Over the last 3 years I have come to realize that the the anticipation of an anniversary, holiday, birthday is usually much worse than the actual day. Do not get me wrong it doesn't make the day hurt any less but the days leading up to them hurt much much worse.

Yesterday wasn't terrible.

It was filled with love from friends and family, texts, cards, Facebook messages, a wonderful dinner and a few hands of cards and one very special video that was randomly posted by a group of friends that I have managed to alienate over the years but who I adore as much as always. There were no tears at the sight of my De gazing on in confusion at a group of women acting quite silly. Just a smile of remembrance of a good time and how much she loved spending time with us, even when we were acting a fool. I can hear her laugh in my heart.

With each passing day she is missed more and that is a battle I feel I am going to have to fight for the remainder of my life. That leaves me here wondering whats Life even for or about? I don't know. I am not going to pretend to, but what I have to believe is there is a purpose. There is a gift in my life to share. That I will be home soon and some of edge of this hurt will ease enough to explore the what for, the what now, the how can I be a good human.

I think part of the fear of being yet another year older is I am running out of time. At 45 I wonder, will I always be fat? How many more years are left to lose this weight? How much longer will I even be able to run? At 45 I wonder, will I make a difference in the world? Is there time left to be something special? Is there time to be a gift?

My life is consumed completely and totally in getting back to the beach and trying to make it to the end of each day through this sadness. I feel like it is all just slipping by and until I get back on my ground I can't seem to stop it. At night I wonder sometimes, was that the last day? What will they say I accomplished? Will they remember anything I have done? Did I leave a legacy? 

My birthday wish... Please don't let it be too late.

Much Love,
Re

The last two days have been sad. My birthday is Monday. I know you are thinking so what does that have to do with anything. Well you see I remember my last birthday with Deanna vividly. We all went to dinner at Bernie's and she had made this cake. She spent the day making and decorating a cake while I spent the day at the beach. Dark chocolate because "it was healthier". It is a beautiful sweet memory that just brings floods of tears because I know she won't ever deliver another cake so proudly. I know that I won't hear "Happy Birthday Mommy I love you!" ever again.

It's been 4 years since that day.

I turn 45 in 3 days. At 45 one would think they would be settled and straight and be where they should be. Not me. Not Re. Why because I always have to do things the hard way. I can actually hear my mother in my head. "Why do you always have to do everything the hard way?" I think she always assumed that I saw another way and just chose the hardest. Either way, here I am not where I belong, not where I am happy.

Some part of me believed I would be home for my birthday. That I would be celebrating with Kami the day before as usual. That I would be sending Lisa a text of our birthday cake. I thought I would be doing 45 somethings at bootcamp. I was wrong.

Par for the course I am just heartbroken. How can I still be so utterly LOST?

Other than just believing that the problems will be resolved and I will be home soon, what are ways you get through times that you just don't see the way out of?

Much Love
Re

Ok the title of this just popped in my head as I was typing and I don't think it has much of anything do to with this post, or maybe it does.

As I sit here and think of Peace, Love, Laughter, Miracles and the American Dream I feel as if they all have one glaring thing in common. I have not seen any of them in quite awhile. I don't know when the last time I felt true peace, loved without fear, laughed with reckless abandon, witnessed a miracle and felt it, and as for the American Dream I really don't even know what that is for me because I have no desire for a husband, 2.5 kids, a picket fence, and a dog... ok ok maybe the dog. :). So herein lies the question, do these things not exist simply because I don't see or feel them?

I am going to have to go with yes, they are there, all around, each and every day, the darkness just has them in the shadows. It is as if the Goodies are in fear of the Darkness and hiding until it is safe. The little goodies are peaking around bushes to see if Darkness has passed by. It's odd isn't it? When we need the Goodies the most they seem to hide, they appear to be have left us in our greatest time of need. It feels like those things have forsaken you.

It feels like God has forsaken you.

So what do you do? For a few years now I think my only answer to that would be "I dunno" and I don't know if I really didn't know or just that the Darkness took so much away, I am not in a place yet to even dig into that. What I can tell you today is the only thing I know you can do in the middle of all of that Darkness is Believe. Personally I don't care if your belief is in a rock with a red ribbon tied around it at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean if you can just believe in something you can not see for just long enough to get to the beginning of the end of the Darkness you will be able to start seeing all of those things that have been hiding in the shadows, you will once again feel love, joy, you will witness miracles and cry happy tears, peace will surround you and you will finally feel like you have returned home after a journey through hell.

