oconfessionario's Journal

Jan 2007
6:17 PM EDT

I just got this really great idea. Instead of working out in the recycled central heating, I am going to do what I really want to do. I would feel the best about myself if I were able to walk, alone and without distraction, out in the open air, no matter the temperature (that's what coats/gloves are for) rather than in a boring gym. I'm still going to walk in the afternoons, like I have been working out, but around places in the town where I live that I've yet to explore. Maybe I'll walk a new route each week, and on Saturday, go out searching for a new path somewhere that's safe, out of the way of traffic and beautiful. :) This is going to be great! In addition to this goal, I am really striving my best to stick to 1200 calories per day and plan my days around that. And to push out all the "cant's" because no matter how badly I want to buck my own standards and desires, I know that the future me will thank me a million times over for my efforts during the journey. BTW, www.fitday.com is an awesome resource for anyone trying to get in shape (personalized journal/calorie counter/exercise log/nutrient content all in one)

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1 comment(s) - 10:11 AM - 01/27/2007

Jan 2007
9:40 AM EDT

This too shall pass. -The Bible, somewhere...about the King of Solomon. This saying is very fitting for a personal struggle I've dealt with for as long as I can remember. I've uncovered recently that the key to not suffering, is to not be aware or not think about one's suffering. As I've mentioned before, I'm very prone to wallowing, and ruminating in sorrow. This personal struggle that I'm writing about is centered around something so natural and everyday and yet has become for me an enduring carnival-esque hell of sorts. I'm talking about FOOD of course. The F word. In writing about this, I'm attempting very much not to allow myself to ruminate on what a struggle it has been, rather to gain insight and perspective so as to continue with good habits and patterns and let passing phases lie where they are. To be con'td.

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Jan 2007
2:01 PM EDT

Today was the first day of classes. I also got an email from the registrar saying that I needed to take 18 hours (a full load, and more hours than I've ever taken) in order to graduate in May. I had to frantically find two classes that would fit with both work and class schedule, and I did, Latin and Sociology. They're early morning classes, which is going to be hard to get up for, but at least they might be somewhat interesting (I hope...) and they don't mess up the rest of the day. Anyway, that really kind of stressed me out because I hate feeling like I'm not choosing where I'm at, and I certainly didn't choose to have this many hours. I had already planned for this semester to be a busy one, and now it seems doubly so. I don't know how I'm going to study for all this, but somehow I always manage. I'm already typing up the notes for Biology, and I made an appt to talk to someone from the Career center to figure out what I should do after graduating, and how to make those plans a reality (so I can break it to my dad) and then I made a counselling appointment starting next week, every other week. I don't have money for books yet though, so I'm going to have to call my dad and ask for some, since HT paycheck isn't going to cut it probably. And I just checked my bank account, and the stupid check that I deposited on Saturday still hasn't gone in, so after I went grocery shopping yesterday and bought some other things, it's in the negative, but hopefully they will clear that up and not charge an overdraft fee. If they do, I can still go in and talk to someone about it, it's just one more annoying task. Now I need to get dressed warmly and get myself to the gym. Maybe I'll go visit my friend Brittany who should be back on campus by now--I can't wait to see her!

