Power Outfit for the Day :)

Nothing on Earth makes me feel sexier than a pair of leggings and heels. Except maybe when I add a denim mini-skirt to that recipe! :)

Enter into my life a new grey sweater with great button details at the collar from Meijer. Yes. Meijer. Don't be hatin'.

Shoes

Yeah, just a few entries ago I was lamenting the purchase of two pairs of shoes since I can't quite afford extraneous expenses such as that.

However... I FUCKING WANT THESE SHOES, DAMMIT. Early Christmas present? :) I already have a few outfits planned for them, and I want them so badly. I was just in Kohls today and didn't see them... I'm hoping I can find them somewhere...

http://www.kohls.com/kohlsStore/landingpages/bootshop/anklebooties/PRD~889731/Candies+Western+Boots.jsp

Something About Self-Confidence

I'm starting to realize what a difference a little self-confidence really can make in one's life. I've heard schoolmates of mine from high school describe me as very popular and outgoing, always surrounded by a ton of friends and well-liked.

My experience, I must admit, felt very different to me. I know I had a lot of friends, I know people liked me, and I know that I was popular among the outcasts. (I won Homecoming Court my junior year of high school without ever waving a pompom, seemingly an impossible feat.) However, I never spoke up in class to give an answer, even if I knew beyond a doubt that I was correct... I never struck up conversations with people I didn't know or who weren't introduced to me first... I grew my hair really long as a defense mechanism. I could hide my bad complexion and double chin behind the long hair. I wore nothing but jeans, t-shirts, and grubby sneakers (and once a week, my ROTC uniform). I never wore makeup, dresses, heels, skirts, nothing girly ever. I am willing to bet that Military Ball and prom were the only instances colleagues of mine ever saw me in feminine clothing that fit my body without swallowing me in extra folds of unnecessary fabric...

I felt like the most shy and awkward person ever to grace the halls of my high school. I felt invisible most of the time, and I preferred it that way.

A few years later, and I'm quite a different person, although some of me is remarkably the same. I've gone on more dates this year than any other year in my life. I was in an actual relationship for a little over a month, I was doing a long-distance... thing with a guy for a little over seven months, and now I'm seeing a really great guy.

Things are looking up and I have to attribute a large bulk of it to my growing sense of self-confidence. I wear "sexy" clothes that make me feel good about myself and show off my body. I wear makeup here and there, to bring attention to the face I was constantly hiding back in high school. I strut my stuff around now, knowing that I am dateable, attractive, and fun to be around. I know I'm intelligent, I know I have lots to offer to a conversation, I know I can express myself and be accepted.

In a way, it feels like it snuck up on me out of nowhere... but I know a huge bulk of it was losing some weight, and another part was in maturing and growing up. I know that people's opinions of me aren't that important. I'm not going to impress everyone I meet... and I no longer try to. I put myself out there, I'm either accepted and liked, or rejected and not liked. Either way, I'm still alive and intact at the end of the experience, so I can get on with my life, either with a new friend or not.

I'm starting a new relationship, a clean slate, stepping forward into another phase of getting to a permanent Happy Healthy Gina state of mind. It feels a lot closer today than it did a few days ago. I'm not completely over everything that's been going on in my life... but I'm realizing that learning from my mistakes is a lot healthier than dwelling on them, regretting them, and drowning in them.

So I'm swimming to the surface so I can smile in the bright warm sunlight again.

oh yeah, this is a weight loss blog...

I actually got brave and weighed myself last night. I was wearing clothes and holding some stuff in my hands, lol, but I weighed the exact same weight I did when I started school back in August.

This is exciting news because I honestly assumed I had gained at least ten pounds. I feel my clothes fitting me differently recently. I think this is actually because I'm sadly losing muscle from not working out. I'm not gaining weight, YET, I'm just losing the muscle and tone that I had worked so hard to gain since April.

I HAVE TO START WORKING OUT AGAIN.

It's so hard to get motivated, for some reason. The thought of stepping on an elliptical or doing a work-out DVD just sounds like the worst idea ever.