As for me I will put my faith and belief in God.

Some may wonder why I would chose to do that even after all of these months of darkness and feeling so hopeless, useless, worthless. Well I will tell you from my point, I know that I alone didn't have the strength or even self worth to get through this, and while no I can not see God, I know something has been dragging me along. I kinda figure he was too busy getting me through it so he didn't have time to show me sunshine and happiness along the way, but that day is coming. It's always darkest before the dawn

Much Love,
Re

PS If you are in the darkness .. believe in something! Even if its the rock!

PSS I named my house at the beach. Ray of Hope

On the very day we are born a journey begins, for some it is a very long journey of many trial, tribulations,  joys and blessings along the way, for others it is incredibly too short for the hearts of those they leave behind, but we all begin a journey.  None of us know what the journey holds or where it may take us but we take the steps necessary to move forward.

Each of us has faith, yes each and every person has faith. If not we would all remain slugs who never learned to walk, talk, or feed ourselves. Think about it.. as you are taking your first step you have hope that you won't fall, that all your hard work will get you to where you need to be, you put faith in your parents they will help you up if you do stumble, and you continue to have faith you will get it even if you have to try again. If we didn't we would all still be crawling. Just look how far you came on that little bit of hope and faith! Good Job You!

Life is basically a series of "Hey I am trying to learn how to walk over here!"s. We have hope that we are doing what is right to get us where we want to be, that all of our hard work will pay off, we hope that we won't fall, and we have faith in a Higher Power or even ourselves that we will be able to get back up and try again if we stumble.  I lost all that faith and I had no hope.

I didn't believe enough in myself to even believe that God would help me and I stumbled along for a very long time. Each and every step I made even when it was helping others in need ended in more tumbles and scraped knees. It ended with me screaming like a pre toddler "WHY DO YOU KEEP LETTING ME FALL! WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME? HAVEN'T YOU HURT ME ENOUGH? YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING!!" The problem with all of that is I was screaming into the darkness. I didn't believe I had the strength to make the steps, why would anyone else? I sank so very low that I didn't believe I deserved help from any source. You know what happens when you believe you don't deserve help or love? When it is offered you don't even see it. You don't see the hand reaching out to you to steady your next step, you are too busy feeding the darkness.

I am sitting here right now with a few issues that this portion of my journey has caused. I am over weight and kinda homeless. I distanced myself from my friends, family and my church. So here I am dusting myself off from the rough trail I have been on seeing what I can salvage out of the rubble that has been my life for a few years now.

There are rays of hope that have broken through, friends who still believe in me, family that still loves me, and an answer that God gave that I have faith won't be taken away. So what's my point....

When you're going through hell keep on going, have faith that a hand will reach out and steady your next steps.

Much Love
Re

Hi I am Re, I am a foodaholic, I am a binge eater, I am an emotional eater, I am fat, I am a wall.

On top of all of those things I am also emotionally damaged and depressed. Before anyone gets upset that I am self bashing, I am not, this is merely a fact facing time, so give me some time I will love myself again, just maybe not by the end of this blog.

So what is emotional eating? According to my trust friend Google it is:

Emotional eating is a form of disordered eating and is defined as “an increase in food intake in response to negative emotions” and can be considered a maladaptive strategy used to cope with difficult feelings.

Why do people eating emotionally? Again Mr Google:

Emotional eating is turning to food for comfort stress relief, or as a reward rather than to satisfy hunger. Most emotional eaters feel powerless over their food cravings. When the urge to eat hits, it's all you can think about.

*side note* I have no idea why I think Google is of the male persuasion but I have always referred to it as the trusty Mr Google. Ok then.

I have discussed my inability to stop eating before so this is nothing new to me. However, digging into the why of it all is. Oddly when my friend gave me the book Healing is a Choice I had no idea what it would also touch on weight issues, but it did and one of the statements has stood out to me.

