Isabelle Caro passed away a month ago, but it’s only being reported now.
You likely know her… she’s become the face of what we perceive anorexia as. Here’s a disturbing photo array.
I want us to remember her for her bravery in speaking out against an industry that virtually encourages anorexia, even now. Remember her for the struggle she waged and her ability to be profoundly public in her vulnerability.
Most of all, I want us to remember that there was no motherfucking reason a beautiful woman like she once was should be dead before 30. And why? Because she was pressured to keep her weight at an unrealistic level.
Sure, the fashion industry has stopped using quite as thin models, but let’s not kid ourselves — we still expect women to be thin to be beautiful, because Vogue and Cosmo and FHM and every other magazine insists on perpetuating that image.
Whether it’s hearing about a 13-year-old who’s gone temporarily blind from dehydration and starvation, because she doesn’t want to be “fat” like her mother (like a contestant on The Biggest Loser), or an amazingly beautiful woman who dies because she simply won’t eat, we need to accept that we’re fucked up as a society when it comes to food.
From morbidly obese citizens to deathly-thin models, what the hell are we thinking?
What happened to just living normally?
As the diet ads fire up and the media obsesses about “taking off that holiday weight”, remember that loving ourselves might be the first step to improving, as we decide we’re worth the effort and time it takes to live a reasonable life.
Remember that self-hate and loathing of one’s actions are what drives the extremes we see killing our obese family members and even beautiful women like this — or Brittany Murphy.
Dieting is dangerous. Instead, live more accountably.
RIP, Isabelle Caro. We hardly knew ye. Thank you for your bravery.
Monthly Archives: December 2010
BUSTED!
Fat dude broke into my house. I caught him. Nothing gets by me! Poor Quatchi was so bombed he fainted when Santa squealed like the girl he is and I trapped his fat ass.
Merry Christmas, World!
Santa at Steff's house!
Merry Christmas to All!
From the 1945 Fireside Book of Christmas Stories that's been in my life since birth.
I wish all my readers all the best.
Whether you’re alone or with family or friends this holiday, I hope you do something special for yourself. May Christmas be a wonderful day for you.
And may you strive to keep its ethos year-round.
Merry Christmas, readers, and may we all have a wonderful year ahead. Thanks for sticking around.
Christmas, Que Sera Sera-Style
It’s the day before the day before the day before Christmas, and all is not quiet in the house of Steff — except for the mice.
The stockings ARE hung with care. There are no children nestled in beds, but Quatchi’s snug in his hangout place.
A funny cartoon by Mary Nadler. HoHoHo.
Menus are compiling and nerves are a-rilin’. Christmas eve will soon be nigh, and I’ll be the hostess with the mostess for some good folkses.
I’m tired. Antsy. Panicky. But this is me pre-big-entertaining week. I panic my way through and then I kill it. Next week I play Santa Steff in a breakfast I’m hosting for kids. I giggle every time I think of having four little toddlers running around here. I’ve never had more than 2 at once, and one was just this lame baby that did nothing (snicker).
Toddlers? I’ll be drinking ALL day. So, yup: Giggle!
Ahh, but that’s next week.
And if I wasn’t strung out enough this week, there’s been a full moon. Plus I’ve just been visited by my monthly friend.
I’m basically the pharmaceutical industry’s wet dream today — twitchy and anxious. Medicating works for me. Thanks, anatomy! Yer a pal!
And despite all that kerfuffleness, there’s a smile on my face. It’s Christmas! We’re less than 72 hours! Know what that means? Coffee, good effort, and whatever the fuck happens, happens!
If you don’t knock it out of the park, who cares? It’s almost out of our hands, so hang the hell on and have fun, kids!
And that’s the thing people always forget. No matter how panicky and nutty we get before it all comes down, usually it just doesn’t matter.
You get your mulled wine or whatever the hell you drink, have good folks around, get the heat turned up, lights twinklin’, laughter echoing, and NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. That’s what alcohol’s for!
Somewhere around 6:30 on Christmas Eve, that starts to sink in, so skip all this crap and get into that mode. Que sera sera, as the man sings.
I was right, you know: Making gifts? Hard work! But so rewarding! I’m still not done and that’s fine, it’s still awesome. It’s been entertaining.
Christmas feels fun this year. How many malls have I gone into? Um, none since November 18th, except for walking through one to catch a train yesterday. Take THAT, malls!
I’ve even gotten to pay my bills. Post-pneumonia catch-up: Done, 3 days before Christmas. Big sigh. Happy sigh. And working again some.
Oh, I know, this domestic-happy Steff is a bit JARRING, I’m sure.
I’m not some Martha Stewart-like YAY-CRAFTS! person, but I’m telling you: Finding a way to simplify Christmas next year, if you didn’t manage to do so this year, might be the smartest thing you ever do.
And THIS Christmas is the perfect time to set that stage. When you exchange your gifts this year, bring up the idea of simplifying. Pledge to Make Christmas Simple. Then you can look forward to next year, not dread the finances. It makes December so much more fun when you have a plan.