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Jan 2007
1:02 PM EDT

Today is just not going the way I wanted it too. I was successful in finding a pair, no, two pair of sneakers and got some workout pants and mousse at Target with Nyssa but for some reason, this day just doesn't feel fulfilling. Now I am trying to get my room cleaned up and organized before I have to babysit tonight and classes start tomorrow. I was talking to Nyssa about the things I don't really like about living with a room-mate. And I really don't like to even think about those things, because I know how lucky I am to live where I do, and that Kelly is so nice, even though I do have a few pet peeves, which I'm sure she does too. And also, I think last night eating that burrito, it was too much food, and then the crackers, I'm just wondering what possesses me to eat so much in 1 setting. And I know what it is--duh, boredom! Of course I didn't think of that before. I should have just read my book and went to bed, but no I ate pbj crackers instead. I did also find a coat too, which I'm really excited about! So really, I'm all set to get started working out now. The coat is on it's way, I've got workout pants and shoes, and I can start walking again! Also when I was talking to Nyssa I just realized how much I want to help her adopt a healthier attitude towards things and you just can't do that for someone, they have to come to things on their own. I just don't want to discourage her by my own progress, whether good or bad. And I don't want to get sucked back into the mindset of letting my environment and who I'm with control me, because it doesn't. I think that's why I'm happiest and healthiest when I'm spending a lot of time on my own, and I'm constantly working or sticking to a schedule. I am glad that I am babysitting for the Harts again tonight. And I am going to make good (for the second time) on not eating everything in sight, and esp. staying away from sugars which I know are the worst things I could eat right now. Today my little temptations card is really not going to get filled up so far. I've eaten so much... 2 eggs, 2 pckts oatmeal at bfast 1/2 burrito, salsa, 1/2 c butter beans 1 c. rice chex, 2 c. 2% organic milk 1 english muffin, 2 tbs peanut butter Woah. I do feel encouraged to be a good role model for Nyssa though. I want to start walking right away, tomorrow morning. God, please help me to make good on these goals. I'm sorry I was ignoring your guidance when I was eating earlier today. I let the beast get to me again today. But I know that I will win because I could feel it today, that you are going to help me. I'm going to finish cleaning up, start a load of laundry, and then get all the garbage out of my car. Tomorrow, I'm going to get up at 7, walk around the neighborhoods from 7:30 to 8:30 or so, or go to the gym. Then I'll have time to shower from 9 until 10 and eat breakfast, and then make it to class at 1050. I have Bio and Lab tomorrow. I'm kind of nervous too, about talking to someone and figuring out what the hell I'm going to do about graduating. It's scary to think that I have to decide all this, well before May gets here. Yikes! But I really trust that God will give me the guidance, and he's going to help me find out what I'm doing this summer. I keep going back and forth with the bookselling thing, and right now it's back. Alright, time to get productive.

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Jan 2007
7:54 PM EDT

I just watched the movie Amelie for the 5th or 6th time. In my opinion, everyone should see that film. And not only see it, but every 3 months or so. Just to be reacquainted with the beauty of life when you notice the small things. I wasn't able to wake up in enough time to go to the little Great Redeemer Episcopal church at the bottom of the hill near my house today. I've only been there once, but I do want to make it a habit, I enjoyed it. Tomorrow is the only free day I'll have in a long time, and I'll be babysitting tomorrow night, so I need to use it wisely. I want to get my room and the rest of the apartment cleaned before classes begin Tuesday and I have barely a spare moment. This semester I have such a busy schedule, classes, studying, 2 jobs, babysitting on the side, and my plan to work out 4 days a week. Plus my goal is to read 50 books this year, which means I need to read 1 per week. I do love it when my life is busy though, and reading a lot helps me not to ruminate! In trying to keep up my goal to eat healthier this year, I made a little 'temptations card'. You know how you can get those little cards at coffee shops where they punch out a number each time you buy a drink and then when all of the numbers are punched out, you get a free drink? Well, I wrote on an index card, Temptations, and then for each time that I resist a temptation instead of indulging mindlessly and feeling worse later, I put a foil star sticker on it, and write the date and a tiny note to the side like 'cookie at work' to represent what I resisted. Then when I fill the entire card up with stars, I will reward myself with something. For xmas, from my boss at work, I got a gift certificate to Target, so maybe when I fill up the card, I will find a way to use it. That way I'm not spending too much money either. I am also trying to spend money more wisely, on things that I really love, that will last and I will cherish forever. There's so many little essential things that I could really do without anyway. Like for instance, diet soda. I may as well break that habit and not spend the money, since it's not doing any real good anyway. Think how much that would add up after awhile. Instead of soda I am going to start drinking iced tea, but unsweetened, and with raspberry tea instead of regular. I think that would be really good. Sugar is so overrated. And such a monster, really. Also I am going to start walking in the mornings again, because I remember I loved that. I feel content, for the first time in a long while.