I've become lame and lazy Gina again. How did it happen? I know I've had a lot of shit getting thrown at me in life recently, but that's not it. What will be able to kick me back into gear? I need some serious motivation. I know that exercising sucks during the act, but afterward, there's a sense of accomplishment, pride, and an endorphin rush that feels exquisite. I've forgotten how great the aftermath feels... how great it feels to buy smaller clothes... how great it feels to not rush past mirrors... how great it feels to put on nearly anything and feel sexy in it. Now I just feel like a fat ugly slob again because what was toned and had a little muscle on my body is becoming blobby jiggly fat again. :(

GINA. JUST GET BACK INTO FUCKING GEAR, WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM, YOU LOSER??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?

Maybe that will work. I have to get back into the zone. Maybe someone will comment that I look like I'm gaining weight... I'll see Mom tomorrow, maybe her negative side will prove to be the kicker I need. For once, Mom, I need you to be mean!!!!! If there's anyone I can count on to be frank and honest, it's my dear Mumsie...

torn

I miss him so much.

I miss being open and myself with him. Now I feel, in some ways, I have to hold back. I don't want to break down and be a blithering nutcase begging him to fall in love with me and be my one and only for always and ever... I would just come off as an immature idiot (which I suppose I am, for the most part) and it would drive him even further away (not that 3,000 miles isn't already pretty fucking far).

I lay in bed earlier today during a rare and silent moment in my apartment. I listened to the sadness in my head, wondering if it would ever go away. In a relatively short time, he became so important to me. Thankfully, I'm not completely without him, because we've kept in platonic contact. But it still hurts. Thinking that he will be kissing someone some day that isn't me. Thinking that he will be touching someone intimately some day that isn't me. Thinking that he'll be loving someone some day that isn't me.

It's tearing me apart. And yet it's my fault. I should have shut the fuck up and just kept going on the path we were on. Maybe in a few month's time, he would have been more conducive and open to meeting in person. Maybe I got froggy and jumped far too fast for his broken heart to catch up.

Maybe he genuinely never wants to meet me. Maybe I'm just a distraction from his own loneliness and will never be enough to supersede and conquer his loneliness. I thought I could be, I know he succeeded for me. For almost eight months I saw nothing but him. Yes, I had a few slips here and there, but he was truly the only man on my mind, the first man in my life that I've ever considered being completely myself around. I was totally ready to give him my everything: all my fears, my insecurities, my love, my life, my body, my heart, my soul. He could have easily had it all, all he had to do was be willing to accept it.

He wasn't, and probably never will be. I must have misread him, or just took for granted that his continued interest in me was anything more than a distraction from his life. It felt so good to be wanted, needed, and liked in a romantic capacity.

I don't blame him for anything. He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't lead me on or lie to me. He was always open and frank, we just legitimately never discussed our meeting until I blatantly asked him in a serious manner if he would consider it a year from now. He replied openly and honestly that he wouldn't be ready.

Should I have stuck around and given him the benefit of a doubt? It's too late for that now. Even if I begged him to take things back to how they were before I started demanding more, it would just never be the same.

We will never be the same.

I miss him so much.

moving along

Today has been rather uneventful. It seems Mother Nature is still being a cold-hearted bitch and keeping poor Kentuckiana freezing it's nads off... I brought an umbrella to school to try and shield myself from the cold biting wind... it blew inside-out as soon as I opened it instead. Ugh.  I was worried the rest of the day would be as frustrating as an inside-out umbrella... however, I've been pleasantly surprised!

I got into my L140 class and I sit next to the teacher. She looks over at me and I'm worried for a second she's going to berate me for not participating in class. Instead, she asks if she can have an ecopy of my last paper e-mailed to her so she can circulate it within the class. Apparently, it was so well-written, she wants to show it off! I got an A+ on it, and she wrote a few wonderful compliments on the back of the paper, including: "You have a better defined prose style than most of your colleagues."  That made me feel quite excellent, and also guilty for writing that paper in a few hours with miniscule, half-assed research methods...

