Southern Musings

When my children were little, I dreamed of having a large house. It was actually four houses in one. They were all connected and formed a square around a central patio area. Each house had a kitchen, living room, and several bedrooms. There was a hallway with doors connecting the houses together. You could technically walk in the front door, down a hallway through all four houses to come back to where you started. Yes, this was only a dream, but it was the house that I wanted. With a house like that, my children could all live near me but still have their own home too.

The house never became my reality. True, there are still several years to go in my life, but after the past few months, I’m not sure that just a connecting door would be enough of a cushion between the houses. I’m no longer sure that I would want to live that close to all of my children. With them living that close, it would be too easy to run to Mom.

Currently, my daughter and her three children have moved back home. Add to that my two boys that are still in school, and you have one full house. There is never a dull moment in this house! I’m glad that they felt that this was a safe place for them to turn to during their time of need, but there are times that I’m unsure of whether I am helping or hurting them by allowing them to remain. Things are definitely very different from before.

I had been used to being able to get up in the middle of my writing to take care of something without any worries of losing my work. The worst thing that could happen was for my power to blink off since my battery backup died and I have yet to replace it. After the addition to our household members, if I have to walk away from my computer while in the midst of writing an article or even an email, I may come back to find my computer has been overtaken by my daughter or my grandchildren. The work I had poured my heart into may be gone forever.

I was used to having a pile of laundry waiting on me most days. Now it is a mountain that never seems to go down any at all. We used to do 2-3 loads per day, now at least 4 or 5 need to be done daily. We went from four people to eight living in one household. It seems like almost everything doubled. How on earth, three small children can eat and mess as much as these do is beyond my capability to understand.

When the days are stressed with trying to find time and energy, not to mention money to meet all of the needs of a household that doubled in size overnight, I find myself wanting to run away and hide. At times I curl up in bed and try to force the worries of how to make it through another day out of my mind by the numbness of sleep. At other times, I know that things are better today than they were yesterday. Well, at least on most days they are.

Then after a good night’s sleep, I wake up to the pitter patter of little feet and a knock at my door. A whispered “Grandma” can wake me up faster than a weather siren would if it was placed right outside my bedroom window. I know that with three little words my day can begin in the best way possible. All I have to do is say, “Come here baby” and I will be blessed with the best hugs and kisses in the world. When the day starts off like that, it is indeed a special day.

Unfortunately, that warmth and love is quickly over as the time comes to get everyone else up and ready for school or work. As we are all rushing to get into the shower and dressed in time to hit the road in our different directions, the day begins to be more stressful and the blessed feeling of the morning begins to fade. As the day wears on and more and more things have to be dealt with, the body becomes weary and craving the comfort of the quiet night.

Extended families living together in one home makes for a lot of issues that can complicate life. Bodies seem to require more than we feel we have to give. A good night of sleep does a lot to renew the body, but the spirit needs that early morning sound of little feet running down the hall. With each closer step, my heart begins to flutter with the anticipation of hearing “Grandma” moments before feeling the glory of a child’s love. With love, understanding, and a lot of hard work, extended families can make a home filled with the blessings that every child needs.

I have often said that real life keeps getting in the way of what we want to do. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, so even these real life interruptions are necessary. Even though logically, I can see that they are bound to happen and even though my brain tells me that I should get used to them, my heart never seems to understand. Lately, they seem to be happening more and more often. Common sense tells me that maybe I should take the hint and realize that means that I’m trying to hard to make the wrong things happen.

Do we really have an option of making things happen? In all honesty, I’m not smart enough to know the answer to that question. I simply know that the harder I try to make somethings happen, the harder they are to reach. The more I try to fit into someone else’s image of who I should be, the worse things are.

You may think an old grandma wouldn’t care what others think or worry about trying to make dreams come true. Unfortunately, this old grandma does. It has not got me to where I want to be. It has not made me happy. Still, I keep on trying. I keep trying to be a better person.

Instead of taking the time to realize that I’m alright just the way I am, I keep striving to be more. In doing so, I often lose sight of what it is that I truly want to do. Maybe it is just that I want to do so much, that I keep going in so many different directions at once that I can not become successful at any of them.

A good friend recently sent me an email that stated that to truly become a master at something, that you must put in 10,000 hours at it. Well, I’m much too old to try to become a master at anything. I’ve always been what I call a Jill of all trades and master of none. I tend to change directions way too often to reach the 10,000 hours in anything. Or so I thought.

I took the time to think back on what I have done over the past 44 years. Since the time I was 10, I have taken care of kids. I have worked at helping others, especially kids, try to reach their potential. I am always there with a quick “You can do it” attitude towards other’s goals, hopes, and dreams. Seeing the joy in a child’s face when they try something new or finally accomplish that skill that has been eluding them, brings a warmth over me that makes me feel like a piece of chocolate dropped in the parking lot on an Alabama July day.