"They don't trust themselves of believe in themselves, and they fear others because of past pain and loss. So gradually they build a wall of weight that becomes their defense against the world. They find comfort in how they feel as a heavy person although they hate the way they look. The weight stays on until they can make the bold move out of defensive isolation and back to healthy connections."

I read and reread the passage. I have a wall of fat.  A wall hiding me away.  When we are kids and we are scared what is the first thing we think of doing? We hide, under the bed, in a closet, behind our mothers knee, we hide. Essentially I have been hiding for a long as I can remember. I was not afraid of anything physically, I was afraid of rejection, I was afraid of pain, I was afraid of being unlovable, I was afraid of not being accepted... on and on and on it went. This goes back as long as I can possibly remember.

I remember being young, too young in fact, and being on a diet that consisted of eating very specific portions of things that I absolutely hated, cottage cheese and beets being two of those things. I remember sitting at the table looking down at this plate of nastiness and saying, "I will throw up if I eat those beets", and that is exactly what happened. I look back at that now and try to understand why a child would be on such an insane diet and all I can remember feeling then was I am fat and not good enough. I am fat and they don't love me. I am fat and I am a failure. You see, I was the only over weight person in a family of 4, I did not fit in.

Being a kid and picking on each other is pretty much a right of passage into your teens and adulthood. I remember the words my brother used, I remember the name he taught his friends to call me. I remember him calling me fat. I remember being called a Wart Hog. I remember eating an entire box of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls while in tears and then thinking that he was right. I remember getting yelled at because I ate the entire box.

*side note* I was no angel so please don't get this twisted in that this is me making everyone else into the bad guy.

From the very beginning of my teenage years, I chose horrible man after horrible man, each just a little more damaging than the next. Sitting back here now typing this I realize that each one of them called me names, each of them called me fat, a pig, disgusting, and so forth and with each name I would eat another doughnut, another piece of cake, another chicken nugget meal. With each one I was damaged further. I was fat so I felt that they were the only men who would be interested, the only ones who would want someone as disgusting as me, another viscous cycle.

In 2011 I was working on healing in many ways. It was a year after losing Little Dustin and a very bitter divorce. I had moved to the Outer Banks and was slowly facing my own demons. I was forging healthy relationships and had left behind some of the nastiest days of my life. I no longer considered myself unrepairable, unlovable, damaged and I was working on the fat part. By July of 2012 I was the smallest I had been in over 15 years (keep in mind that it wasn't all that small but for me 179 was small) I still had a problem with binging but I was working out enough that I off set that a great deal. Less than a year later the bottom would fall out and I would be shutting out anything and everything that tried to get close.

Deanna's death was the ultimate loss, the greatest pain imaginable.  And there is only one way to never have to face pain like that again. Do not let anyone close enough. I began skipping bootcamp and sleeping in, I stopped running half marathons, I stopped running period, I didn't go to the gym, I turned down invites, I alienated my friends, my time spent working out got smaller and smaller and my plate got bigger and bigger, as did my rear end. Pound by Pound I put another brick in my wall of fat. You see I already knew that my family didn't like fat and that would help keep them at arms length, and my friends were all into fitness and healthy so there would be no time or place for the fat girl. If they weren't close to me how could they leave me? If they weren't close to me I couldn't lose them. If they weren't close to me how could they hurt me. Pound by Pound a wall of fat that now has me larger than I have ever been in my life.

I am sure that some of you are reading this and thinking "this is the most insane thing I have ever read."  but let me ask you this. When was the last time that a milk shake ever let you down? When did a cheeseburger walk out and leave? When did a chocolate cake call you names? When did fried chicken give you a black eye? When did a pizza die?

Food has been my one true constant companion through life, through every joy, every sorrow, every loss, every happiness food was there and I am addicted to it. I have traded my running shoes for fat pants, cute tops for something that resembles a tent, bathing suits for shorts and a t shirt. I remember just days after the accident people saying "You have to eat. Eat something you will feel better. It's important that you eat." I did and then I didn't stop, probably because I never felt better. Now, my constant companion the one I thought would never betray me, the one that would never hurt me, has eaten me whole and trying to kill me.

I am Re, I am an emotional eater, I am hidden behind a wall of fat.

What was that about the first step is to admit you have a problem?