I don't talk much in her class because my interpretation of the fiction we're reading never seems to be on par with everyone else's. And I'm not saying that everyone has to agree on fiction interpretation, of course it boils down to personal experience, point of view, and emotions, but for the most part, there's a general "right" and "wrong" no matter how vague those words are in the context of interpreting literature.When someone comes up with an off-the-wall interpretation of a passage, a professor will entertain it for a few moments, but the class just waits patiently for the discussion to get "back on track" and in the blase zone.

So I tend to keep my mouth shut and just bob my head in agreement with my fellow students. I don't feel that my interpretations are better or more accurate, I just know they are different. Today's discussion was very much in that same vein. We read a short story by Bobbie Ann Mason called "Shiloh". The plot of the story is simple enough, "After 26 years of marriage, Leroy and Norma Jean find themselves at a crossroads where Norma Jean decides she wants to leave Leroy, but Leroy wants to stay with Norma Jean."

The remarkable thing for me about this story was that it coincides so damned perfectly with my parent's current state of being. My dad was an over-the-road trucker for many years. He quit the long haul stuff when my younger brother was born because he wanted to be around to see him and I grow up. He started driving locally, and that lasted for the bulk of my childhood. In the past few years, he started developing major health issues (sleep apnea, a damaged rotator cuff in his right shoulder, and gout in his feet) and had to give up trucking altogether.

In the story, Leroy was in a terrible accident where his rig jackknifed and his leg is badly injured, stunting his trucking career.

My mom has lately been obsessed with exercising. It used to be all she would talk about. She lost a lot of weight and is almost TOO skinny now. She also took up a ton of hobbies when Dad quit trucking, like volleyball and Euchere. She's never home, always riding her bike to the store or going out with co-workers or her parents or brother. She's never at home, whereas Dad is always at home, sitting on his ass, watching TV.

In "Shiloh", Norma Jean is so similar to my mother, it scares me. They both become obsessed with exercising. The story even mentions Norma Jean wearing ankle weights and my Mom totally wears those around the house, to the store, all the time. She attributes a lot of her weight loss to them.

As the class discussed this story, I felt very much like they were discussing my parents' current state of affairs. Dad's life seems to have ground to a halt when he had to give up trucking. Mom picked herself up and ran with her life, becoming more active and exciting. I feel that in reading "Shiloh" and hearing my class' discussion on the story I gained a lot of insight into the situation.

Perhaps their marriage worked because both of them always had jobs and when Dad was driving over-the-road, he wasn't home all that much... Perhaps Mom became so into her hobbies and never being home because she didn't know how to cope with Dad suddenly being home all the time... Maybe she got so busy to try and gain his attention... Maybe Dad wants to build the screened-in porch on the back of their house for Mom because like Leroy (who wants to build a log cabin for Norma Jean), he feels it could rekindle or restart their marriage and things could work out...

All I know is I'm thinking a bit more broadly and differently about their situation. I'm also mailing Mom a copy of the story in a plain manilla envelope with the words: "Read this. You might find it interesting..." written on it.

We'll see what she thinks of it. She'll know it's from me because she'll recognize the handwriting, and I'm almost certain she'll think I wrote it! That's how much it parallels their current life... Weird, huh?

cold

In a way I feel like Rosario Dawson in Men in Black 2, just not as sexy. When she felt sad, it rained. It would seem Mother Nature is coinciding with the fearful cold in my heart and dragging the day's temperature down too low. The weather was beautiful yesterday, the literally perfect temperature. Today it's almost unbearably cold because it's so unexpected and so sudden and so harsh...

I couldn't agree more, Mother Nature. I couldn't agree more.

The weather outside is how I feel inside. I just wish I were a bit more cold so my heart would actually freeze and stop hurting so much. How melodramatic do I sound right now, eh? But it's so true. With every breath I feel on the verge of tears. It took a lot of restraint not to let the tears flow in front of a room of studying college students as I received e-mails from him and responded. I felt so emotional, so torn. I literally just want to dig a hole, crawl in, sleep, and maybe never wake up.