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Jan 2007
9:02 PM EDT

Well, this is a good place to write this amazing story that happened tonight! When I was a little girl, about 12 years ago, a neighbor of my family's took care of me and my little sister until my third little sister was born and then she went to work at a bakery. She was a very important part of my childhood as I remember it. She was an amazing chef and a diehard Christian and I have many fond memories of staying at her house, being babysat by her 16 year old daughter Robin and the many delicious recipes she would cook for us. Then she moved out to Colorado and we moved out to Michigan. We lived in the same neighborhood in Maryland. Somehow we got the wrong address, and have been out of touch unfortunately for several years. Still, every year, my parents send a Christmas card to the CO address they gave us, just hoping against hope it might not be returned. But it always does get sent back. In particular, there are three things we remember about Mrs. R's culinary talents: French toast, this wonderful stuff called Spaghetti Pizza that is to die for and my mom's favorite, an almond raspberry layer cake. Since then, we've tried in vain, so many times to recreate those recipes. So anyway, back to the AMAZING story. Last we heard of the R's, they were in CO and we had no way of telling them when my dad found a job in NC almost 8 years ago. Now I go to school four hours away from home in the mountains of NC and just this past fall, I took a part time job working a grocery store on the opposite side of town from where I live. All of these things culminate into the experience I'm about to tell you! Meanwhile, Robin, the daughter, has married, had two little girls and is 9 months pregnant with her third baby girl. Her husband was offered, and accepted a job teaching math at a small private school in the mountains of NC, moving from their previous home in Pennsylvania. Mrs. R comes to stay with Robin to see her third grandchild born, and the little family I once knew and very much loved decides to go grocery shopping, at least 45 minutes out of the way, at the very same grocery store that I happened to still be employed at (which is miraculous in and of itself since I very much wanted to quit at the end of last year). Had Mrs. R not been visiting and been with Robin at that moment though, I never would have recognized Robin, since she was so pregnant and so different seeming from the teenager who took me the pool and the grocery store to get pints of pistachio ice cream. Surely my babysitter couldn't be pregnant, and with a family! Thats just how memory works. But no, Mrs. R was with her. And the reason I even noticed was because there was a woman standing near the register I was working at talking on her cell phone. And as I happened to look over and notice this woman, I thought, WOW she looks JUST like Mrs. R! But No, couldnt possibly be her, that was over a decade in Germantown MD. My mind is just playing tricks. But she stood there for a while, just talking on her cell phone, 10 feet from where I was working and the more I tried to prove to myself that it wasn't her, the more I picked up on the phrases she used to say (Well, frankly...) and then as she walked off, I smelled her perfume, and although I never would have guessed I still remembered that, the scent itself was exactly Mrs. R's! IT IS HER! By the time they got up to my register, I was shaking, I was so excited to meet my beloved Mrs. R again!!! Long story short, it was a dramatic reuniting filled with lots of laughter, a few tears of joy and whole lot of hugging, in the middle of the grocery store!!! I called my family, including my younger sister to tell them the news right after I got off work tonight. They just couldn't believe it either. Part of the reason this experience was so amazing is because just recently, I came to believe, for several reasons, that God does exist, and only in the last few weeks have I started to realize certain things through a lot of different epiphanies I've had which have culminated in the gift of faith, I believe. I had a lot of holes of doubt throughout high school and into college, until the fragile blanket of belief I had lovingly treasured became like a child's favorite, tattered and torn until there was absolutely nothing left. And then for some reason, very recently after I started talking to a counselor, convinced that my life was falling apart, I had three seperate epiphanies that restitched that blanket to something tangible, and now that blanket of faith not only exists again, but is embellished with a miracle. When I saw Mrs. R tonight, it was like God saying, 'See, Caley?? I really am here, watching out for you.' And although God doesn't provide miracles everyday, he helps us along while our faith is still weak as long as we're willing to pay attention. And I am ready and willing to pay attention. But he always leaves it up to us from there. It's just a preliminary push, so we can be absolutely certain that we're not crazy for believing in angels and glory and the Cross and Satan. Thank you, God. This was beyond anything I could ever think to ask for. God, you've not only blessed my life, but my whole family's as well. HALLELUJAH!