Much Love,
Re

Over the last few weeks a series of events have happened that have been enlightening, heart breaking, joyful, fun, sad, lonely, connected... so the emotions have run the gamut. At the end of the day, which happened to be yesterday which is normally considered the beginning of a new week a few things took root and I feel the events allowed my anchor to fall.

When we think of anchors we think of them keeping us stuck correct? Which by the way leads me to question all of those tattoos people have of anchors that say "I will not sink", this is one of the most baffling things to me. Come on people the anchor IS SUPPOSED TO SINK! Nothing about an anchor will keep you afloat, but it will keep you in place, maybe the tattoos should read "I will not drift" ... at any rate.

Last Tuesday I posted on Facebook that I believed that was the day that the answer would come, the way to get me back home to the beach. I will admit that at 7 pm when I got the message that my pretty package with an answer was not happening I was crushed.  I cried again, as I had for days prior, over the latest set back via Facebook message, I got angry again, I shook my fist at the people who betrayed me and assisted in landing me in a financial situation I didn't expect, a situation that left them all with a roof and a home and me borrowing walls and water. That night I couldn't sleep at all and I began reading a book that my sisper suggested. The Law of Divine Compensation, I don't think I was open to the premise of it. I was too badly battered to opening accept anything else that could be painful. I read it with a closed mind to the meaning and only absorbing the parts that made me question things more... or so I thought. 

At some point in the 36 hours after that Facebook message I realized another call had come that day. Unexpected and random, it was not a sure thing, but it was a good solid possibility.  That was my first "well huh.. look at that" thought. An answer DID come that day it just was not wrapped the way that I thought it should be. It was pointed out to me that one of the points of the book I had been reading was to be aware of answers that are not packaged as you originally thought.

After that random phone call I mustered up the courage to call the owner, I relayed part of my story and my needs and asked if she would keep me in mind and disconnected feeling a tad hopeful, but shortly after the clouds of doubt returned "What if she didn't chose me, what if she decided against renting, what if someone offered her more money?" All these things started clouding the answer that came, but one of the things that I did notice was I was not as anxious about this home as the ones that I thought were the answer in the last few weeks, I wasn't frantic for an answer nor did I feel the need to stay on top of the situation each second. The house she has abundantly exceeds my expectations of a home for Drake and I. It would allow me to have guests and an office! I was in utter shock that this opportunity was so closely in grasp.

The following day I received an invite from a dear friend  who had a gift for me and wanted to have dinner the next day. I accepted the invitation, and on Thursday I got to meet her handsome dog Boss, he seemed to like me and demanded love and attention. After a few hugs and pets my friend got down to business. She handed me two books and quickly let me know that they had helped her through the darkest time of her life. We spent hours talking about life, loss, love, gains.. we covered many many things over the course of the evening but one very special statement stood out. "God would not give me the opportunity just to take it away." Without going into her details, my friend had prayed for "One true path" at a time of uncertainty in her life and the path had been provided, some time later circumstances threatened to take her answer away and she realized one thing. " God did not give me this path to just turn around and take it away!" And he didn't, she remains on that path today and has done very well.

I went home that night and started reading to book, Healing is a Choice. The very first chapter was all about how in order to heal we need to be connected. We need to connect with people who understand where we are and the problems we are going through. Some of the key points I found were:

• God's plan is for us to connect with each other to facilitate healing in our lives. 
• To make the first choice of healing is to connect
• You need others and the alienation you experience in your pain blocks them off from you

My thought on this was, "but all of my connections are at the beach, I am not at the beach." I heard in my heart "God did not give you an answer to take it away". It was then that I realized that I had what I thought were connections before, before I left, the issue was I didn't allow those connections to work for me. I isolated myself from working out, from talking about my true feelings, I worked two jobs to the point that there was no time to really truly connect with anyone and deal with the pain of losing Deanna. So while yes the connections were there for me to make at the beach I built up walls and did not allow them to work. How unfortunate is it that now I see I was not using my connections to heal and here I am 3 hours away. "God did not give you an answer to take it away".

