love thy self

For the past six months I've been running faithfully and tracking every morsel of food I consume via My Fitness Pal. I stopped drinking diet soda, which I think has been a huge improvement both for losing weight and reducing health risks. I haven't been one to drink sugared soda for years. I had hoped to be down 25 pounds at this point but 19 is a great accomplishment and my goal is within sight. While I wish I had the cash to buy a couple new bikinis I covet from Carve Designs for my birthday, the best gift I can give myself is to keep taking better care of myself, not settle, and be the lioness, not the gazelle. But those bikinis will be a belated birthday gift to myself once I have the spare cash. Even lionesses have to stay cool in the heat.

Not long ago a reader commented on my post april showers: "Wow. Your 2nd to last paragraph got me. It sounds so simple, but to me, is so complicated. But how does one change to loving themselves if they haven't been? How do I fix this problem? You don't know me well...but I have learned recently that I don't know me well either. How does one (me) build up self value and self confidence? That's what you need to blog about or write about or something." 

I confess I make it sound easier than it is. I spent far too much of my life with guys who were addicts. It took a long time for me to realize that they could never truly love me because they didn't even love themselves, only the object of their addiction. But then I had to face the harder truth that if I truly loved myself I wouldn't have been with men like that. I wanted to feel needed and birds with broken wings need someone to nurse them. So while I am (I think rightly) critical of those addicts taking advantage of my giving nature, I was co-dependent; on some level I wanted to be with guys who needed me to "fix" them. That's been the case even if they weren't addicts...I somehow always pick the sad-puppy-at-the-pound guy, the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree of guys, ones I feel sorry for or think no one else will repair. That is a tendency I still have to consciously battle, but at least now I can see it and realize that I deserve so much better than what I settled for in the past. No more fixer-uppers! That doesn't mean they'll be perfect, none of us are. I'm just not fixing any more broken wings.

How did I learn to love myself? Honestly, I'm not sure. I starting running and somewhere along the trail I realized that I was strong, and beautiful, and smart, and deserved so much more in life and love than I had ever demanded. I decided to stop carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders and just take care of me. (Well, and my pets). Distance running is, as the joke goes, a mental sport (and we are all insane). Once your legs are trained to do it, getting to the finish is all about being right with it in your head. And that means believing in yourself even when you are more tired, thirsty, hungry, and in pain than you could've imagined. It's that deep belief in yourself that gets you there. So, maybe I learned to love myself through running, but, obviously, not everyone is a runner. I think it takes finding something that you do just for yourself. Many days I head out on a run and I'm tired, it's hot and humid, I just don't "feel" it. I say to myself, "maybe I'll just run four instead of six today." Then I stop myself, and either way I do tell myself this every time I run, usually several times during my run: "This is the single most important thing you will do today." And it is the single most important thing I do any day I run because it is putting myself first, taking care of myself, body, mind, and spirit. Only by truly valuing myself and that investment in myself can I be my best self for me and anyone else (e.g., my beloved pets or some floppy-haired sailor down the line).

There was a point, perhaps even before I began running, when I realized that I had given up everything that was me for my ex. I didn't get to listen to the music I liked anymore. I didn't get to sing anymore. I didn't get stay up all night on art projects. I had to get rid of my books and my art and my records and my oddball stuff. Every day was a challenge to find an outfit to hide my tattoos because I worked horrible jobs in boring offices full of self-impressed corporate robots. Somehow this scared but willful little hippy chick had been sanitized and dulled down and just became a zombie going through the motions of what purported to be life. I became an addict, too. Like many, many women these days I had a shopping problem. The magazines and television and movies really make it seem like that perfect pair of shoes, that perfect handbag, or that perfect eyeshadow will suddenly transform your miserable existence and make you fabulous. Now, I still like nice things. I kept a few nice things. But a sparkly doesn't make me sparkle. That comes from within. From realizing that, flaws and all, (and I have plenty), I'm actually pretty awesome.

I think we've all heard the old adage that someone who cuts others down is just insecure and small himself. Along the same lines, a long time ago someone told me that you can only give honest compliments when you are confident in yourself. I'm sure everyone knows someone who is always fishing for compliments, but never gives them out. I feel sorry for those people. The compliments they strong arm others into probably aren't genuine and will never salve the insecurity inside. Here's a little test: when you see someone wearing a great outfit do you think to yourself how you'd look better in it, or how much you want it? Or do you just blurt out "I dig your shoes." or "You look great in those shoes."? Acknowledging someone else's beauty or success doesn't make you less and doesn't make them more. It's honest and generous and that actually does make you a bigger person. It puts more happy in the world instead of more negativity. Someone told me my natural hair color looked great, but quickly went on about how much better it was than the dye job I had had. So the compliment was entirely undermined and then some by the passive-aggressive dig, which was the real point, to cut me down. Every day when we walk out the door we have the choice to put more happy in the world, or more bitterness. Despite the folks who don't say hello back or scowl at my cheerful dog, I choose to keep putting more happy in the world than anger or rudeness. When I see a girl with purple Birkenstocks I covet I don't sigh and wish they were mine. I tell her, "wow, those are awesome shoes!" Just give it a try. It doesn't hurt, I promise. And when someone gives you a compliment, don't feel awkward or obligated to compliment them back. Just graciously say thank you and smile.

