Award and return part 2

Hello all. It's Wednesday morning, and I should probably get dressed and go into school soon. But I'm going to take 20 minutes to lounge around with a black coffee, and scribble the second part of the post I promised, before I leave it too long then forget and feel too out of touch to write.

Life has been hectic. I've wanted to post here time and time again, so so much, but I guess it's hard to know how to put stress into words sometimes. More often than not, you can't seem to take a mental break from it when it's going on, not even to breathe... and ranting seems counterproductive, because it takes up far more energy than you can afford to spend. But, here I am. I'm here writing because I don't want to forget about this blog, and all the wonderful people that go along with it. This is and has always been my safe haven - like a second bedroom, if you like. So, without further ado, I will proceed to candidly divulge to you the current state of my life, in all its fucking boring banality and stressful hideousness.

I am so snowed under with my artwork it's not true. I have 2.5 weeks to finish my entire book, and I'm not even halfway through my pages yet. That, my friends, is terrifying. To add insult to injury, my mother can't stop ranting at me about it because she's stressed enough as it is with her own job and trying to earn enough money to support us all. On top of that is the fact that my 15-year-old sister won't go into school, or even get out of bed - which, while is most probably some extreme reaction to the last few years' worth of upheaval, trauma, and anguish, displayed by every family member in turn, and mostly created by my father's bad judgement and selfishness, is not helping her situation at all. Those in the UK will know how important the GCSE year is over here. Without that set of qualifications you can't even work at a supermarket. So unless she starts working now (and she has missed a lot) and tries to turn things around for herself, it's a bit of a disaster, really. I've offered to tutor her a couple of afternoons a week, because I have all the notes back from when I took mine, so I believe I can help. I don't know how much she will actually let me help her, though. She's incredibly stubborn.

The second part of this post is, obviously, going to be about my weight, and everything that's going on with that. I haven't dieted in longer than I can remember. In fact, the very concept of dieting is just so far away from me right now, I don't think I could restrict even semi-successfully, even if I absolutely through myself whole-heartedly into it... which is depressing, but maybe it's a good thing. I mean, after all, the longer I spend eating and behaving normally (and by 'normally', I mean not counting calories, having three regular meals with snacks in between, and weighing myself once in a blue moon), the more I think to myself 'What is all this dieting crap about? Why have I wasted so many years dieting then bingeing when at the end of it I've ended up the same weight that I would have been had I just eaten normally all that time?'.

I suppose the clear answer to that is, despite my body and mind consistently and unabatedly rebelling against my attempts to lose weight, for some reason I've kept trying, with this strange misguided faith that I *might* end up skinny one day. But it hit me that I should probably start accepting that this is where my body naturally wants to be. It doesn't want to be 130 lbs, or 120 lbs, or 110 lbs. It probably doesn't even want to be 140 lbs. I've maintained a steady 147 for weeks now, and while that is a few pounds higher than my happy medium of 144, my body feels like it's supposed to be here. My metabolism's burning off a steady 2,000 calories a day, probably more because I'm stressed and it's cold outside. My stomach is flat and my legs still have a gap in between them, but I'm eating a shitload. The one problem? I'm not entirely happy with it, and while I absolutely should be, because not dieting essentially means freedom, I still can't help wishing I could shave off those extra 7 lbs by Christmas Day.

Another catalyst that is merely encouraging me to resort to restriction again (or at least attempt to), is the fact that my dad is taking my sister and I to New York for a week before the new year. The tickets are booked, and I'm more excited than I think I've been about anything this year. The one problem is I feel like a fat ass, while my 105 lb sister gets to strut around in tiny size 6 clothing and look a million dollars in everything she wears. I decided I'd make it my aim to lose those 7 lbs but no more, because that is probably highly unrealistic, overambitious, and borderline stupid, considering I've probably forgotten how to lose weight altogether. I came to a satisfactory decision last night, which is that I would return to the French way of eating until Christmas kicked in. That basically means 3 set meals a day, controlled portions, and eating foods like coffee, pastries, yogurt, fruit, vegetables and legumes, lean meat, eggs, cheese, wine and juice in small amounts. Which seems very doable at this point, I think. The French way is all about insouciance, elegance, style, and graciousness, which are most definitely qualities I need to employ before I go to New York in December.

Well, it's time for me to go and have a bath and face the music. I'll end with a picture of me from the other day. Maybe it's my newfound 'whatever' attitude talking, or just the angle, but I actually don't mind my body here half as much as I usually would. Hope everyone is well, I'll try my best to catch up with blogs when I get a chance!

<3