The following day I received another invite that I really wanted to turn down. I was just slipping back into an old habit of "I don't feel like it" and in truth I didn't. It is rare that I ever do, but again I bit the bullet and went. Connections happened, talks were had, some revelations were made in my own heart... and still the words "God did not give you the answer to take it away". I turned down a chance to connect with other parents who lost children with the excuse that their stories bury me in sadness and pain. Then the words.. "You need to connect. God did not give you an answer to take it away"

Again the next day an invitation, I accepted, spent a wonderful day with friends, lots of laughs and ended up on strange ground and I was informed that on strange ground you make a wish. I did. Again I hear "God did not give you an answer to take it away."

Sunday morning I started reading the next chapter of the book but I am going to save that for another post because this is getting to be book length and I have not even gotten to the anchor yet.

On Sunday's Daddy and I usually watch Joel before heading in our directions for the day. Yesterday's sermon was on Hope. Something I have been in desperate need of. The sermon was on how we needed to anchor ourselves in hope or we would drift around in uncertainty and that is just during normal times, during stormy times we could sink and drown if not anchored in Hope.  I found this an incredible choice of words because I have often related my depression and life here in Mathews as drowning and I just needed to get back home. I have not been anchored in Hope, Faith, or Prayer for a very long time. I have been drifting and sinking in sadness, depression, darkness, self hatred for months, who am I kidding, years.

"Anchor yourself in Hope, Get Connected, God will not give you the answer to just take it away"

All of these messages have come flying at me over the last week and they led me to this answer last night when the offer of housing that did not fit at all came up:

"This truly is not the answer for me, I am positive that God is working on it for me. On the day that I knew an answer was coming I got a call, it wasn't the one I thought but a random out of the blue call. I truly believe that God gave me this as an answer. It is not finalized but I believe it will be. Pray for understanding and acceptance by the owner and that God will continue to open all doors to get myself, Drake and Banx home to the OBX. I can not believe that God gave me an answer on a day of many prayers only to strip it away and put up walls of rejection. This truly is a miracle and a blessing.  I can be a blessing to the owner and she to us. I believe this is the house of healing and I have even dreamed of a sweet little yellow lab making the story complete. I am remaining anchored in faith, hope and prayer."

So while the solid answer has not come yet and there are a few variables in this, I am positive that it will come. That I will be home at the beach in just a few short weeks. That I will be allowed to reopen myself to the connections that fill me with such love and light there. That the doors to my church will be open to accept me just as broken as I am to help heal me. That my gym and coaches will be there to help me succeed in my journey of this weight loss battle. That my friends will open their arms to hug me and surround me with love and happiness.  That opportunities will exist for me to connect with other parents on this same journey.

I am positive  and anchored in that "God did not give me the answer to take it away"

~in faith and love
Re

I still violently hate that song.. and the movie for that matter, but it got stuck in my head as I was starting this post, so YOU ARE WELCOME! Now you can walk around with that nasty little ear worm all day.

I sit here wondering why it seems so easy for some people to let go of the bad that has happened to them and move on and then for others like me they hold on to it like Rose held on to that plank in the Titanic. I don't really want to hold on to it, it's just there and rears its ugly head and gives me 50 lashes before I even knew it was there.

I am realizing that I need to let go of the pain, the hurt, the heartache, the betrayals, the broken dreams, the lies people told, because my tightened grip on those things is causing me to lose my grip on love, reality, the ability to see a future, and ultimately my life.

It sounds so easy doesn't it? Just let it go and let the sunshine in. Simple. Stop dwelling on the fact that you are no where near where you need to be. Where your love is. Where your life is. Don't think about it. Believe that it will all happen and happen quickly. Believe in that. Believe in it, have faith. So so simple. Just BELIEVE.

Then you scroll through Facebook and you see that you are going to miss another bootcamp, that your bug is growing faster than she should, that beach dates are way out of reach, the knitting store is full of laughter. You wake up for work and before 6:30 am you are sweating in your desk chair because it is so hot, and a quick glance around the room reminds you yet again that your child will never come home. You feel utterly and completely alone because no one gets that you wake up every day praying that it is miracle day and go to bed wondering again why you are so stuck in this place that you don't belong, with your heart broken all over again.

It takes an incredible amount of strength to over look that life is passing by and  you are what feels like a million miles away from it and every move you have made to try to get home wasn't big enough, even after you gave it all you had to give. So letting go... how do you let go of pain and heartache which is like a 3 inch steel wire that not only do you have a hold of but it has a hold of you, wrapping it's way around your arm and straight through your heart and hold on to the guitar string that doesn't even have a knot in the end?