So, yes, I think that loving oneself is absolutely necessary to being able to truly love another and be loved by another. If you don't see the value in yourself, why would or should anyone else? And why would you want to be with someone who doesn't treasure you? Although I twice did it for quite some time, I cannot understand staying with someone just because you know (or fear) they will be heartbroken without you. If you don't love them, you aren't doing them a favor by staying. You're actually robbing them of the chance to find their true love; and they are doing the same to you. We all deserve to be googly-eyed in love with the person we're with. Yes, love goes through its ups and downs, it changes and has challenges, but we shouldn't settle for less than googly-eyed love. Staying with someone out of obligation is especially damaging when there are children involved. Is that the lesson you want to teach your son or daughter? To pass up on their life and love out of some misguided sense of obligation fueled by guilt? That was the world fifty years ago; don't wish that on your child.

The heart wants what it wants. That I'm not attracted to someone or don't love him doesn't mean he's not a good person or that he's unworthy of love. But chemistry and passionate love are there or they aren't. I'm not responsible for anyone else's happiness. You can guilt someone into marrying you or staying with you, but you can't guilt them into actually loving you. If someone leaves you, don't take it quite so personally. They may deeply care about you, but you just aren't their true love. And that's OK. It's much better to be alone than with the wrong person. Scary, perhaps, but in the long run, much better.

I guess learning to love yourself is about embracing your identity and not trying to change it for anyone else. Your hobbies, passions, beliefs, and values are what they are. Trying to be a chameleon, changing politics, religion, hobbies, attire for another will ultimately leave you empty. You may not be "alone" but whoever you are with isn't really with you, because there isn't any real "you" to love at all. You can only find yourself inside yourself, not in another person, not in a religion. It's about having faith in yourself. When you have that, you won't need anyone else, and that is the most attractive quality you could have.

don't drink and dink

Be forewarned, this is a serious post. "Don't drink and dink" sounds cute and tongue-in-cheek, I know, but drinking and boating is something people just don't take seriously enough. Please read on. I'm not going to judge you for drinking ten Painkillers and being ridiculous or silly, I promise. I just want us all to get home safely and be able to enjoy the water (and roads) without getting hurt.

When I discuss potential marinas in Annapolis folks always suggest a couple that are lovely, but a drive away from everywhere I want to go out. I explain I don't want to drink and drive, and I also don't want to cab it. I would rather just live in walking distance of my watering holes. The standard response is that I can just dinghy back across the creek so I won't have to drive. Really? Somehow I think that driving a dinghy home drunk at 2AM involves as many if not more perils as driving a car home drunk. Yes, one is less likely to get caught... but my concern is not just that spending a night in jail rather sucks, but I also want to arrive home safely, without hurting myself or anyone else.

So, what inspired this post? Maryland legislator Don Dwyer can't learn the simple lesson not to operate motorized vehicles when inebriated. After a drunken boating collision a year ago on the Magothy River, he just got arrested for DUI and over a dozen other charges after driving home drunk from Baltimore. Read the Capital Gazette article here and Washington Post article here. Naturally, Dwyer blames his drinking on marital problems (hey, idiot--it's the other way around, I promise you).

Apparently--and this actually turns my stomach--prosecutors in the drunken boating case have reached a plea deal that involves no further jail time. Seriously? Seven people were injured in that boating accident. Dwyer himself had to be hospitalized. This is NOT a situation where he had a couple hefty glasses of wine with dinner and then blew .08. His BAC was three times the legal limit. Read the Washington Post article on that incident here. Both boat operators were charged in that collision and apparently both failed to follow rules-of-the-road, but only Dwyer was charged with alcohol-related offenses as well. This guy shouldn't be operating motor vehicles on or off the water, period. When prosecutors just give a slap on the wrist they are endangering my life. It terrifies me that I am sharing the Bay with an idiot like this, not to mention the countless others who are only emboldened by the laughable "punishment" being doled out.

