Diary of a MAD * FAT * WOMAN…..

Tag: juliana wathen

  • Let’s Ride…..

    The best thing about waking up every morning…other than the obvious…is that you get to start your life all over again. Wipe the slate clean. It’s a whole new day. Yesterdays failures and successes are behind you so no need to bitch or brag. TODAY has all the potential in the world.

    So this morning I got back on track. I weighed in….307 lbs. Yep. I know. Say no more!

    I logged onto Weight Watchers Point Plus and started the meticulous detailing of my daily intake. I packed my Bobby Sherman lunch box and armed myself with snacks. I even had my dinner tonight of stir fried beef and veggies. All good food, but here I sit at 9:36pm and I still have 12 points left to consume and I can’t eat another damn thing.

    That’s what most people don’t understand. Overweight people don’t allows OVER EAT all day. Many, like myself, eat inconsistently and make poor choices when we do eat. I am the most guilty of skipping breakfast and often not putting anything in my mouth till 1pm or 2pm…So my metabolism is shot to hell. My blood sugar spikes and then crashes and I am left feeling tired. Having heart failure only makes this worse. Experiencing severe chest pains again this weekend just makes it damn scary.

    I’m not beating myself up….because today was a new day. And tomorrow…..well, that’s another new day. I know that tomorrow, I need to shoot for a bigger breakfast and knock out some points and continue to eat consistently thru the day to maintain my blood sugar and my energy. I already know this works. But it is not the INTELLECTUAL ARGUMENT that I lose when I sit myself down for a little chat with myself. It always comes back to convincing myself in my heart of hearts that I am worth the effort. It just seems logical that I am. But it also seems logical to me that if you calculate rate of speed, angle of ramp and resistance of the wind that you should be able to jump the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle just like Evel Knievel. Not everyone has the courage to do that.

    So I think I just answered my own question…It’s not about BEING worthy….It’s about having the COURAGE to act on it.

    Hmmmm…who knew??

    I love each and every one of you

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen

     

     

     

     

     

  • TOUCHDOWN!!!!!…..

    NO PAIN  – NO GAIN! Yep that is the mantra of FOOTBALL…It’s finally  fall and time for tailgating and grid iron match ups on Sundays in America. The touchdowns and field goals are  bringing folks to their feet! Even I did an impromptu “end-zone celebration” in the middle of my living room after my team, the TEXANS won today. Winning feels gooooood.  The players leave it all out on the field. But with all the rewards comes the injury reports after every game. Pulled ham strings, broken hands, groin injuries, all are painful reminders that it takes all out effort to win.

    So it goes with life. If you play it safe and take it easy you probably won’t have much heart-ache or misery in life. Sitting on the side line is safe but  it won’t get you noticed and let’s face it, even you are bored by just sitting there game after game after game.  But when you get on the field and give it your all there are going to be consequences. You’re gonna get  bumped, bruised and sometimes terribly hurt. The pain is not to make you miserable. It’s there to make you AWARE…. Aware of what it takes to win. Aware of the people that surround you that help you get where you wanna go. Aware of your own courage  to take the challenge.You can’t appreciate the win if you are not aware of the struggle to get there.

    Life is meant to be lived. NO PAIN – NO GAIN!  Friends and family pass away, relationships fail and children may disappoint. But it is all there to make us MORE AWARE of all the good we have and all the progress we are making.

    To be AWARE is to be ENLIGHTENED. It takes a champion to stand in the spotlight!

    I love each and every one of you…and today I love my TEXANS just a little bit more.

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen

  • Move according to your heart…..

    Follow your heart…it is an age old saying. But today…so many of us have been trained and conditioned to be such “LEADERS” in our lives and communities that we rarely allow ourselves to relax and  “FOLLOW” much of anything. We precieve “following” as the weaker option and therefore the lessor or least likely choice

    There is some much concentration on the daily challenges, expectations and conflicts that all we see are the expected roadblocks in our lives. We no longer see the beauty or our power within us to enjoy LIFE.  Hyper-Tunnel vision has us so focused on recognizing the chains that bind that we don’t take notice of the fact that the lock is open. And that all we have to do is unhook the padlock and the chains will fall away.

    Instead of waiting for someone or something to FOLLOW. Rest and relax in your spirit. Listen to your heart…..MOVE according to your heart.

    MOVE ACCORDING TO YOUR HEART…..It knows you better than anyone. It will not lead you astray.

    I love each and every one of you.

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen

  • Weak in the knees…..

    You know you are having a good day when something you love can just make you weak in the knees.

    Last night I went back to the fall session of women’s chorus. They always ask you to fill out a form even if you are a returning member and tell them “WHY YOU SING…It’s a cheap way to come up with marketing material and sound bites. For the record…. I have never filled in the blank. But driving home last night it dawned on me “why I sing”.

    There is a magical moment when you think you can’t move and your knees feel like they will give way any moment. You can’t catch your breath and you are afraid to leave that moment – that space. THAT is why I sing. That momentary rush of adrenaline and euphoria.

