the best thing about divorce

There is one good thing about divorce.  It is the best diet there is! You just stop eating.  It isn't important.  I lost 70 pounds in the course of 4 months... Then I started coming around and back to life and started back into the same old habits BUT realized what was happening and said...whoa...and I am now back to the same weight I was following the divorce. 

I now eat healthy.  Today ,out of the blue, I ate a Tudor's biscuit at breakfast and was violently sick following.  So, I guess I am realizing I can't go back to eating how I used to.  It just won't work for me.  If you look in my fridge you find fruit, veggies, and free range chicken eggs courtesy of a work colleague.    At a recent check-up my family doc said she could tell I was healthy because my blood work was so spot on.  Yippee! Physically I feel better than I ever have and definitely better than I've felt in the past 20 years.  I still plan on losing 20 more pounds and am working on it every day. 

Physical exercise played such a role in the early days of the discovery. I had such pent up energy and emotion that I needed to get rid of and for me that was lots of walking and zumba.  I still try and do zumba at least once a week.  I have an elliptical machine and treadmill that I try to use on a daily basis.

All of this is a complete turn from where I was when I found out about Mark's affair. One of the first questions I asked him was his new lover skinny.  To which he replied "Yes".  I was crushed. I was the heaviest I had ever been.  I couldn't walk up a hill without shortness of breath and we would laugh because I had to do a roll to get out of the bath.  I now know what he was really laughing at.  This was one of the most hurtful things he did to me.  The comments about me physically.  Lots of therapy has helped me realize there was nothing I could do that would ever make him love me.  I've read enough to know Satan is in residence and keeping his head full of all the wrongs of Kim. 

I am thankful for the blessing of divorce.  I no longer have to listen to those constant critiques.  I can now be right once and awhile.  I am a good person and I know that.  I tried throughout this divorce to always take the upper road and think I have handled it with some grace.  My pastor told me I would be able to teach the young people I work with how to handle a really tough situation with love and grace and trust and faith in God and I strive to do just that.  To give my boys the face of a person who has been torn apart and pulled themselves up and taken charge of their own destiny.  I hope they know their part in this large step forward for me.

So, see there is an up side to divorce even if I don't recommend it.  Just try a diet!

the lady in black

My youngest son, Justin was a big Johnny Cash fan and I was always fascinated why Johnny was called "The Man in Black".  Of course I had some big made-up story but the truth was as follows:

 He wore black for the poor and the beaten down, the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, for those who never read or listened to the words that Jesus said. For the sick and lonely, in mournin' for the lives that could have been. For the thousands who have died, believen' that the Lord was on their side. I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, and tell the world that every thing's OK, but I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back, Til things are brighter, I'm the Man in Black.

Until the wrongs of the world are righted.

I used to wear black all of the time.  I wore it because I thought it made me look smaller.  Weight and I have always had a battle.   I was never heavy until after I had my kids and then the battle started...I was a yo yo dieter...up and down...I was at my highest right before the divorce.  I always said Mark loved me more when I was skinnier and that was the first question I asked him about Kathy.  Is she skinny...of course she was.  Which shot my self-esteem all to hell.

Divorce is the best diet there is.  I couldn't eat for months because I would get physically sick.  I threw up.  I could not eat.  I lost a total of 75 pounds.   In the past year I have slowly put some back on, but as my boys told me...it was healthy weight as I started to eat again.  I also exercised three times a week... right after Mark leaving and just for something to do.  In my Zumba class there were four of us going through divorces.  So we talked.

As I lost weight the color came back into my wardrobe.  The bright colors that I have always loved.  The fuchsia...oranges and teals.  I do love color and brighter the better. Not tacky though some might not agree.  I sometimes wonder if psychologically I was wearing black as a statement of what my life was like without actually expressing what I was feeling...maybe my choice of clothes was an outward sign of the sadness in my life...and I didn't even know it.

You can't feel bad about yourself when you know you are looking good!!
Keep healthy and stay fit.  Feel good!
My rainbow on my back says everything is good and getting better all the time!