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Jan 2007
10:30 AM EDT

Here I am again, yet another online journal. There's no telling how many I have now, floating out there in the cyberworld universe... No matter. The inspiration is always novel (at least to me), and I am here to tell all, for once and for all, the daily thoughts, plans, dreams, ideas, rantings, etc. however menial that characterize my life on Earth. I'm hoping I'll be completely honest here, so that I can read over my words and decipher for myself what I think I should do or become or whatever other benefit journal writing has. The only rule is: Everything goes. Shall we begin? I believe that my fatal flaw is rumination. Not just on negative things, which tend to eat me away while I torture myself needlessly, but with positive things as well. Until I obsess and beat to death a dream or idea with the blunt force object of 'someday' thinking. I've realized, recently that the entire realm of the 'someday' does not really exist, and not only is it a pretend matter, but it is a cruel tease as well. People can be ruined by their dreams; I know this. This process can be summed up in one deceivingly beautiful word: disillusionment. Of course, ruminating on negative things is also terrible, while maybe not quite as bad as ruminating on the positive. It makes those stabs of physical pain all the more unbearable, heartache a precipice to suicide, self-doubt an undefeatable and grotesque monster. The point being, for the past several years of my life, spanning through adolescence and well into early adulthood, I have had a very strong but vague feeling that life had at some point become for my soul, completely unfulfilling. But until recently I did not realize that I truly was my own worst enemy, or those inner demons were (but in the end, I listened to them, so it was me that became the real tyrant after all). Rumination: to chew again or over and over. "I let the beast in and then I even tried forgiving him but it's too soon so I'll fight again again again again again" -Fiona Apple "We're human beings, not human doings" -Someone said, as referenced to me by my very kind counselor When rumination becomes a daily evil, it grows and festers until it inhabits your every waking moment. Before you can realize what's happening, your mind has been completely consumed with the waste of unappreciated ideas, life-solutions ("what was so wrong with my life in the first place?" you'll never think to ask), self-doubt, worry, judgments and is devoid of joy or any other remotely recognizable emotion. All of a sudden you've been completely stripped bare of what you never had to work for or think about or self-motivate for to begin with. I think it comes with the territory of leaving childhood. We think we must forsake all of our carefree ways if we ever want to get anywhere, become someone, do something with our lives. And that's where a foreign, but easily recognizable face makes his way in. The first demon of subtlety paves the way for the demon whose evil is apparent from any facet, and yet once he makes a home for himself, deep beneath your skin, by the time you've discovered another presence, the water is so deep and dark and freezing cold, that it seems, since you have no choice in the matter anyway, might as well take the plunge and discover that liquid submerged world below. Come on in, the water feels fine. I lay in bed at night, close my eyes, and try to find solitude from the menacing thoughts and circumstances I've conjured, all in mental picture shadowboxes, with their own completely separate connotations. All I can see in my mind's eye is a kaleidoscope of strange people popping up here and there, doing completely understandable but not quite identifiable things. Sometimes there are objects, environments, situations. To say the least, it isn't quite pleasant. To feel that I have no control over what comes in, because I certainly didn't ever see that person before in my life, how did she get there? Maybe... I've concluded, they're just my demon's other victims. While I'm content to lie in a bed for several hours rest, he simply plugs in a tape, a cinematic collage of all the different spirits he's tormented in a day, and is then free to torture others. Surely a demon never rests. Awareness, to him, is the brink of destruction. But the battle is never over, especially not while my lungs still pump air, my heart beats and my mind is washed over in experience after emotion after mental illness. I'll continue this train of thought later, when I'm feeling more in control of where it's headed. For now it's all a little too much for me, I write as I uncover all the mysteries plaguing my spirit, and I feel as though I've discovered too much truth for one sitting.

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1 comment(s) - 07:13 PM - 01/12/2007

oconfessionario's Profile

Username: oconfessionario

Gender / Age: Female, 40

Location: USA - North Carolina

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OCONFESSIONARIO's Interests:

About Me: I'm a senior in college, majoring in Spanish. I'd like to someday spend time in another country teaching English or something like that. I'm not really ready to graduate. I want to get a masters/teaching license first in TEFL. I started out doing Elem. Edu. but I don't think that's for me, I do want to teach though. For now the biggest thing, is figuring out where to go next!

Interests: Reading, writing, babysitting, walking, kickboxing, skiing

Favorite Movies: Amelie, Brokedown Palace, Shawshank Redemption, Sean Connery 007 movies, anything with Grace Kelly, lots of old movies on AMC, Edward Scissorhands, Matilda, Requiem for a Dream, 28 Days Later

Favorite Television: CSI Las Vegas, Nip/Tuck, That 70's Show, Unsolved Mysteries, Family Matters, Full House and the old TGIF show lineup (man I miss that program!) and of course, What Not To Wear

Favorite Books: God-Shaped Hole, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, Something Wicked This Way Comes, White Oleander, Patron Saint of Liars, This Much I Know Is True, The Arms of God

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