    The more I thought about it the more things I realized made me weak in the knees.

    So here is my list :

    A standing ovation in a full concert hall when you KNOW you just nailed it!

    Frankie B. Mandola’s Pineapple-Macodamia Nut Bread Pudding with Jack Daniels Sauce. OMG!

    The National Anthem at Rodeo Houston

    Hitting a MAX PAYOUT on a WHEEL OF FORTUNE slot machine!

    Stepping onto dry land after a day on the water.

    The perfect kiss…and yes, they DO exist!!!!!!

     

    You can find great moments all around you if you are willing to see them. If you look for chaos you will find it. Look for the “weak knee” moments. They are WAY better.

    I love each and every one of you

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Pull your head out…..

    There comes a time in life when just putting on your big girl panties isn’t enough armor to get you through the crisis. I know.  It is hard to imagine.

    In those rare instances I become….the turtle. I pull in my short, stubby little front hands badly in need of a manicure. I tuck in my chubby little back legs and pull my knobby head in tight…and WA LA! I am invisible and protected inside a  dark, stylishly minimalistic, yet cramped shell.

    Well…it works for a while. Silence. Solitude. Eventually I got lonely and sent up a few flares to a select few and said “Wanna come over?”…It’s safer for me here.  Come on! ….come over!…I’ll make room!!!  But I get no takers because they can see that it’s a tight squeeze for one, much less a table for two, and the odds that I had bathed were slim to none. But I stay there. In the silence….solitude….scared, till the festering funk that is my confines becomes too toxic to live in.

    I stuck my head out today…and there was light…and fresh air…and room to stretch my legs. Oddly enough….no one attacked. It felt good.

    there had come a point where I  changed my focus from “ME” on the inside to “THEM” on the outside…and I could only talk to THEM – OUT THERE. I found that some people’s crisis were still going on. Some just needed a pat on the back.  Some were just waiting on a clean pair of Big GIRL PANTIES and some were waiting for major reinforcements. I couldn’t contribute to anyone as long as all I saw was the inside of my own shell. So today, I outgrew my shell.

    My Father died 11 days ago. I FEARED feeling too much. I FEARED not feeling enough. I found out that what I felt was just right and that the only one keeping score…was me.

    I love each and every one of you

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen

  • The eye of the storm…..

    Like any experienced gulf coast resident I know how to prepare for a hurricane. In July, my father was given six months to live. As with any storm I knew this timetable could change. He had been a tropical disturbance for years brewing in the gulf that we all kept a weary eye on. And now he was gaining strength and about to make landfall.

    So I put into practice what I knew. I monitored the storm day to day and made the necessary adjustments as it accelerated and the cone that projected it’s path narrowed. I made a plan and I prepared.

    I thought I was in the clear or at least on the clean side of the storm. I thought all my preparations would serve me well. I had given up on any further attempts to “connect” with my father. It just wasn’t going to happen. So I made the best peace about him that I could. I moved into preparation mode and poured over papers and information about the five steps of dying, burial policies and what benefits would be due to my mother. I tended to the business of dying and the necessities for survival.

    As landfall grew closer I wrote an obituary, put together a slide show of photos of his life and began to prepare his eulogy. So many things I never knew came to light as the timeline took shape of the life he lived and the experiences that formed his opinions and attitudes towards his family and life.

    He passed the afternoon of September 15th at 3:55pm. Little did I realize that that would be the calm eye of the storm and that the dirty side of damaging winds and devastating floods would follow me home after the service, after everything and everyone else had been tended to.

    I came home to my own fears and my own disappointments. The guests who came to the memorial service were a virtual timeline of my own life. Teachers, friends, family as well as ex-lovers and former friends all doing “The right thing” and coming to the service for a man few knew and many had never even met. They came for my sake and the sake of my family. It brought up good memories and bad from my life. It had little to do with my father. Memories of a former classmate and close childhood friend whose mother came to pay respects and to remind me her son had been gone 17 yrs. She wondered aloud if we still remembered him. I do – everyday. Teachers were there to remind me to see the life lesson. Family was there to remind me that it was my mothers grief and recovery that was most important. My friends were there to remind me that I never have to face the world alone unless I just need to.

    I felt I needed to this time. I hid myself away from phone calls, texts and visits. I needed to let go of the man I never felt close to or loved by. And it was just one of my challenges. At the memorial I had embraced the woman I had at one time given my heart to and felt her momentary comfort – only to have to let it go all over again. I watched the friend I  love so dearly walk in and walk out like a brief blip on the radar.

    I found myself trying for days to ride out the worse of the storm after the service. Battered by the winds and drowning in the flood waters I have struggled to hang on. And then it dawned on me tonight to take control. To not wait for the winds to die and the storm to pass because life is like a storm and it never really leaves. Like a merry-go- round it spins round and round and the closer to the edge you are ,the dizzier you get and the harder it is to hold on. I had been riding the edge of the storm and was exhausted and delirious.

    A voice said…..”Move to the center. Relax and be calm”.

