Food...My Antidrug

This post is meant to serve as the post that should have gone up last week for BlogapaLOSEa...I'll actually post again later in THIS week. Last week I could barely keep my head on straight, let alone form coherent sentences regarding my weight-loss progress...or lack thereof. Yep, that's right, I gained 3 friggin' pounds. I have lots of reasons/excuses: Wickedly bad insomnia that kept me awake until 3 or 4 am & then getting up w/the kids at 6:30 or 7 am, which led to me drinking pop instead of water. Me worrying about my mom, who was/is going through something personal & emotional, and I'm 7-8 friggin' hours too far away to even just give her a hug. Me wishing I could be there to help out my brother & sister-in-law as she prepares to have surgery this week, and I'm too far away to babysit my nephew, or make some meals for them, or help in any way. Being irritated because I started calling the pediatrician's office as soon as it opened on Tuesday, couldn't even get anything other than a busy signal for AN HOUR, when I finally got through, got put on hold for another 10 mins, only to be told they had absolutely no open appointments & a nurse could call me back...I was a CNA, worked in several doc offices & 2 physical therapy clinics, so I don't run my kids to the doc screaming for antibiotics for every little sniffle...but OH MY HELL, if I call & tell you that I think my toddler has an upper respiratory infection, you damn well better find a place for him! And these things are just the tip of the iceberg.

So, I did what I've done for far too many years & smothered my crappy feelings with food. I don't drink alcohol-or at least I haven't in several years. I take too many prescription drugs to dabble with recreational drugs. I don't smoke...have never even tried it, nor do I have any desire to. Ahh, but food...food is my vice. It's not even just junk food, though when I'm particularly in a funk that's generally what I'll head for. I even know what my biggest problem/reason/excuse is...I just don't know how to fix it:

I'm lonely. I'm a stay-home mom of 2 young kids, and it seems like the friends I made (or thought I made) here in KY have mostly dried up & blown away. I don't know if there's something about me that just repels people-if maybe my "baggage" is too much for them, or if everyone is just too busy with their own families & lives that it's just too hard to deal with someone who occasionally can't drive for months at a time, so that means being friends with me means a little more work on their part in that respect (which anyone who chooses to stay friends with me KNOWS I more than make up for in so many other ways.) The oddest thing is, I have a friend from grade school who would drop everything & fly here from UTAH if I told her I needed her-she wouldn't even ask why. I have another friend from college who would do the same, who lives in IL. Yet, I can't get people here to call me back after I leave them several messages. It just blows my mind because supposedly I'm a much more mellow, easy-going, nicer person than I was in grade school/high school/college...yet those are the people who seem to want to stay in contact with me, not the people I've met in the past few years. It almost seems like the universe is telling me I should just start being bitchier again & maybe I'll actually make some friends who want to go shopping occasionally or hang out & watch a movie.

"...Lonely, so lonely.
Tin can at my feet,
I think I'll kick it down the street.
That's the way to treat a friend.

Bright before me the signs implore me:
Help the needy and show them the way.
Human kindness is overflowing,
and I think it's gonna rain today."

(I Think It's Going To Rain Today, Bette Midler)