Finding the way...

So since Wednesday, well probably more like for a couple of weeks now, tops, I have been doing the intermittent fasting. This is how it has worked so far... eat at 8 pm at the latest then eat again at just after 3 pm - and not too much. 

I also have meat - but not too much - and not a lot of starch. The weight plateaued and now is falling off slowly but surely. I have taken photos of myself at the start and this Wednesday I'm going to take another set of photos - every Wednesday. 

But it is strange that I DO NOT FEEL HUNGRY. It is so strange. Is my body just accessing the fat now - what? I'm drinking lots of water and taking supplements. I'm also having half a pineapple a day - well a third really - for the fibre. It does feel good. I feel better. 

Today I run a leg of the marathon later on. It is really not a big deal. I don't use social media to let people know what I am doing anymore. It's kinda weird really. I have been watching and rewatching the Last Kingdom. When I first watched it I had no idea what was going on. Now having a better sense of history about this period it has been great doing that again. I think the bit I still find hard to believe is that people would just go out and hit each other on the heads as part of battle. And this more or less happened until...

well until WWII.

I wonder if it was the Vikings and their raids which made Europeans so bellicose? There was the fall of Rome - well, no Romans maybe... and before the Romans, what were Europeans doing? The Greeks beating each other up? With the... Persians? And then before that... we had the battles in the Middle East - kings and emperors... why do people always have to enlarge things? Why can things stay the same?

There has been a great sense of peace over the past few days. Yesterday Ghin told me he was thinking he could teach English in a Steiner School in New York... I was WHAT?????!!!!!

I was, what would you teach? He said I don't know... English... I was you are going to do English Lit and then go on to be a Steiner teacher???? That's crazy!!! I mean that would be amazing but also crazy... wow... but really AMERICA???

I washed the dishes and honestly I feel so out of it. Right now Mehdi Hassan is a piece of work. I honestly hate all these people. These lost lost people. Yes I kinda feel sorry for them. Completely messed up. 

I do feel so much better though. 

I was thinking of all those days and night of looking after the boys. Days and days where Peter never got in touch with us - I never heard from him from one day to the next about where he was and what he did. When he went for his stupid Zen meditations every morning, afternoon and evening and I just looked after the boys. He is the literal piss taker. And I am NOW FREE OF ALL THIS. It is all done. All gone.

I am free now. I am recovering. Slowly, bit by bit. I couldn't help it and took a picture of myself even from last Wednesday, I have managed to lose SOMETHING. Tiny bit. Not as bloated. When it is all done, probably by end June I will post all the photos which show my new body. But this is the start. It is the beginning. I told Jac that it is all about being healthy and not carrying weight I should not.

I was also inspired by my blog. I looked for certain blogs over the years to check to see that I had the evidence and I did. I had only started blogging since 2007, so I only have between 2007... but I have my dairies and I have photos. So it's all good.

Also with the menopause I have a completely new body. It is a body and a metabolism which needs a lot less by way of calories to run. If you think of how I was functioning even ten years ago when Ghin was 6 and Oisin was 11, it was so much more active. I have discovered a few things about menopause.

Here is the deal. Well, first, it is a wonderful time. It is the ultimate liberation. You are free from all sorts of crap.

You are free from the responsbilities of having very young children if you are a mother. Probably. your children are mostly self sufficient and mine are mostly problem free, apart from the occasional reminder. Also, all those years I ploughed into those boys - well now those chickens are home to roost and they look absolutely great. I love them so much. Oisin is certainly independent and Ghin is heading in that direction.

Then, free from the monthly cycle. So no PMT. No awful periods. Periods are awful I don't care what people say. You are bloated, you are bleeding, you are in pain. You are having to cancel things. You can get pregnant. The list goes on and on. I really doubt that in the entire history of womanhood would women have ever celebrated their peiords as a pleasant thing. It is a sacred celebration, but it is a total pain in the arse. Literally sometimes.

Then there is the freedom from any fucks given. You don't second guess yourself anymore. I certainly don't take any umbrage to any nonsense any more. I don't care about how people feel towards me, while at the same time being nicer - if that is possible. If you are in anyway human, you would have, I hope been through at least 2 crises of the soul where you thought you were going to die. Or go insane. But you did not. You survived. Even if you felt that every breath you drew was through knives of ice... and then it passed. It took sometime, but it passed. And I learnt things... like I learnt not why we suffer, but the lessons suffering brings. I learnt about what anger really was. I read Awareness by Anthony de Mello over and over again and I learnt to let things go. To confront my own identity. To lose the things which I thought made me and then found myself. To stare failure in the face and be ok with it. 

So I have those scars. I am blooded. 

I do the things I love... and can do so for the next twenty years... till I have 70 - well give or take 20 years. I am really really healthy. OK I may have a terrible hidden illness which might explode, but by and large I am really really healthy. I mean given my age and weight which I will be shedding am shedding.

For now, as far as I know, I have no chronic long term illnesses. Emotionally I am free. I can choose to be alone or to be with someone. And right now I am on my own. It is a holiday. When I am ready, or when I choose, I can be with someone. And this actually does not matter.

Sometimes when I think of the commitment which being with someone brings, my blood runs cold. Also the whole physical side of things, well, I have seen how these things end... no. I can't do that right now. I just can't.

So the freedom of menopause which being 50 brings. 40 was incredible, but 50 is where the real strength lies. I am not distracted. I am happy and content. I am alive and delighted with life... and I am finding myself - an entirely new self as well.

Well, time to sort out the dining table. My brain is completely crazy right now. May is always crazy. But I need to find my bearings again. I feel like I am being swept up by events...