    Can it really be that simple? Just change your grip and move to the middle. There is a peace  and quiet there. I crave it. I need it. Tonight I will rest in that peace.

    I love each and every one of you

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen

  • A message….

    If you call ..and I don’t answer…it is because I cannot speak.

    If you write…and I do not respond…it’s because I have no words

    If you don’t see me….have faith that I am within

    I love each and every one of you.

    Juliana

     

     

     

  • Traveling Light…..

    Denver Jenkins Wathen Jr. left this world September 15, 2011 at 3:55pm the same way he came into it March 22, 1931, surrounded by family.

    It was not the ending any of us would have predicted, but one I think none of us would ever trade.

    I have learned more about my father in the last few weeks than he ever cared to tell me in all my 48 yrs. I’ve looked thru his records, a disintegrating birth certificate, diplomas, military discharge papers, divorce decrees and  every picture I could find. I peeled back the layers of wrapping paper and found a person in the center of the box.

    He was not perfect, just human. Subject to all the hazards and consequences we all must face through life. I was able to see the things that jaded him and the circumstances that made him shy away from being the husband and father we wished he could have been.

    None of us will ever know the real Denver, what he thought or what he felt.  But I think I got as close as I was ever meant to these final days.

    God wanted me to SEE him as  a fellow human being. Just a person who filled his bag with life experiences and at the end had to stand at the dock and empty that bag piece by piece, re-examining each experience  till the only thing left in the bottom of the bag was the coin for the Ferryman.

    Today he set his burdens down and tonight he is traveling light once again.

     

    I love each and every one of you

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen

     

     

     

  • All thru the night…..

    No call went out, yet we all gathered tonight to sit vigil with my mother at the bed side of my father as he slips further away.

    I didn’t think I could go to the back of the house and into the spare room where he lay curled up on a hospital bed. I told myself I was here for my mother. She shuffled back and forth from the front room to the back. One time carrying his next morphine dose another time a cool rag to sooth the fever that racks his body as it tries to shut down.

    My youngest brother came and I pointed to the back and said, “You can go back, it’s okay. Wanda is with him.” he choked back an answer and just shock his head no. He couldn’t do it and I understood.

    My older brother kept milling about back and forth, sitting in one chair and then another. Room to room we all seemed to pivot  avoiding the obvious as best we could and making small talk about this and that.

    My sister -in-law look at me as if to ask if I had taken my turn yet….I shook my head no. But again said ,”feel free to go back, Wanda is there.” I then realized my mother was in the room and that Denver was alone. I took Olga’s hand and she gripped it tightly. Silently we walked down the narrow hall to the spare bedroom together. His breath labored and infrequent, he seems so slight and fragile. Not at all the giant and imposing figure he has been all my life. There was a softness I had never seen before. And I knew then that I could do this. Not that I should,  but that I COULD.

    The hours pass by and we convinced Wanda to go lie down. She is afraid to relax too much or even sleep but she knows she must. The men we sent to rest at their own homes. We sit up, we women. Cleaning and shuffling about and listening. Waiting.

     

     

  • The Test of Time…..

    For the third time in 30 yrs a rag-tag group of artists, musicians and actors will gather to share some “rock star” stories and fun in the sun.  The site of this years mischief is Surfside, Texas. Right on the beach. Aghhhhhhhh. Let me hear an amen!

    Some folks are flying in and some are driving and I suspect I would crawl if I had to. We will pay homage to our ill spent youth and our high school Drama teacher,  Ma Bell, who I am thrilled to say will join us again. We will dine on fresh seafood and devour copious amounts of margaritas and sing till we can’t utter a sound. Then we will get up and do it again…and again till they make us go home on Sunday.

    I’m not sure what it is that has been the glue to keep us all so connected except to say – sometimes a teacher can give you more than a good schooling. They can give you life, a foundation that can be built upon for years. It’s not what we learned in class as much as it was what we learned thru the many hours of rehearsals and shows. We learned about ourselves and each other in ways that go beyond any class room in the country. We learned who we were and who we wanted to be and how to get there. We learned that regardless of what our circumstances may be – we could always write an alternate ending.

    I  learned I was not an island. I had to trust others like my director and fellow performers. I learned to reveal my most vulnerable parts because an audience really can tell when you’re faking it. I became aware of the fact that everything has a beginning, a middle and an end and no matter what.  The show must go on! .  There are no small parts, only small-minded people. The small-minded people have fallen away from the group and the foundation remains. All, still, just a phone call or click away when any of us need a friend.

    We’ve all needed some shoring up from time to time. Times are hard. Life is hard….but we have stood the test of time. Being there for each other just gets easier and easier.

    SO I am OFF this afternoon. Car packed and ready to go, just waiting for the proverbial “work whistle” to sound that the day is done. I’ll drive down at sunset and what a grand drive it will be.

    I love each and every one of you…but this weekend I love a crazy group of Artists, Actors and Musicians and one special teacher just a tad bit more.

    Juliana

    Copyright 2011 Juliana Wathen