All is Well, Sort Of...

I'm almost hesitant to post that all is well. It seems to me that every time I state on my blog that everything is great, I find myself eating inhaling my third bowl of granola over the sink late the next evening! Is it some sort of weird self sabotage? Am I afraid that if, someday, I proclaim myself healed and "normal", I'll have nothing to put my energies into? Do I like being unhappy? I don't think I do. Maybe it's more that my eating issues help take the focus off the fact that I'm not happy now. I'm not exactly unhappy. I love my husband and our relationship is fine, I love my children, I have a nice home....but I'm having some sort of midlife crisis (albeit a bit past "mid-life", since I'll be 46 next week!). I am BORED. Every day is a repetition of the day before. Get up, walk the dog, exercise, eat, go to work, come home, cook, eat, read the paper, check email, go to bed. Repeat. On the weekends -- run errands, shop for groceries, clean the house, go to some family function.... I can't summon much enthusiasm to do anything fun, either. I took my girls to the lake on Friday, and I sat in a chair and read for 4+ hours. I never even put my feet in the water. We haven't gone to the zoo or the water park or anything fun this summer. When I'm home, I just feel like staying home.

Am I depressed? I don't really *feel* depressed. Perhaps I just need to start forcing myself to do more. I'm almost afraid to say this, but I also wonder if I'd be ten times happier if I could quit my job. I don't hate my job, but I don't enjoy working. That doesn't make sense, but it's true. I like doing storytime and helping kids. I like working at the desk, helping people find things. However, I just dread going in to work every day and rejoice when I have a doctor's appointment or something that takes me away for an hour or two. By 3:30pm, I'm so bored and restless that I want to run screaming from the building. Part of it is a few coworkers who drive me CRAZY due to a lack of work ethic and assorted personality quirks that really aren't their fault. It is mostly the work ethic, though. I've actually gone so far as to confess my misery to my boss, who has said he will change things, but change never happens. It's hard to summon enthusiasm when sitting next to someone who spends several hours surfing the Internet, looking at religious websites. I feel pretty trapped, though. I have been with the library for 18 years, and am looking at quite a nice pension if I stay a dozen more. Tim paid off our combined student loans only 5 or 6 years ago, and I can't face the idea of going back to school AND working. Not that I have any idea what else I would do. Ay yi yi. My only hope is that the youth librarian who works at the library a few miles from my house retires soon. I would definitely apply for her job. She is about 60, so there is hope. There would be a LOT of competition for her job, but if I don't try, I have no chance, right?

Enough whining. Otherwise, life is good...mostly. I'm doing well with my plan to eat healthfully enough to ditch my cholesterol medication, though I still struggle when I make a fabulous dessert for a family function. I sometimes can eat only a few bites, savor it, and feel fine. Other times, I've eaten way too much and then felt awful (physcially and mentally). I weighed 155.4 this morning, which is the lowest number I've seen for a while. I went for a long time last year without weighing myself at all, but I think I'm about where I was last summer before we went on vacation and I OD'd on ice cream and came home with tight clothes. I've been eating about 1200 calories net (subtracting a modest amount from my total calories for exercise), and haven't been at all hungry. Yes, I am counting calories. I feel like a big traitor to the intuitive eating movement in some ways, but so far it hasn't proven to send me over the edge into bingeing/starving territory. There have been a few weeks when I realized that I was suddenly overexercising to be able to eat more, but the awareness nipped it in the bud.

I'm having physical therapy for an issue with my hip that started a couple of months ago. Today was the first day I felt like it didn't hurt as much, so maybe I've turned the corner (fingers crossed). We leave for vacation in 10 days or so (going to Alaska and Washington), and I imagine the lack of exercise while gone may help my joint heal.