Why wake up? Why? What do I possibly have worth trudging on for? In the words of the amazingly talented Brandi Carlile:

"...And these stories don't mean anything/When you've got no one to tell them to...

...You see the smile that's on my mouth/ Hiding the words that won't come out

All of my friends who think I'm blessed/ They don't know my head is a mess..."

All day long, when things would intrigue me, I'd immediately want to share them with him. For the last eight months, that's what I've done. I shared the minutia of my day with him, and he shared most of his with me. If I needed help or information, he'd help me. If I wanted to watch something, we'd watch it together. If someone told a funny joke in class, I shared it with him. And on and on and on...

I feel more alone than I've ever felt because I don't have anyone to fill that void. No one cares like he did. Yes, I have friends and family, but they have never listened to me like he did. He genuinely would listen and comment on my most mundane or most insane theories and questionings of the world. Now I can only talk to my car stereo, which spews unrelated lyrics back at me. 

I miss him so fucking much and it hasn't even been a full 24 hours yet since I decided we should just be friends. He's agreed that we can be friends, even though we both know it will be hard to go back a few steps into the Friend Zone. But I guess like the removal of a Band-Aid, the pain is quick and loud, but fades away to nothing. I'm hoping time can heal this wound. So hurry up, time... please. I don't know how much longer I can tolerate this hole in my being... I'm leaking out fast and I don't know how much of me is left...

UNhappy UNhealthy... still Gina.

My head exploded. Of course not literally, but almost like watching a movie, I watched my heart and mind explode from my body, showering the room in gore and tears of splattered blood. It hurt so much to have to say, "Yeah. I'm done."

I know I was in love. I can say "was" now because he completely broke my heart. Yes, I over-react to things, yes, I'm whiny and insecure, yes, maybe I ask too much of the men I'm with, but... I couldn't get past this. Not in the moment, I won't ten moments from then, I won't ever.

I asked if we could seriously talk about meeting either late next year (yes, a YEAR from now) or even early 2013. He said that he didn't think it was the right time.

So... a YEAR from now or even TWO YEARS from now is not the right time to meet in person? I tried to take deep breaths, I tried to see things from his perspective, but I just couldn't. Was he ever wanting us to meet in person? Was this just a game to him, some leisurely version of a girlfriend figure to send him doting messages throughout the day and make him feel wanted and needed and loved? Did he want all of that from me for nothing in return? No sacrifice, no commitment?

Apparently so.

Now, I want to make it clear. All you naysayers out there, you aren't right about him. At all. He didn't use me. It's not anything like that at all. This isn't my naivety talking, either. It's the truth. I know he has feelings for me, as I will for him for a long, long time. He's just too stuck in his past to move forward. It happens to the best of us. I wanted to be the one to pull him out of his two year funk, but I'm just not the one, I suppose. He's still afraid to put himself out there and let himself go because of a past heartbreak.

I just can't wait around forever for him to grow some balls and move on.

It hurt so much more than I thought it would. I guess a part of me always knew it wouldn't be forever. It couldn't be, right? No way would I meet an Englishman on a chatroom, fall in love, and it be the love of my life, forever and ever, amen?

A part of me, the heart of me... says it could very well have been. And I've just kissed it good-bye. I know no one saw it as a legitimate series of feelings between him and I. I know no one understood it and everyone was just humoring me by listening to me sway and swoon over him. But you weren't there when he'd talk to me, make me laugh, listen to what I had to say, remember things about my life even I had forgotten I had told him... he knew of my life, my losses, my gains, my spoils, my love. He had my love. He still does, although I'm trying to make myself sound strong.

I don't want to be alone again. Though technically I was the whole time because he was there and I'm here, but now I'm totally alone. I have no one to share my joys with, to hang out with, to share my thoughts and ideas and feelings and wonderings and life with...

