Goodbye My Old Friend

I am on serious countdown to banding day. I think today I have about 7 weeks to go so I am saying goodbye to all my old friends.

Today I said goodbye to Krispy Kreme donuts. Thank you old friend for the little fluffy donutty clouds of sugary sweetness that have been my occasional companion for quite a few yrs now.

We say goodbye today over 1 original glazed and a mocha chiller blend. AAhh it was nice knowing you kid but I have a feeling you and my new best friend "the band" are not going to get along very well so here we must part ways. I cringe over how your sickly sticky white floury sugar lump will get stuck in my chest and badger me for hours so, so long and thanks for all the fish.

**sniff sniff**

Ah well thank god I haven't said good bye to Doritos yet or there would be some issue.

It's funny how I have used food to medicate myself. When I say funny I don't mean in the ha ha what a laugh kind of way, I mean funny in the I have medicated myself to 166 kilos what a psycho thing to do kind of way. Food has always been my friend, I can eat till it hurts and then eat some more. I have figured out with some help from my head friend that it's my suppression technique. I eat because I think it's rebellion.

But if I am honest I eat to strengthen my wall. That shield, that armour that protects me from the big bad nasty world. What I have been working on lately is actually feeling what the world brings in and if thats hurts well then so be it. It's not easy though, I have 24 years of protection to bring down. A wall away from the world to protect me and my emotions from all the hurt and the anger and the scariness and all the "why me's" that i have ever said or felt. Why me , well because you are fat of course.

Isn't it a crock what we say to ourselves everyday. Out internal dialogue that says "You deserve to be this way because you are bad or not good enough". And its starts when we are a child, something will happen to us that we carry with us and it makes us believe something so deep seeded about ourselves we carry it around like a backpack for years and years.......

Until you meet someone who makes you question that intrinsic belief about yourself, that you may never have questioned or even realised you believed until then. And then your world comes apart and you start to rebuild it piece by piece to make it better, make new choices, believe something different about yourself. Believe that you deserve to be good to yourself and to treat yourself with dignity and respect, and dare I say it, to love yourself.

So I work on loving me. Claire, I say"I love you" and somedays I ignore it and brush it off and eat soemthing to make the hurt go away but

Somedays, more frequently lately it makes me smile and strengthens my new protection which I like to picture as a quilt, to warm and comfort. Sewn with loving hands by those who also want to love and protect and keep me warm, sewn by me to wrap around myself, much less harmful than a suit of armour. Sewn by my girls and my husband who don't know that everyday they add tiny stitches to my quilt just by being anf loving.

Claire i say "I love you" and somedays I believe it.