At my marina, at least two, (probably more), boats come back to their slips with virtually every person aboard trashed. Always loud and obnoxious, with volumes of beer cans in the recycling that actually shock me (and, trust me, that takes a lot). But sometimes staggering and slurring right when they step ashore. Who exactly was at the helm? And, no, these are not just power boaters. It scares me that I'm out on the water with these people.

I admit I have come back to the boat, both on foot and on another's dink, with little recollection of getting back aboard. I'm not proud of it, but it does happen to most of us now and again. And I am not judging folks who party to the maximum, and I'll just brush it off if others want to judge me. But we can and should judge behavior that objectively puts others' lives at risk.

Unfortunately, there is such a taboo around DUIs that virtually everyone denies that they ever drive when they shouldn't. I think that is usually just lying to ourselves, but it is also partly that people simply do not understand BAC (blood alcohol concentration) or how many "drinks" for BAC purposes are really in every "drink" you have. It isn't the most beautiful or easy-to-read BAC chart, and uses too many European measurements, but the one from Wikipedia doesn't have any axe to grind, as do most sites posting BAC information. (I am absolutely not a fan of MADD or other temperance movements.) This chart is much easier to work with, but comes with the message that any alcohol in your system makes you unsafe to drive.

For their own safety, everyone should know their BAC table. As a woman, I can have two drinks the first hour and one drink an hour thereafter and (theoretically) be just under .08. (And I really don't think you want to be anywhere near .08 and get pulled over lest you plan to spend the night in jail.) If I'm flabby, my BAC will be higher; if I'm muscular, it will be lower. Yes, the fat guys we would think could handle their liquor actually get drunk faster than the lean, muscular, fit guys. I rarely drink liquor when out if I'm going to be driving because no bar in Annapolis pours a drink with 1.25 ounces of liquor. Think two or three times that. Not many wine pours are only 5 ounces, and the volume is very difficult to judge because of the diverse wine glasses used in different restaurants. And a pint of beer is not one drink. A 12 ounce beer is one drink, so a pint is 1.33 drinks. I actually count my drinks very, very carefully if I am in a position where I will be driving.

When I took friends out for a cruise Saturday before last I did drink. It isn't illegal to drink while underway and I don't think it's irresponsible per se. But how much did I drink? Six drinks spread out over eight + hours, and with plenty to eat. Food does not prevent alcohol from reaching the bloodstream, but the right food (fat and protein) does slow it down. My BAC was probably about .04. Some people will take the view that anything over 0 is too much. I understand their reasoning, but I think that is extreme. But I do take my responsibility at the helm seriously. The safety of my friends and crew (including my pets) depends on it. It's good seamanship. I want to have fun on the water and hope everyone can, but, yeah, it's better not to drink and dink.

four years

Four years ago today all my worldly belongings had been packed up in a POD, I finished cleaning the beautiful Old Spanish house I'd been renting in The Roads in Miami, and I said goodbye to two gorgeous, sweet stray cats I'd been helping out. I loaded my kids (Buttercup, Max, and Hunter) into the car and drove north out of Miami. Although we had a temporary destination of Springfield, VA, where we could crash for up to six weeks, we had no other plan and little money. We made it to Melbourne, FL that first night. Savannah, GA the next.

With no idea where we would end up, the journey was (and remains) somewhat frightening. But the freedom has been priceless. Truly, it was an escape. One I should have made long before losing a decade of my life to a marriage that was nothing more than baby-sitting an alcoholic, living beyond our means, and being left in financial ruin. But after so many years, after countless nights of telling myself "tomorrow I will leave and file for divorce," I finally escaped. What a sad twist of psychology that we are often prone to remain in a horrible situation simply because it is known and predictable, our fear of the unknown outweighing logic and reason.

That first year we were nomads. We lived in Springfield, VA, then Bowie, MD, then Cottage Grove, OR, Eugene, OR, and Manassas, VA before settling in Annapolis three years ago. I may never find a place that feels like home, but at least now that we live aboard moving is less upending. In the end, "home" is not a city or other physical place. It is a state of mind, that sense of peace waking up beside one you love, the smell of freshly cut grass. Someday I will find my home.

Life, love, career, success have all slipped through my grasp or passed me by. It is hard living in a constant state of financial catastrophe. We can only sustain fight-or-flight mode for so long before breaking down. But I persevere for my pets who look to me for everything and keep me afloat with their unconditional love. I try to tune out all the unsolicited advice, steer away from the superficial, the drinkers, and the busy-bodies and try to just keep them politely at bay. Trying to stop picking the broken and defective men; trying to remind myself that I cannot fix them and deserve better.

In many ways it feels I haven't made it very far in these four years of freedom. But distance and bank account balances are not important measures of success. The real success is that I freed myself from the prison of my former life. If that is my only success in life, it will still have been a triumph.