Personally, I’m profoundly happy I’ve gone this way. Even my Christmas dinner will be different. A new friend is joining my best friend and I. And I’m finally taking Best Friend’s advice after all these years and Simplifying. It’s a meat pie that’s about 1/4 the price of a turkey. Making all traditional fixin’s and Quebecois “poor man’s pudding” (pouding chomeur) for dessert. It’ll be soul food, Quebec-style. (I have French heritage.)
My hope is that I’m not alone in having fun THIS week, that others are running on a little more gas as the finish line nears, and that we all make merry and feel delight.
If you are alone this year, make sure you cook yourself some beautiful food, or pick some up, pour some wine, and celebrate the fact that you fucking rock.
In case I’m too busy to write again — very likely — I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I am thankful for all the strange and often difficult experiences I’ve had this year, the growth I’ve enjoyed, the bucket-list items I’ve checked off (public speaking and ziplining!), the awesome new people in my life, the odd doors that appear to be opening for my future, and everything else that has come my way.
Gratitude. Learning. Growth. All good.
Nothing has been what I expected of my year, but it’s been a hell of an interesting ride.
Thank you for coming along. Ho, ho, ho.
A Christmas Candy Story, by Steff
This Christmas, people in my life are getting simple gifts. I’m making candy for most people. Fiscal Frugality is probably wise in my world — and in most worlds.
Look around, right? The economy’s fucked. I could overspend, but I’d rather use my time and efforts and put ME into my gifts than injecting concern into my life. Makes sense.
It’s probably why I’m having so much more fun this Christmas. I can afford what I’m doing. I’m having to do it from my heart, too, because I want the candy to be awesome, not just some phoned-in treat.
Candymaking is all about the temperatures, that controls texture.
Friday, I got to play Santa Steff as I took my first batch of candy around to people. Tonight, I’ll be making another 11-12 pounds of the convection, with a good chunk of it being used for charitable purposes–my small way of giving back to a valued member of Vancouver’s social media community. I figure elbow grease turns into a donation from someone else. The circle of good.
But this isn’t just any candy.
This is the kind of candy that comes with a story.
Isn’t that the BEST kind?
As a kid, my mom always made us this homemade brown sugar candy. She called it “fudge,” so we did, too. Supposedly it’s “brown sugar pralines,” but there ain’t never been a batch that had pecans in it at my house, man.
She died in 1999, and that’s when I learned that it’s not the big posthumous regrets that weigh down your soul — it’s the little shit. Like childhood recipes.
When I realised her death came and I’d never gotten the recipe for brown sugar candy from her, it broke my heart. No one in the family could find it, either. She’d kept it secret.
But then, 10 years later, a friend of mine, ZoeyJane, helped me “purge” my home. I was made to go through all the old papers, sort all my boxes.
Another friend came over and we were goofing off, and I showed him my big purge-find of the day: My 1983 Girl Guides & Brownies Cookbook.
My friend starting flipping through the pages–thwap-thwap-thwap– “CRANBERRY JELL-O MOLD? This is totally 1983! Oh, hey, here’s yours–Brown sugar pralines.”
WHATWHATWHAT? LEMMESEETHATLEMMESEETHAT.
I snatched the flimsy recipe book from him, and lo and behold, there it was. Mom’s candy.
My eyes watered and my heart pounded. There was a piece of my childhood, RIGHT THERE. It DIDN’T die with her.
I was elated. Over the damn moon. I planned to make it soon. I’d need a candy thermometer. Duly NOTED.
A couple days later, I’m walking to work. Looking down on the sidewalk in Yaletown, there’s a candy thermometer in its package–$2.49. A fissure crack made it useless trash, but I picked it up and fell deep into thought as I found a bin to toss it in.
Later that day, I bought one myself.
That Friday, I took a deep breath and set about rekindling a part of my childhood. It was time to make some candy.
Immediately after I pour my first batch into trays to cool, the phone rings. It’s my brother. He’s with my dad. They wanna pop by.
I’d lived here 10 years, then. It was the first time ever they just “popped” by.
So, they came over, happy to know the “fudge” awaited. The candy was made of fail. I didn’t hit the right temperatures. It’s not cooking, it’s alchemy–and I had much to learn. My candy that day turned into a taffy-like chewtoy one could spend hours nom-nom-nomming but never melting down.
But it took us all back to a place that spoke of Monopoly nights with candy and a fire in the hearth, pizza delivery, pajamas and goofing off.
When my folks’ marriage started truly failing, the candy stopped making appearances. It became increasingly rare. Mother always made a double batch and put half away, hording it for herself. She had false teeth. (Obviously.)
In the 16 months since I found that recipe, I’ve really made it my own. I never make it plain as Mom did. Now it’s a vehicle for great flavours. I’ve made it with bacon and whiskey–a small circuit of the American deep-South barbecue circuit speaks of it like a barbecue urban legend, thanks to a friend who bragged about my work in competitions down there. But it’s the peanut butter-vanilla one that’s really popular with friends and family.
