Failure Is Not an Option…

So I have a goal for the end of this month: to feel (and noticeably look) more fit. I would like to be able to say that I am only motivated by personal improvement… but I’m not that noble! Mr Horrible is arriving for a visit, and Lord knows I don’t want to be found worse off than when I left! I gained 20 lbs since I moved here to Texas. I know I sank into an unhealthy depression, after the big move, the trauma from the move, and emotions (mine and the children’s) crashed on me all at once. It doesn’t make me feel better to see the evidence of my downfall upon my frame, especially now as I have emerged from my funk.
A semi-hostile living environment coupled with comfort eating, the gain was inevitable. In an effort to make a healthy change for the long term, since the beginning of classes I began hitting the gym three times a week. I could do more, eventually I will, but I’m trying to set myself up for success, not failure. It is illogical not to show up at the gym during those three days. The gym is located a few minutes down the same road as my campus. It would be too obviously lazy of me to skip when I am already there in the area. So I show up to classes with my gym clothes on.  I can’t make the excuse that I don’t feel like changing if I don’t have to change! I am enabling good choices in the future removing obstacles that could keep me from being successful! It’s been two weeks and so far so good. I can feel the difference in the clothes I wear already. Small changes they might be, they are still motivating.

I have conflicting feelings about his upcoming visit.  I am happy for my kids. I expect they will be happy to see him. His visit is a surprise. However, I feel as if it’s invading  my privacy. I have felt so liberated from his scrutiny since I left him. The peace I worked so hard to cultivate in my apartment, in my corner of the world of Texas is going to be infiltrated by the enemy.

I pray that he will be on his best behavior, he wouldn’t do it for me, but maybe he has enough decency to think of the children. He has no idea what I am up to, or even that I have gone back to school. There is so much about my life I want to keep sequestered from him.  The fallout of his affair that devastated me the most was knowing that he told her everything about me. I wasn’t told much about his first wife. He didn’t go on and on about her with me. I know he told this bitch everything that had to do with me, down to intimate details of our marital life. It left me feeling completely violated.

Letting him into this part of my life is tantamount to having that damage continue.  So I am a stressed out about that.  When stressed,  I tend to eat comfort foods. I am trying to lose weight and eat healthy, any setbacks layer guilt onto the stress, causing more stress… It’s a vicious cycle.  I beat myself up because I ate chicken fingers all weekend knowing damn well that fried foods are only undoing all the work I did the week prior. So I’ll do great all week, but ruin it come the weekend. It sucks.

I will endeavor these coming weeks to keep it together. I will only feel worse if the date comes of his arrival and I am no further than when I started. I would have let me down and that is unacceptable. I have to, in the end, do this for me and me alone!