A Turning Point

Yesterday I was at an extreme low. I was on my friend's new myspace profile when I noticed my ex-fiance in her top friends list. I was surprised to see that he even had a myspace since he had always sworn that it was stupid and he'd never do it. I'm guessing his sister or cousin put him up to it by saying, "you'll pick up chicks, man." So, seeing his picture I clicked on it to find a couple pics of him shirtless, showing off his new tattoos. He looks really good and it made me so sad to see him. I haven't seen or talked to him in months.

Then somehow I looked at the most recent pictures I have of myself, including a group shot from our camping trip which my friend had on her profile, and I thought "he's probably seen that picture... I look horrible in it!" I look not only fat, but very pregnant from the shirt I was wearing. I was disgusted with myself. I started looking for more recent pictures but in all that I could find I looked fat and gross. Well, this set me off... I continued to get more and more depressed about myself throughout the afternoon. I thought about how lazy and brain dead I've felt for the last few weeks, how unmotivated and unproductive I've been at work...choosing to expand my blogs and pretend to shop online rather than actually getting my job done. I thought about how much I've been eating and how I've been consuming mass amounts of carbs and not able to get myself motivated to workout at all. I'm back up to my highest weight and my stomach is bulging out. Yesterday after eating what I considered to be dinner (which was whatever was easy enough to take out of the fridge and heat up in the microwave: 6 sweet cheese pierogis and 3 buiscuits with honey...my cupboards are pretty bare since I'm so broke these days). I was so disgusted with myself that I actually tried to throw up what I'd just eaten. I've never done that before. But luckily I wasn't very successful so I don't think that'll be an easy habit to develop. I tried to draw to get my mind off things and give myself a little art therapy, but even that seemed unsuccessful. My hand wouldn't make the lines I wanted it to and things just didn't look right. I thought maybe I just needed to sleep which I often do when I'm depressed. But even that was difficult. My stomach ached, my muscles felt tense, I wanted to cry out in aggravation! Finally I decided to get up and get out of the house. BF will make me feel better. Being around him usually helps. He has such a joyful presence most of the time that it lifts my mood. I stopped at Oberweis and got a Banana Milkshake--my quick fix when I'm feeling low--then headed over to his house where he was watching the basketball game. It did help to be around him. His smile calmed me and when he saw my sketchbook in my bag he encouraged me to draw and gave me suggestions of what to draw. He seemed interested; I liked that. I still wasn't out of my slump, but I was better.

So, last night I went to bed thinking "I can't go on like this. I'm getting myself further and further into this hole and feeling like I've completely lost my brain. I have to do something about it." I turned off the lights to go to sleep and said out loud to myself. "Tomorrow will be good. Tomorrow you're going to be motivated, productive, happy, and eat better. Tomorrow you're going to turn yourself around!"

Well, its amazing what a little Caffiene and Guarana will do. I woke up late, still groggy and feeling like my pep talk hadn't worked. But I rushed to get showered and out of the house and stopped at Starbucks on the way to work and popped in a CD I thought would get me going. I decided to try their new Iced Doubleshot+Energy drink. It tastes great, just like a mocha! As I drove I kept turning up the volume and singing along with my Kanye West CD, bobbing my head and thinking about the lyrics.

"Determination, dedication, motivation, I'm talking to you, my many inspirations, When I say I can't, let you or self down, If I were of the highest cliff, on the highest riff, And you slipped off the side and clinched on to your life in my grip, I would never, ever let you down" --Never Let Me Down, Kanye West/JayZ : Listen on free.napster

"God show me the way because the devil trying to break me down; The only thing that that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now; And I don't thing there's nothing I can do now to right my wrongs; I want to talk to God but I'm afraid because we ain't spoke in so long..." --Jesus Walks, Kanye West : Listen on Last.fm

Not all of them are applicable, but there is something about this CD that just gets in me and makes me feel like I can do things. Its the most motivational CD I have. Its weird...who ever thought "College Dropout" would have that effect? So, this morning I am on my way to climbing out of this depression and into a better me... at least until the Starbucks wears off.