This Christmas is a new version and is my favourite. I think Mom would have loved it: Browned butter, toasted walnuts, and Butter Ripple Schnapps. It’s toasted and carmelized goodness that’ll make you understand the value of a good dental plan.
There were a few things I could’ve made to gift this year, with much less work, but my brown sugar candy is closer to my heart than any of ’em.
Don’t ask for the recipe. The Next Generation Cameron will carry it on: Nephew knows now what’s involved in making it. One day, Nephew too will be a Candymaking Ninja. But, for now, the alchemy eludes my little grasshopper.
Mother would be pleased. She’d love knowing her candy made Christmas special in two provinces last year, since I sent it to other family too, but she’d be more thrilled to know she played a part in candy-for-kindness and other Christmas goodness this year. She liked it simple-but-generous, life.
My folks went the extra mile to make Christmas memorable when I was little. One day, I grew up and the season became shrouded in the cynicism that makes stories like A Christmas Carol resonate 170 years on.
This year, being frugal, using my time and energy to make old-fashioned candy, is the first time I’ve really felt seasonal “joy” in a good 15-plus years. There’s something about returning to the simplicity of the traditions.
Being single and childless, that’s more easily accomplished than it’d be for others, but what a fantastic choice I made. I’m so glad.
Well, then… girl’s got some candy to make. Today’s most-epic-batch-ever requires a 20″ whisk, 24-quart stockpot, and a 24×18″ bun roll sheet with 1.5″ high walls. And, you know, 90 minutes of whisking.
Pray for me.
Ho, ho, ho.
If you can’t attend the fundraiser here in Vancouver tomorrow and you’d like to do a random act of kindness to support a couple good folks financially-felled by health crises for months in the past year, here’s a great place to drop five bucks and do just that.
The King's Speech: Film Review
I seldom do movie reviews, but want to tell you about The King’s Speech, coming out on Dec. 22nd.
It’s one of those rare profoundly moving movies that leaves me believing in who we are again.
It’s such an inspiring story, so well acted, so seamlessly made, that I’d encourage anyone who likes GOOD movies to see it.
The nutshell?
King George the VI, Queen Elizabeth’s pop, was never supposed to be king. His brother fell madly in love with a Nazi-sympathising American divorcee and abdicated the throne, leaving Albert to assume the throne as the first-ever English king to rule while his predecessor was alive, well, and no longer ruling due to conundrums of his own making.
Problem: Albert, who never should’ve become king, had a profound speech impediment.
Bigger Problem: He was the first truly modern king expected to make regular live radio speeches, including the first wartime monarch’s national radio address.
So, you can see, the whole speech-impediment thing was quite a big deal.
Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth turn in amazing performances, with Firth’s being a virtual LOCK on the Oscar this year. So compelling and moving. Helena Bonham Carter’s acting is also of stellar quality. Everyone’s is.
Tom Hooper’s direction is effortless. With music used very sparingly throughout, the silences become powerful — reinforcing every design concept about the power of negative space.
It’s the silences that choke the future King George VI that so clutch at us and break our hearts. It captures fears and insecurities we all can relate to, and everyone involved in this movie understood how powerful those fears/insecurities can be for each of us.
It didn’t need big sets, flashy editing, dramatic music, or overbearing light work.
It needed to simply exist on screen as nothing more than it is — a story about a man called to be greater than he thinks he can be, at a time when nothing less than succeeding will do, which requires his overcoming life-long struggles and fears in the face of everyone’s pity and lowereed expectations.
In those silences, and the muscles twitching in Colin Firth’s neck and his trembling lips as the words fail to form and he can’t “just spit it out”, we all identify with moments we’ve frozen, failed, and simply fucked up.
It is a rare and beautiful movie, lacking of pomp and circumstance, belonging in the class of simple and inspiring films in my little collection, like You Can Count on Me, The Station Agent, and The Visitor.
The UnSpending Christmas = More Fun, Less Worry
Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!
I giggled to death when a friend on Twitter, a member of Vancouver’s crazy Vespa club (“The Worst Scooter Club Ever”) and an awesome artist, Mark Pilon, decided to bring my Christmas tree to life.
I give you the Killer Christmas Tree — we’re currently securing film rights. Think death and jingling bells.
Obviously my place is decorated for the holidays. I’m getting into Christmas-cheer mode. I’ve even come to terms with the fact that, as much as I love the people in my life, no one’s getting “real” gifts. I’m making a lot of candy so as to spread the cheer this year, but that’s about it.
Fiscal realities, baby. Ho-ho-fuckin’-ho.
It’s tough to come to that place of accepting that your finances just don’t allow for the “traditional” Christmas, but it’s a damned good thing to accept, given the economy. I refuse to spend the next four months living with fear and regret for seasonal over-spending.