He means so much to me. Can it really be over before it ever had a chance to begin?

I'm so mixed up right now. I just want to go back to a few months ago when we'd talk everyday and have so much carefree fun. I didn't think all that much about meeting him or not meeting him. I was just happy. Why did I get so caught up in what I thought we SHOULD be doing as opposed to enjoying what we were?

I just don't know.

I'm trying to make myself understand that I've lost him. He's said his goodbyes and I'm pretty sure he's not coming back. I already miss him more than I can stand.

So if you see me and I look sad... that's why. I don't want to talk about it or discuss it or be given your pity for it. I can deal with it on my own, I did this to myself. I let myself fall when I knew damned well I shouldn't... now I have to pick myself up, shove my heart back in my chest, and move on. Wish me luck.

Ghosts, Ghouls, and Gaining Weight. :(

I love how the dying leaves smell. I love the way they playfully dance along the sidewalk, so beautiful and colorful and elegant, even after life has fled them. I love the healthy crunch under my toe as I walk over them. I love the windy weather and bright blue skies overhead. I love the thrill of wondering what ghoul or ghostie may be waiting to jump out from around the next corner. I love the fall.

J'aime l'automne. Oui, j'aime beaucoup l'automne.

The fall is my favorite time of the year. Halloween is my favorite holiday. Everything about this time of the year makes me smile, breathe in deeply through my nose, and let out the breath slowly and calmly. The environment available in Autumn soothes me, even though working full-time and going to school full-time can be incredibly arduous. But as soon as I walk out of a building into a crisp Autumn breeze, the worries and stresses seem to be able to melt away.

I wish I could say the same about the pounds around my waist...

Unfortunately, due to my insane daily schedule, working out has been pushed to the back burner. So has grocery shopping and cooking... Unfortunately, for the past month I've been neglecting to work out and neglecting to avoid fast food drive-thrus. Honestly, it's the only way I've been able to eat, seeing as how I literally go from school to work every single day. I'm determined to break this vicious cycle before it allows any more pounds to make their way back onto my body.

I know I've gained weight since school started. Honestly I don't know how much exactly because I'm terrified to step onto a scale. I'm terrified to see how far I've actually let myself go. This week is the end of that cycle, as I said. This week is the end of letting all my progress slip out the window. I can't go back to where I was. I simply can't and won't let that happen.

Determination will squeeze that extra time into each day where I can make home-made meals and fit in a work out every day. I will do this and be successful. I'm more than ready to lose more weight and get healthier! I can't keep letting my schedule hold myself back. The buck stops here!

Lost and Don't Know Where to Look

My life feels very much like it's out of my control. I feel like my priorities are not my own, and the world or fate or destiny or God or something outside of my own body is rolling the dice and my luck is running out. It seems that almost all of my decisions are turning out wrong. It's gotten so bad, that people are commenting that I look half-asleep all the time and they can't believe how calm I am about everything that's happening because I should be freaking out.

The truth is... I've run out of tears. I've run out of voice. I've run out of motivation. I've run out of energy. I don't have anything left in me to care. I simply can't get angry or sad or mad or anymore. I'm doing good to get up and get on with life. If I let myself concentrate on all the pressures currently pushing on me, I'd sit still, stare into nothingness and let the world move forward without me.

Because I'm at that point... I'm ready to give up.

I keep having nightmares about having to move back into my parent's house. I keep having nightmares about not having the money for rent. I keep having nightmares about not having a car.

These aren't just figments of my imagination. They are very close to being reality and I don't know what to do. Although school is the only positive thing happening in my life right now, if I knew what I know now at the time of registration, I would have put it off at least another semester if not a whole extra year. I didn't know, of course, that I would buy a car and the car wouldn't run a week without needing over $500 worth of repair and then STILL not run properly. I didn't know that the Sherman Mitton Bridge would shut down and so it would cost more gas, more time, and more stress on my already busted car. I didn't know that my lifestyle would have to change. I didn't know. I wish I had somehow known...