#idontbelonghere

This is Charlie. I think everyone knows who Charlie was, or at the very least knows that Charlie is no longer with me.

In having a conversation today Charlie was brought up and I was able to discuss him for the second time without ending up in buckets of tears. I realized then it was time to honor Charlie.

I am not going to go into details of the day that Charlie joined Deanna in heaven as that is neither here nor there but I do want to say that my sweet boy did nothing bad or wrong. He did what he was supposed to do, he protected his land, his territory, his doggie brother, his human brother from a perceived threat.  I will never fault my boy for what happened that day it was a series of very unfortunate events nothing more nothing less.

I have told Charlie's coming to me story before, I have told what he meant to me and the things he did, I will tell them in short again.

I met Charlie at the local coffee shop, the Front Porch to be exact, he walked up one day with his owner Daryl and I do not know why but I knew in my heart that Charlie needed to come home with me. He did right then and there. There was some discussion had about taking him to vet and Charlie being put down if he was sick before I got too attached. I said no, I will take care of it all. I took Charlie to the vet that very day. He was sick. He had a broken heart but so did I. I sat in the vets office and cried with Charlie's big golden eyes pleading with me to make it ok. They were going to have to put him down, he was sick. Then as the answer to my prayer Dr Welch walked in and offered to help Charlie. He told me that yes his heart was broken but he thought we could fix it. I took Charlie home, knowing emphatically that we were supposed to fix each others hearts.

Charlie had a job to do and he did it well. As I was saving his life he was saving mine. I gave Charlie love and happiness and about 20,000 treats, he gave me my life, the ability to love something new, and about 25,000 kisses. I remember nights of darkness in tears and contemplating the easiest way to end it all and Charlie curling up beside me, reminding me that, without me he wouldn't live. A gentle nudge of his nose saying "No one will take me".

He was right. I knew with everything in me that Charlie was my dog and that without me the scene would not be pretty. I knew that my end meant his end and when it came down to the last moments I always chose Charlie.

This morning I was having a conversation about my move to Mathews and how much it had cost me when I was reminded that cost is relative and not really a matter as long as the lesson was learned. I quickly thought to myself that I could remake the money, I could remodel another kitchen, I will have another home, I can move back to the beach.... but I can't get my Charlie back. This move cost me Charlie and to me that was just too much. What I want to share with you is the conversation that unfolded...

Them: I remember a story once of a dog who came to teach a lesson and disappeared when the lesson was learned.
Think Charlie might have been meant to be here on Earth for a very short time to leave a lesson? Like a ghost dog
I mean, he did kinda show up in your life rather randomly
not to say that makes it hurt less.

Me: I have often wondered that.

Them: He was a weird little creature. He really liked you
but was weird when I came to the house. Not mean. Just a strange dog in that he had no time or intention to bond with anyone.

Me: No, he didn't care for others much

Them: Like he was on a mission and had no reason or want to do anything off course and, frankly, had that not all gone down. Would you be living in your house still available for your neighbor to cause you harm? I can't say I haven't said "thank you Charlie for getting her away from that location."

Me: I thanked him repeatedly for saving my life.. so many times I was just finished and he would come lay by me.. almost as if to say.. if you die, no one will love me... they will put me down.
then I was the one that killed him, I couldn't save him...no matter hard I tried

Them: I kinda think he ultimately saved you. Had he not died, you would have stayed there and well . . . i just never felt good about you going back there. I think in the end, Charlie knew you were "home" but not in a safe location and needed to get you to safety, that dog was really odd Re. I can't think of any other reason he was like that other than he had a mission to serve. He scared me but not in a scaring way scared. Like in a ghost dog way

I don't know about ghost dog, because Charlie was real live flesh and blood but the dog had a Spirit about him that was just different. After all this time, I feel like I can honor him and look at his beautiful photos and smile knowing that he loved me more that his own life. Knowing that if he was here for a reason, if he was here only for the season, if it was all about a lesson he did his job and duty well and in the end sacrificed his self for me. 

Until we meet again my sweet boy... you will be loved always.