The best gift I can get this year? Knowing my utilities are finally paid off. It’s been that kind of autumn, and I know I’m not alone.
And, hey, I can do that, finally. It’s great!
What does it leave me for the holidays? Well, I can buy some wine, entertain a few people I care about, have coffee with some other friends, and that’ll be all it wrote.
Once upon a time, though, that was the point of Christmas.
It was about making paper-chains to decorate trees, and popcorn strings, doing snow angels, hoping Santa brought some $50 gift you’d been dying for, playing charades, drinking punch, and throwing snowballs. That was Christmas.
Then Hallmark and Best Buy and Sears and Apple and everyone else said, “Hey, here’s a great merchandising opportunity!” and we’ve been proper fucked since.
People used to be happier with less.
Now we have moreMOREmore and we’re more unhappy than ever. Cue the Prozac and Ambien and Halcyon and Lithium, eh? The medicated gift that keeps giving?
We spend, spend, spend under the delusions that the latest version of X-gadget is exactly what’s been missing in our lives. A purchase, then a week goes by, and, nope, that didn’t Spackle the little hole in our hearts either. Whatcha got for me NOW, Apple?
Commercialism isn’t the answer, and I think we’re finally figuring that out, thanks to economies around the world continuing to collapse like shaky houses of cards, but the problem is, we don’t have a fucking clue what the question is anymore.
Where’s happiness? What’s tradition? Where are we going, and why have we been trying to leave this Place anyhow? Why’d we ever start believing joy was found in a box on a shelf in a big store?
Christmas should be about finding that child inside of yourself, really meaning it when you tell people at cocktail parties that it’s nice to see them. It’s about walking down streets and smiling at decorations, admiring the shimmering lights dangling from trees at night, or stuffing a few extra boxes into a Food Bank hamper.
It’s about wishing for peace and love in the world, bundling up against the elements, singing stupid songs, loving a hot beverage, board games, and slowing down long enough to enjoy those slippers you’ve recently invested in.
That’s CHRISTMAS.
I’m really looking forward to dropping by a party with hundreds of people tonight, just because I’m hoping I see a lot of folks I’d love to wish well before the year draws a close.
It’s been a long time since I cared about seeing people, especially in large groups, or wishing them well, or congregating with mass numbers of any kind, but tonight I’d like to do just that. There are a lot of reasons I care this year, but most of them aren’t really for public consumption.
The main shareable reason I care about seeing people is that I know I can’t afford to spend my way to a “happy” Christmas. I can bask in the seasonal glow, though. I can just be there, participate, and be welcomed. That’s seasonal enough for me.
And this year, I think that’s exactly the kind of Christmas I want.
Somewhere along the way, industry, media, and commercial interests have stolen Christmas. They hijacked it and turned it into something that filled their tills and propped up their bottom line, and we lost the soul of the holidays.
The recession, this endless economy, it’s a gift, in a way — it’s our opportunity to say Christmas Is Not For You, Christmas is For Us. It’s for our tradition. It’s for remembering a way of life and a time of easy fun. It’s about movies like A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street. It’s about Bing Crosby and ho-ho-ho. It’s for candy and mulled cider and giggling children. It’s for snowflakes and cookies and slippers and blankets.
And it’s not too late. With social media, we have more communication between us than ever before, and we can declare new priorities, focus on the right things, and take back traditions and our quieter times.
If, that is, you’ve reached the same not-gonna-take-this-anymore threshold as I have.
Me and The Killer Christmas Tree, we’re bringin’ Christmas back.
Next: Sunday might be time to make popcorn strings. It’s…. been a while, and the tree does look a little nekkid. Maybe that’s why he’s so angry-looking… shrinkage. Poor balls.
Two Decades Later: Montreal in Mind
I try to make sense of the Stupid in the world, as if having a reason or learning a lesson will somehow make it all so much more comprehensible.
In reality, some things should never be comprehended. Hopefully they never will be.
By Carlos Osorio of TheStar.com, of 20th anniversary memorials on Dec. 6, 2009.
Every year, when December 6th rolls around, and someone somewhere reminds me of the Montreal Massacre that took the lives of 14 women 21 years ago now, I’m inevitably pitched into a morass of contemplation and remembrance.
I was 16 that day.
I was strong, smart, and definitely marching to the beat of a different drummer. It was a bad time in my life, though, just after my parents’ divorce, and I was pretty messed up.
Then this GUY just comes out and GUNS DOWN 14 women because they got into a schmancy school when he couldn’t? What the HELL?
What kind of a world was I going into? Wasn’t feminism this thing my mother did in the ’60s? Wasn’t it, like, OVER? Why did this asshole have to come along and upset the dynamic like that? I mean, sisters were doing it for themselves, BUB!
Feminism wasn’t about this sad-and-twisted fuck until he decided to pick up a gun and make it about him.
It seems so long ago now, 1989.
Only, it doesn’t.
Shootings still happen. Feminism’s still needed, because women today are in a weird, weird place.
