Sunday Weigh In..and some heavy sighs.

Weigh in day is Sunday now...not ideal, since it seems as though Friday and Saturday are now my more "freestyle" days.  But it's the only day that works for me, so there ya have it.

It was great news today.  Like, blow-me-away great.

And yet I find myself feeling a wee bit funky today.  I've already gone for a super long walk with my boy Walter, I got a good night's sleep last night.  Life is going ok, but I still find myself kind of blue.

What could it be?  I think it's a cocktail made up of a few different ingredients, an elixir of sorts.

I got an email from my attorney.  We're going to court later this month, to battle out the remaining issues from that sunken ship of a marriage.   All this stress, all of this back-and-forth, all of this struggle...the day we go to court could potentially be the end.  It could be the day everything gets figured out, the day some justice happens.

But I know better:  I know this will never be over.  Oh sure..maybe he'll have to stand in front of a judge and explain to her why, exactly, he didn't pay child support even when he was earning enough to do so.  Why he thought it was ok to ignore the pleading, the begging done by the castoff wife and the tossed aside kids while building a new and shiny life for himself.  

Or maybe he won't.

I've seen how the courts work.  I know, firsthand, that human emotions don't factor into the decisions made by these courts.  It's people doling out judgments and orders and decisions to other people, but there is very little humanity in these judgments and orders and decisions.  It's based on cold hard facts, facts that don't take into account stuff like worry and stress and grief.

The judge won't want to know how many nights I've been unable to sleep, tossing and turning while visions of the future keep my eyes open and my heart racing.  She doesn't want to hear about my broken-but-healing 18 year old, my anxious 16 year old, my 15 year old with anger issues or my seemingly unscathed 12 year old who now knows better than to ask if he can go on the paintball trip with church because it's $35.

She most certainly doesn't want to see the inside of my lip, the spot I absentmindedly chew on when I'm stressed out.  She won't want to hear about the choices I've had to make as a mother, or the things we've gone without, or the pain each one of us has felt. 

She will want to know the facts, and the facts only.  She's going to want to know dollar amounts, and checking account numbers and how much time the kids have spent with each of us and how much each of us has spent on their various needs and wants.  She's going to want to know the dry facts, not the facts that are still damp with tears and sweat.

And I worry about that.  Even though those dry facts speak for themselves, even though when it's all down in black and white it's pretty obvious what should have been done and what wasn't done....I've been burned before.

I've had an attorney standing at my front door the day before Thanksgiving 2008, the engine of his Land Rover idling quietly while he handed me a manila envelope containing papers telling me, in legalese and big words, that the father of my kids wasn't going to pay child support any more.  I'll never forget the look on his face, the utter lack of concern he showed, as I stood there dumbfounded and speechless while the sounds of my children and their friends laughing and playing flowed out from behind me like the sounds of a just-out-of-sight stream gurgling and churning on a clear spring day.  "Happy Thanksgiving!" he said, as he walked down the little sidewalk that led to his vehicle, and he drove away, probably thinking of what his wife asked him to pick up at the grocery store and most likely not thinking at all of the envelope full of hell and devastation he had just placed in my hands. 

So you see, I worry.  No matter what happens, what gets resolved or who promises what, I worry.  No matter how calm I may appear, no matter how enthusiastically I answer "Great!!" when asked how my day is going, I am always thinking about that trick floor beneath me, the one that could open up at any second and swallow me whole.  Even though I have learned to go with the flow, roll with the punches and by golly, turned that frown upside down, every second of every minute of every hour of every day of my life is laced with a vibrating undercurrent of worry and fear.  Will that ever go away?  Or is it something I'll carry with me forever more, like a scar?

I guess it doesn't matter if or when it will go away.  Because I've learned to deal with it.  I've figured out how to handle the worry, how to live with that icky paranoid feeling that looms just under the surface.  Life can be a bitch sometimes, but I haven't used that as an excuse to be one.  I'm happy, despite this crap, and I hope that my kids are too.  I find the joy when I can, laugh whenever I'm able and give out love like a perfume sampler at Macy's. 

That's how I know that no matter what goes down in that courtroom, I will be okay.  My kids will be okay.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:  (any Monty Python fans out there?)

Let's break free from my maudlin tale of courtrooms and lawyers and get to the weighty stuff.  Ha!  I thought I had hit a little plateau in my Weight Loss Journey.  My bathroom scale was stuck on the same three numbers, no matter how hard I sucked in as I stood there, shivering in the dim morning light. I had actually gained a little last week, too. So when I walked up to the scale at Weight Watchers today, I mentally prepared myself for less-than-stellar news.  And then BOOM went the dynamite...not only had I lost, but I finally hit that magical 25 pound mark!  I didn't cry (although with some prompting I'm sure I could have) but I high-fived the weighing chick.  And I floated out to my car.

I feel like every pound I lose is another layer of crud being lifted off, another pound of the past melting away, exposing something fresh and renewed beneath.  Ok, maybe "fresh" is overkill, but you know what I mean.  All of those feelings I was eating weighed me down.

And now I'm feeling lighter.  That's a good thing.  Any other Weight Watcher friends want to chime in with their success stories?  Or maybe you need a little support or cheerleading?  Speak up, friends!  We're all in this together.

Here's the weekly stats, and then I have to check on the sweet potato fries in the oven (4 points for 17 of those suckers...and don't think I'm not going through that entire bag looking for the biggest ones, ladies.  I am.).  I think I may like these more than the light dill dip/cucumber binge I was on last week.  Yum.


Week 1:  -4 lbs.

Week 2:  -3.8 lbs.

Week 3:  -3.2 lbs.

Week 4:  -1.4 lbs.

Week 5:  -3.4 lbs.

Week 6:  -1.8 lbs.
Week 7: +.2 lbs.
Week 8:   -3.6 lbs. 
Week 9:  -2.2 lbs.
Week 10:  +.6 lbs.
Week 11: - 5.0 lbs. (!!!!)

Total weight loss so far:  27.6 pounds!  I'm shooting for the 30 pound mark by Halloween.

I smell sweet potatoes, my friends.  Good night.