I may never have the house that I dream of with a desk sitting in the window of an office that overlooks the mountain stream or a classroom of my own, but I will always have the knowledge that I am a master of helping others. I am a queen of inspiring others to keep trying. I will be the grandma with the warm hugs and the “I told you so” that comes with each accomplished goal. I will be the teacher that goes the extra mile to help her students. I will be the friend that always believes in others.

I may not wear the latest fashion in clothing or drive the popular car. I won’t live in the right neighborhood. I won’t be a popular person. I will not even be a role model. I will simply be me. I will live where my family can live with me. I will enjoy my hectic lifestyle as I wake up to an overcrowded house full of people. I will love those that are strong enough to stand beside me without trying to hold me back.

My husband, my children, and my grandchildren are not the only part of my life, but they are the part that keeps me being me. They provide the real life situations that get in my way when I start dreaming too big. They share the love that is necessary to get past all the road blocks and live life to it’s fullest. I’m not a bad person.

I’m a little short on self confidence and my physical appearance would require a novel to explain all the needed updates. They are strong enough to look past all of that to the goodness in my heart and the strength in my desire to help others. My thoughts on life today prove one thing. I am truly a very lucky woman.

Wedding bells or other special events seem to increase the desire to lose weight in many people. As a morbidly obese person, just day to day life makes me want to lose weight. Instead of losing, I just keep on going as I have for the past few years. I’m not losing and unfortunately may even still be gaining slowly.

Even though I do not have a special event to try to lose weight for, I know that my health requires that I find a way to lose weight. I don’t consider myself a “sickly” person, but I’m not a stupid person either. I know that my weight does cause issues that I would not have to deal with if I did lose weight.

You would think that would be enough to inspire me to lose weight. Before you can understand why I stay so heavy, you need to know the fear that I live with on a daily basis. This is a fear that is so overwhelming that I think it would be harder to deal with if I lost weight and regained it than it is to simply stay fat.

Speaking as someone that has not always been heavy, I feel like I have failed myself for allowing myself to get so big. I didn’t set out to gain so much weight, nor do I want to remain this size for the rest of my life. I can still remember how good it felt to wear regular size clothes. Whether I ever get back down to that size is for the future to determine. What really is sticking out in my mind the most is the feeling that I did it once, why can’t I do it again? Every single day that I do not lose, I feel like I have failed myself.

Honestly, my smallest days did not include my wedding day. I was at my smallest when my husband and I started dating. I often feel that maybe he regrets marrying me since I have gained so much weight. Of course, he is too much of a gentleman to ever admit to it. Plus, he has to love me to even put up with me. As you probably guess from my writings, I can be very opinionated.

I fear that anyone that struggleds to lose weight to get down to their smallest for a special event may be setting theirselves up for feeling the same sense of failure that I have dealt with. It is not a path that I would wish my worst enemy to take, much less a new bride. Can their special day truly be the happy event that they want if they are to scared to eat the food and drink being served without splitting their special outfit?

I’m going to admit it, I would LOVE to lose weight. Fear is stopping me from even trying though. Fear of reaching my goal only to regain the weight and facing this overwhelming feeling again. If I simply look at my weight from yesterday or even last year, then I’m not so much of a failure. If I go back to the memories of the time my husband and I were dating, then I am one of the biggest failures around. That is the overwhelming feeling that I fear. That is what is keeping me from losing weight.

Although, I do not have the answers I need in order to find my way around this fear, I do know that I need to find my own path to losing weight and banishing my fears. I’ve always said that I felt that diet should be considered one of the worst four letter words any person could possibly say. It causes so much pain and heartache. It allows us to set ourselves up for failure. Fear of failure causes me to not try to lose weight.

I do have an idea. Instead of trying to lose weight, I think that I should just concentrate on creating an atmosphere of healthy eating. I need to make small changes without worrying about a weight loss goal or even that dreaded four letter word. I do not want to try to face my fears, but I want to find a way around them. My weight should not be the deciding factor as to my happiness. When I obsess about my weight, then I allow it to have too much influence on my life.

As a southern gal, I love good food. That is not something that I am willing to give up. I still want butter in my cooking. I got to have my dumplings and cornbread. I refuse to give up my biscuit and gravy. I may not eat as much of them each time or I may not eat them as often, but I will allow myself the foods that I know will make me give up a too strict diet.

Instead of giving up anything, I’m going to add to what I eat. I’m going to add more healthy foods so that I will be less tempted to eat too much of my favorites. I am going to strive to overcome my fear by making positive changes in my diet. I’m going to work towards changing that four letter word that I fear into what it truly is, just a word that means what we eat. I’m taking restriction out of the picture. I’m taking the control back and sending the fears packing.