And feminism’s still a problem, because men today are in a weird, weird place, too, and that can’t be ignored.
I want a world where men can be men, women can be women, and neither needs to pick from the other’s plate. I wanted it then, I want it now.
When I think about The Massacre, I remember why I’m so angered by girls who flaunt their beauty and neglect their brains. The price we’ve paid for advancement has been too high for these bubblegum girls to mock it all, throwing it away, like intelligence and self-sustenance are choices, and not survival tools.
I also remind myself of how important it is to me that my success never come at the price of another person’s loss. I don’t know that “quotas” drove that man to kill those women, but perhaps they did.
Perhaps he was just a self-involved asshole. I don’t know. I’m not hedging my bets against option B, either.
But I staunchly oppose quotas. People should gain success based on merit, not on geography, colour, or other attributes. I get the anger about that, but I also know most of us have a few issues with perceived “entitlement”.
Ahh, well. I still can’t make any sense out of that day.
I like to think it helped a generation of women understand that our freedoms and choices came by way of many years of fighting for them. I know my generation seemed to Get It.
I think we understood better what our predecessors fought against, and why misogyny was such a worthwhile foe.
Some lessons really don’t need to be learned, though. Not like that.
Most of all, one of the saddest lessons I learned was in realising that there’d always be an “us” versus a “them”.
There’ve been few times in life where I’ve ever had the privilege of really feeling like we’re “all in it together.”
“Community” is a lovely word, but seldom attained, and usually only then through great tragedy. After 9/11 was one of those times we all felt a brotherhood, as if nothing was stronger than the bond that held us together.
Politics got in the way then, just like the distractions and demands of every day life get in the way now.
I wish I could take more good from that day, but I can’t. There’s too much blood on the bricks for “good” to be found easily. I wish that crime didn’t resonate as much as it does still, all these years later, but it does. It feels like I’m somehow giving the gunman his victory by letting it resonate so long after the fact, but I’m trying instead to honour those who lost everything.
What I hold onto these days how much that day still resonates for so many others.
I wonder, too, how much that anger persists for them.
I wish we weren’t defined by the worst of who we are — the petty men and women in divorces, who inspire so much hatred toward their opposite sex, “little things” like that define our society so much more than we appreciate. These are really the issues that divide men and women today — more family and money than profession.
In the end, the big picture always daunts and scares us because of unknown variables, like the gunman in question, or the economy, etc, always changing the scenes.
So, I try to look at the macro picture these days: people who thank me for holding a door open, a passing smile, small talk at the till, a stranger paying off an unknown parking meter, the bus driver who waits for me to run a block.
Where there is horror, there is humanity. Where there is no horror, there’s also humanity.
That comforts me still.
For every person capable of these horrific crimes, there are dozens, hundreds, thousands who have no comprehension of such behaviour.
On the micro scale, it’s why I remember to make small talk, say please and thanks, and take pleasure in the silly little exchanges that make life so darned “life” — because the big picture’s out of our control, and every time we keep the little picture feeling familiar, it’s another good day out for humanity.
Which, you know, I’ll take.
I’ve deliberately not used the Gunman’s name in this. I’ve realised using his name so often in connection with this killing somehow glorifies his legacy. If that “celebrity” aspect even provides .001% of the motivation that gets these psychopaths wanting to off innocents, then we in the media/blogs/etc are partly to blame for celebrit-ising massacres. It’d be nice if history books didn’t remember these sadistic fucks’ names.
A Different Day: Forty Floors is a Different View
And this is why I’ve been telling myself fitness would be the key to changing mindsets, etc.
Hello, there.
Yesterday’s post is h-e-a-v-y, because “depression” always is. Asshats leaving comments about “crying a river” don’t help others admit they’re depressed.
There’s a big difference between the depression I’ve been in lately and ones that cripple other people so much that suicide seems like a solution. I’m not even close to that.
So I can say, yeah, I’m depressed, but at least I’m able to motivate myself to try to effect change in my life.
Luckily, I sort of agreed with the inconsiderately-worded-but-kinda-well-meaning comments that said stuff like “stop whining”, “shut up,” and “just do it.”
And I have been doing that. When I work out, my attitude is always that I can totally do what I’ve set out to do. I don’t stop early or unperform. I totally commit.
I also know it takes 5 days a week, and now I’m meeting that, too. My attitude has been, “One of these days, this shit’s gonna click.”
But there comes a point when you just get frustrated. I’d been trying to work out a back problem before I got sick, then there’s the long break-in period, so I guess I just hit the “FUCK, CAN WE MOVE ON NOW?” breaking point this week.
Writing that post yesterday kinda felt like my darkest-before-dawn, hit-bottom-so-the-bounce-is-better moments.
Going there can be invaluable, man. And this time, it was.
I published that heavy shit, took a deep breath, got my workout gear on, went to a highrise in the area, and, doing sets of up-down-up-down in its 15 floors, did the 40-floor stairclimbing exercise I’ve been wanting to be strong enough to do for a long time, and I did it faster than I used to do 25 (total: 19 minutes!).
