"You can have anything you wantNow there's a promising thought. Is that why I'm so stuck in the weight department? Do I really, really, really believe that I'm destined to stay this weight?
if you will give up the belief
that you can't have it."~ Robert Anthony
I truly believe I will cross the finish line at the Country Music Half-Marathon. Truly. I may be the last one across, but I'll get there, eventually, and I sure do want it.
I want to lose the rest of this weight, too. I'm doing what I think I need to do to make it happen. I'm trying not to be obsessed about it, to have some balance and to cut myself some slack. Clearly that isn't working.
I think I need to get obsessed about losing weight again. I was so single-minded when I started, all through the winter and spring of 2006. I remember starting to relax over the summer, and then Mr. Shrinking Knitter and I got married and then we had the big party after the wedding and then I got plantar fasciitis and couldn't walk and then I got ... stuck.
When I start writing about those Friday quotes, I never know what I'm going to say. I've given myself a lot to think about this morning.
When I got ready for the four-mile run yesterday it was about 30 degrees and snowing. Just flurries, but still. So I thought I'd just run on the treadmill. After just three-quarters of a mile I was done. Not done running, just done running on the treadmill. I went outside after all and I wasn't cold at all. I'll have to remember the treadmill-warm-up trick if global warming doesn't kick back in here pretty soon.
The drug program graduation yesterday at Alderson was especially poignant. The Assistant Warden sat next to me; this was her first graduation since coming to Alderson. I asked if she'd brought a handkerchief. She hadn't thought she'd need one, but we both surely did before it was over.
There are some great women in this group. They're excited and full of knowledge and enthusiasm; after going through the drug program they're armed with an arsenal of useful tools for dealing with life on life's terms. But they're scared, so scared, to go home and deal with friends who still use drugs and families who get drunk every weekend – or every night! They're afraid they won't be accepted. They're afraid of coming back to prison. And the sad part is, some of them will.
I want to shout with glee that Florida's Governor Charlie Crist has restored voting rights to some convicted felons. Read about it here, if you haven't already. [The coolest thing is – politics alert! – he's a Republican! It gives me great hope when Republicans start doing the right thing.]
It seems to me that if you've committed a crime and been arrested, arraigned, tried, convicted, incarcerated, released, paroled and made restitution – well, at that point you've paid your debt to society. However, our justice system and American way of life dictates that a sentence follows a convicted felon the rest of his or her days. Nowhere is this more evident than in applying for a job. It's SOP for employers to ask: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? If the recently released felon answers truthfully, he or she will almost certainly be passed over for the job. The alternative is to lie and hope you don't get caught. How is that helpful in living a good, clean life upon release?
I could go on and on and on about this, but this isn't the time or place. Maybe I will start a new blog. How's this for a good title: Turn Left at the Middle of Nowhere. Heh.
Twenty-two days until race day.
2 comments:
I love that you are so committed to such good causes, and I think that your values DO belong in your weight-loss blog. Your work at the prison is what you do for others, and the work on running/weight is what you do for yourself.
Maybe there's a middle ground between obsessed and oblivious. It is hard, in my experience, to simultaneously cut back on food and up your exercise. Running makes me hungry, and especially hungry for carbs. Are you making allowances for your activity when you plan out your diet?
Your quote has given me a lot to think about. I keep circling back to trying to figure out exactly what it is that I want, for myself, after all these years of putting myself last.
Oh, and go easy on yourself--you have to have one major goal at a time, and right now it's the running. The weight will follow, and you can concentrate on that again after the race!
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