I miss being happy healthy Gina. I miss losing weight and feeling great about myself. I miss being in control of my life, feeling like I could live for me. Now I'm living for IKON, I feel like. I'm living for the almighty dollar. I have to stress out about having a car so I can get back and forth to work and school, mainly because of money. If I drop out of my classes now, I will fail them all because it's too late to Withdraw. If I fail all my classes, I lose my scholarship money and will have to pay for this semester, and every other semester from here on out, out of pocket. Obviously I can't quit my job, because without a job I can't pay rent or buy food or put gas in the car that will get me back and forth to school.

I owe Mom a thousand dollars for my car. I owe my credit card company almost $700 for the repairs to my car. I owe IUS $0.80. I know, that's a comical amount, but I can't pay it online so I have to go into the Bursar's Office and everyday that goes by makes the amount inch higher and higher because it gathers late fees.

Finances are killing me. I don't sleep well, I only eat fast food anymore, in the car, on the way to or from work or school. I haven't worked out since August. I feel like such shit, I'm gaining weight, I hate myself and where my life is at the moment. I just want to give up. I don't know how much longer I can logically keep going on this rollercoaster ride. I'm fed up and I want to get off.

I know everyone has problems. They have kids to feed, bills to pay, diseases to live with or conquer, prejudices to overcome and so on and so on. But these are the problems I have and they seem so much bigger than me. My bank account hasn't been this low since I worked at McAlisters or the science center. I've always had a few grand extra in the bank to fall back on. Well... I've fallen back on them and it hurt. Now I'm struggling to get back up and I'm afraid I won't be able to.


I wish I could wake up from this bad dream...

I want to go back to getting enough sleep every night... to having extra money in my bank account... to losing weight, working out, and eating healthy home-made meals... to hanging out with friends on a weekly basis... to being able to smile and laugh and have fun without my eyes giving away the fact that my mind is constantly worrying about everything in the background...

I want to go back to living and being me while doing it. I'm tired of being this shell-Gina, this emotionless statue of worry and anxiety. I wish I could go back and never buy that car. Or go back and wait another semester on school. Or go back just to go back. I was happy three months ago. I was in love, I was becoming a healthier person, I was waking up and looking forward to the sunrise and the new day.

Now my alarm goes off and the first emotion I feel is an unrelenting urge to roll over, cry, and scream to the world to just go away and leave me alone.

But the world doesn't listen, and thus... I trudge on.

Shoe Shopping!

I feel so very guilty right now. I'm not in the best financial state, what with two cars needing major repair and having to drive my brother's truck which takes about $15 every day in gas to get me to school and work throughout the week... yet, when a classmate invited me out today after our writing class for Arby's and then a Payless trip... I went! And I spent money on food and then $50 on two pairs of shoes!

I feel like such shit right now. The shoes are cute, but I really only wanted one pair, but felt compelled to buy two since they were buy one, get one 1/2 off. The ones I really wanted were more expensive, so I got the cheaper ones. I feel like the classmate was rushing me a little bit, and I should have just declined the offer to even go to the shoe store, let alone let myself be pushed a bit into buying two pairs of shoes. I need more of a backbone. I guess since I haven't made any new friends since starting school, I was quite flattered and excited that she seemed to want to chat to me outside of class and hang out. Plus, I haven't done anything majorly girly in ages, so shoe shopping sounded like fun.

I just wish she hadn't rushed me and I should have said no to the shoes. I should have shopped around at other stores until I found a pair of shoes that I really really liked and gone for those! But... now I'm stuck with these shoes. I'll work them, don't you worry!

Here are the boots I bought, specifically to go with leggings. I love wearing leggings, I guess the hipster look that is in right now works for my body type... leggings and loose-fitting tops! I'm down!

Ignore how dirty the mirror is and that I had to put a beach towel on the floor to create some contrast between the shoes and the floor, LOL.

And here are the moccasins I also got:

And, finally, a close-up of the boots. I wanted cuter ones, but these were pretty comfortable, so I went with it! :D