Today? I’m stiff and stuff, but I don’t “hurt.”
Big difference between stiff, tense, inflamed, and actual pain. I LIKE the day-after “ooh, I feel that one!” feeling. I don’t like pain. The day-after normal-stiffness is actually awesome, because I always eat better, since I’m conscious of the work I did to get that feeling, and I need that added consciousness so I can have success. Being an emotional eater, though, if it’s PAIN, I don’t react the same way, diet-wise. It’s weird, but there you go.
So, this is the first time I have that — the combination of pride and no heavy price getting paid the day after.
And maybe it’s a little more sucky tomorrow, since day two often is, but my day-afters have been kinda pretty shitty before now.
This is pretty awesome. It’s not home-free, but it’s better, and those stairs were a THREE-YEAR GOAL. Couldn’t do it with my back injury, not for the longest time, and I always hated doing them but knew they were effective.
So. Yes.
Yay.
I hated writing yesterday’s post, hate having it up there, but I think I’m gonna leave it. Sometimes ‘fessing up about the steaming pile of shit you feel like you’re in is the best way of climbing the hell out of it, too.
40 floors, motherfuckers.
Methinks I might finally be turning the page on the oh-so-painful break-in phase. That’s exciting. I do want to have the ass-kicking experience that comes from intense exercise. Once you get capable of doing it, it’s a real adrenaline surge to get into it. That’s what I’ve been longing for, not this fucking “ugh, this sucks but I know I can do it once I get past this, so let’s do it right” mind-over-matter crap I’ve been having to dial up.
So, to the unpublished commenter: Bite me. Yeah, I “train”. I complain because I *try* to leave it on the floor every time. I don’t phone this shit in. Most of my problems come from overtraining.
Mostly because I’ve done it before and I know I have it in me.
I want this, and I want it badly. This was that moment of “ah, finally”. And I know I’ll feel worse tomorrow — but I’ll be doing everything I can to avoid that today, by being smart.
This was the start I’ve been waiting for. It won’t be all smooth sailing here on out, but it’s still gonna be sailing. Sitting at the dock sucks, man!
Yep. I’ve had this moment before. This feeling I have now came once at the start of a very awesome and empowering journey. Yes, I bitch, but I keep plodding through all the crap, whatever it takes to get it done, and when I do cardio, I give it 100%, and endure the stupid pain that comes after.
Because when you finally have THAT moment, that “oh, I’m gonna be able to do this!” moment, it’s a really great thing.
And I think I’ve had that moment. I’m glad I gave into the dark side, plodded through how I was REALLY feeling about things, and decided to achieve one of my really long-held goals.
The first time I ever did that staircase?
I quit at 10 floors (220 steps). Stopped for breath on floors 3 and 7. I hurt for FOUR DAYS. I couldn’t get out of bed the next day without whimpering. Had to see the Rolling Stones in their last Vancouver gig here, and walking all the stairs at the stadium (nosebleeds!) nearly KILLED me. I was 270 pounds then.
So, you know. Yeah. Today, THIS feels good. This is how exercise should feel.
I wasn’t just jumping into the stairs, either — I’ve done them a few times lately, but only 20 floors. I figured the gruelling lunges that Nik Yamanaka’s had me doing lately had broken my thighs in and it might be the best time to try it.
Moral of the story is, I think it’s fine to give in to the “fuck, this sucks, it’s so hard” feeling as long as I take the time to remember why it was so important to start the process, and keep trying for success.
I was wrong about why I wanted to get fit.
I forgot why I wanted to get fit. Why did I? Because I was scared of returning to a life of pain, because my back injury had been recurring. I was scared of the depression that came with.
In the end, I guess confronting that fear in my writing yesterday sort of brought me full-circle on my journey, and being the GENIUS THAT I AM and doing the stairclimbing immediately AFTER that journey?
Yeah, I get the Nobel Prize for Awesome on that decision.
“Go there, go to the dark place, but get the fuck out,” that should be every writer’s mantra.
Anyhow.
Couldn’t leave yesterday’s words hanging without opening the door on a new and better chapter.
So: [squeak]
There. Door’s opened. It’s a long hallway, though.
Funny how breaking points are so often turning points. What one does next determines which it is.
Of Fitness and Depression: My World at Present
I should edit this more. It’s over 2,000 words. But it’s about depression, and I’m too depressed to care about editing it down. Chuckle, chuckle. Besides, I’d rather go work out than stay stuck here, thinking about this shit for another hour. Please ignore errors and redundancies. Thanks.
___
Depression can be like a refrigerator’s hum, so quietly ever-present you forget it’s there.
I have been battling it off and on for years. It’ll probably be a lifelong thing. I’m not medicated, and I’m steadfastly wanting to avoid going to Pill-Taking-Land.
