the person you really want to be, you have some choices. You either keep going on auto-pilot, going through the motions, going, going, going. You just let your self go. It does not matter where...as long as you keep moving. Or does it?

Eventually I realized that I was going no where fast except deeper into a place that seemed unfamiliar, foreign, and sometimes even scary. I am not talking about the people around me...although they certainly saw that I was in la-la land much of the time...not acting like my old self. I was not always the happy, funny, (enter your adjective HERE if you know me well), person I once was.

Happy, funny Lora with happy, funny Julian.


So I started to dig a little. Read a little. Reading and digging. I felt like I was both reading and staring in "Alice in Wonderland"...and oh...look at that big hole!


That is one honkin' hole! Yikes!

Why was I feeling like I was in a rut...and was all this so called "digging" only creating a bigger hole? That is what happens when you dig, right? But then what if you dig too far and you trip? Well, I certainly tripped a few times I can tell you that!

"Oops!"


Well...it depends. I started by digging, pondering, writing (but not sharing as I do now), reading...but really, I was hoarding. Hoarding information. I now have enough self-help books in my personal library I could open up a book store or perhaps shave my head, put what is left of my acting skills to use by putting on my best Texan accent and get my own TV show, branding myself as the newer, younger, Dr. Phil.

Ummm...it's workin' great Dr' Phil.
Ya know, this ain't my first rodeo!!

 
Except I am a woman. And I am not Texan, I am a proud Canadian. And I kind of like my hair. When I do it up nice I could pass as Alice. OK, maybe not.

So I just kept reading and re-reading. Making lists. Doing the exercises in the book that promised to "change my life" and get me back in touch with my 'true authentic self". The problem was, I was was doing all of this research, but then not really doing anything about what I was learning. I felt like I could go out there and help everyone else, but why was I still so confused? Where did I go? And why did I let myself go to wherever I was?


I had not quote figured this out yet.


Eckhart Tolle, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Sarah Ban Breathnach, la, la, la...they were all my companions during this time. Oh, and Oprah of course. I had gratitude journals, vision boards, all the tools that I needed to dig up the old Lora...or the new and improved Lora...or whatever Lora that was gonna make me feel like I was the right person in the right body.

And I started to get glimpses of her. She came and went on a regular basis.

Oh! Look quick! There she is! Happy, funny Lora again!
And perhaps a little drunk!


Now some of you are probably getting visions of the United States of Tara or what's that movie about that girl with multiple personalities...Three Faces of Eve something-or-other? Anywho...it was not like that...except sort of. I was wearing many hats as we all do, but I was wearing too many of them all at once and juggling them all at the same time if that is possible.

This is a really cheesy stock photo of a random woman
with lots of hats on her head that I thought
I would put here.


This all resulted in a pretty bad headache and a grand lack of energy. I got sick a lot. I was ordered to take time off work by my doctor a few times as a result. And I liked my job...but feeling that constant pull in so many directions...balancing all those hats....it was a difficult act to keep up. I felt depressed and anxious regularly. And sometimes not. Sometimes I was happy Lora, going with the flow...sometimes up...sometimes down. It was tiring.


A hug with Julian...still feeling happy.

Me looking a little blue.
Or....errr...green.


And speaking of tiring, I am actually quite tired now. And a little anxious about a few things...but that is for another post.

For now...since I am looking a little green...I think I will make a nice cup of  green tea (a drink with jam and bread) and smell a poppy just like Dorothy...and get some sleep.

And I am not going to post anymore images from The Sound of Music or The Wizard of Oz. not in this post anyways. I am not making any promises about Part 6 though.

More to come...


Smiles,

Lora


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