This week, I’m slowly accepting that I’ve been back in the throes of depression for quite some time now. Some of it situational, the existential equivalent of “duh, OBVIOUSLY,” but some just… there.
Part of my desperation in this return to fitness and health is that I’m hoping it solves the depression.
Ironically, depression makes you want to do less. It’s an interesting challenge. You know, in case I thought my life needed any more challenges.
Bernd Nies' 1999 eclipse is a fantastic image of what depression's like; there's light but it's controlled by the dark.
I want a “healthy life” to be my solution, but it’s probably a bit of a pipe dream. Still, I don’t want to medicate until I know I’ve done what I needed to do.
I took down yesterday’s posting because I realize it’s more depressed in tone than it is of “I’m achieving!”
Part of the problem comes from feeling forced (through my own actions, naturally) to make the journey public. You know what? Some struggles need to be private.
Some people’s struggles feel harder and take more to get past than the same struggles might for others.
When it comes to getting fit, that’s my reality.
I was under the mistaken impression that, because I’ve achieved so much athletically, and rehabbed so many injuries, that this “return” would be a lot easier.
I’ve been going through weeks of pain. The irony is, I’m trying to undo years of pain through creating more pain. It’s frustrating. And when you’re depressed, frustration isn’t really a great thing to throw into pot.
Some alchemy has results no one wants to be around for.
Fortunately, I’m not morbidly depressed. Just ever-presently so, in a mild and intrusive way, but not anywhere near debilitating.
I’m not that worried about the depression yet… just, well, depressed about being depressed. It makes me feel like a failure. I hate feeling this way, feeling like nothing’s ever really right or fun enough or good enough. I hate snapping at friends or being anti-social. I hate, hate, hate this feeling, and hating it just makes me more depressed.
But those things aren’t Horrible. It’s not like I’ve got a collection of wrist-cutting razors nearby or anything. I’m not even remotely on the likely-to-self-harm scale. No need to fear such things, kiddies.
The worst this depression is doing to me is the eating-too-much thing, and making me way too fond of wine and gives me a penchant for wanting to hear songs like Swag’s “I’ll Get By” and Gloria Gaynor’s “I’ll Survive”.
The trouble with depression, though, is that moods are so easily influenced by other factors around us, and a mild depression can plummet quickly. That’s ScaryTime, baby.
So, I worry about that, the ever impending “what-if” possible-doom scenario. And, naturally, that doesn’t help much.
“Don’t worry,” then, you say.
Well, that’s a pretty skookum idea. Why didn’t I think of that?
Oh, because I did. Depression isn’t a do/don’t scenario. You don’t decide to “do” something and then just have it work. If you could, depression probably wouldn’t be one of the more pervasive problems society faces or the largest medical expense faced by corporate America today.
I’ve been trying to do the standard things to fight depression. Sometimes I get ’em done. Sometimes I don’t. Resolve isn’t really the depressed person’s best friend. Neither are dark Canadian winters. You need a whole lot of faith and confidence to fight serious depressions, and some days those just can’t be mustered.
Fortunately, I’ve been to this dance. I know one just gets up and does their thing and one day it improves or it doesn’t. Then there are pills, if that improvement day doesn’t come.
But that’s why this return-to-fitness thing has been so hard for me.
And why it’s so important to me that I overcome it. I hate pills. Pills brought me close to suicide, so as much as they can solve problems, they can be destruction in capsule form, too.
This getting-fit desire been crushing me because I want so much from it. I’ve so much hope pinned to it. And when I’m willing to put in the work but the only payment I receive is more pain, well, how does one really just swallow that and put on a happy face?
They don’t.
I don’t. I can’t. I hurt. I’m not “sore.” I’m not “stiff.” I hurt.
I hurt on the outside, and I hurt inside, and sometimes it’s really hard when you just can’t find a happy place in between all that.
So, yesterday, when I posted a long “what it’s been like” thing about my start in this return-to-fitness quest, and it mostly focused on how hard it’s been, a lot of that turned out to be me writing for myself — explaining, “Well, yeah, it SHOULD hurt, look what you’ve been through.”
Then someone left a comment that essentially said “Shut up and stop whining,” and that was a pretty intense breaking point for me yesterday morning, and left me really emotionally fucked-up for the rest of the day, while I tried to process two very different truths:
1) The reason I blog AT ALL is so that I can talk about what I’m enduring and what my life experience is — not so I can write what other people want to hear, solve their life, shed universal truths, or do the whole rah-rah self-actualization type posts. Enough people do that kinda blogging. If I wanted to appease others and write for everyone’s happy-point, I’d be being more commercial and would mack this shit up with affiliate ads and everything else that has money attached.
2) They’re right: Shutting up and doing it works, and often. But when you’re depressed and the return to fitness is your attempt to right what’s wrong in your life, and you’re daily going through pains that really make it seem pointless, but you know you need to battle through it — writing about how hard it is, but why you keep fighting that hardship because you know you NEED the results, well… that’s pretty much my only tether to sanity during a time that I’m finding really fucking hard.
I don’t WANT to share my depression with anyone. I don’t want this blog to be an active record of this thing I feel or these times I’m enduring. I want it to be snapshots at best.
Why I write about how fucking HARD the experience is, is because I think others go through this, but they quit — just like I stopped halfway through my journey.
I don’t want others to go off their roads and have the same struggles I’m having while I’m trying to return to mine.
And I don’t think I should apologise for not being Miss Sunshine about it, either.
I need to get fit. I don’t need to be happy about it. I don’t need to appease anyone. I just need to survive this, then thrive, and then not look back. Getting fit will probably improve my body chemistry, it will likely help me better deal with these moods.
I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing. If I’m not textbook about it, and don’t have the “Go, Team” attitude about it, then I think it’s even more fuckin’ awesome that I’m still trying to make it happen.
The commenter, which I haven’t “approved” since I took the posting down, also chastised me for dwelling in the past of late.
But, I’m not.
My past is DEFINING my present to the extent that the daily pains I feel are kind of this confrontation between what I’m trying to make my present into but its parameters are still being controlled by aspects from the past. Like, back issues, etc.
The injury happened in the past. It took me a YEAR to get past. REMEBERING THAT YEAR makes these six weeks a lot easier to swallow.
That’s MY mental process. That HELPS me.
If YOU think it’s whining or “dwelling,” then that’s your worldview. Not my problem.
So, my anger about how I feel when workouts come with backlash is more easily mitigated when I remind myself of how long and hard the back injury was, that this residual stuff makes sense, that all these pains and injuries I’ve been through have LARGELY been rehabilitated, and this is the last of what I need to endure — the legacy of those times, if you will.
While I’m doing this fitness-battle thing, I often pretend like I’m in hand-to-hand combat with my past. Sure, it’s still making my life a struggle on a daily basis right now by way of “injury legacy,” but ignoring that never helped me any.
Yes, I need to do the work. Yes, “shutting up” is useful.
Right now, I just can’t be positive, sell the Kool-aid, or get anyone else on board. I just can’t.
I thought I could. But I can’t.
Again, that feeling of failure just exacerbates the accepting of such limitations. That’s depression for you.
I do need to just get through this. And I’m not so depressed that I don’t think I can get through it, either — thank god. I expect I will succeed. I don’t have a lot of faith it’ll be soon, and that’s probably where I’m going wrong. It’ll likely be sooner than I think.
Either way, it needs dedication.
All I can do right now, the only battle I feel equipped to fight, is that of ending these legacy pains and creating the fitness I desire.
But don’t kid yourself if you think I can stop writing about it, and don’t delude yourself into thinking I can be Miss Sunshine-and-Rainbows when I do.
I write about my experience, my worldview. I leave a lot out that I don’t want to give to you. I don’t want to put my innermost fears, angers, losses, etc, into your hands. I don’t want those words here.
That’s not for you.
So, I try to write about it in a skating-the-surface kind of way. Allusions and hints, a biographical writer’s best friends.
When I do that, sometimes it sounds erudite and poetic in its subtle references to things I’m experiencing or perceptions I have, and sometimes it sounds bleak as fuck because you don’t see the subtleties that I’ve convinced myself are there, tempering the content.
Ideas are always whole in my head yet filled with holes on the page.
Shit happens. What can I tell you?
My writing isn’t always good. It doesn’t always capture my thoughts.
And, fact? I usually write with the assumption that people who’re reading me might be here for the first time, andI’ll rehash details because I’m too lazy to find a blog link that explains that same crap, so it seems like I’m “dwelling” in my past, but, actually, I’m just lazy.
I don’t know what to really say to wrap this up. I’ve been slowly coming to terms with the reality that I’m depressed. At least now I know that I am.
And all I need to try to feel today?
Proud.
Because, despite how badly I’m left feeling most days, how hard I find this journey, I find moments of victory, snippets of accomplishments, and even when it gets bad enough that I take a day off, I get back to it the next day.
For the most part, I keep improving. Some things are holding me back, but, like an elastic band, if I keep pulling away, I think those bonds will eventually snap.
I’ll get past this.
But I won’t pretend I’m enjoying the experience. That’s the least of where my energies need to be.
I know today, now, here, this THING I’m experiencing — everything from trying to find a new career, solving my depression, dealing with financial struggles, watching my family’s strife, trying to lose 50 pounds, the added stress of Christmas — is probably going to be the period I look back on in 30 years, when I say “That Defined Who I Became For The REST of My Life.”
And that is why I get the fuck up and I do my thing.
If I whine a little?
My fuckin’ prerogative. Especially when, every week, I’m accomplishing more than I did the week before.
I’l write about whatever I want. And slowly I’ll get what I need to get done, done. Sometimes I’ll tell you about it, sometimes I won’t.
MFP, baby. My fuckin’ prerogative.
If that’s what the depressed lady can take to the bank, then so be it. Cash that fucker.