III. Living Life in Limbo

I’ve become accustomed to routine. I wake up, brush my teeth, get dressed, take my dog out, take a walk down the hill to my ex-neighbor’s house to watch the boys for a few hours (whilst enjoying the benefits of WiFi & cable, hallelujah!),  then I’m back up at our temporary home ready to do it all over again. It’s routine, and it’s nice—for now. I don’t want to get used to this lifestyle because I don’t want to live this way forever, and I know it’s not going to be forever but it’s still depressing sometimes, you know?

I call this place we’re in limbo because of the fact that it’s not permanent. Our mail gets delivered to three different places depending on who the mailperson of the day is. It’s either here, our old house, or at our neighbor’s house because they’ve been generous enough to let us use their mailing address. I still call them “our neighbors” because they’ve been our neighbors for so long it’s hard to think of them as anything other than. I watch their children, give them stuff I get for free/cheap thanks to coupons, they give us the most delicious food you can only dream of. My birthday was on the 29^th of June and she baked me a red velvet cake (because that’s what I requested), and decorated it so beautifully. It was the best part of my birthday because the whole month of June was pretty much just shit.

The thing I miss most about not living in a home on wheels is the privilege of taking a shower in my own home, being able to do laundry whenever I want, and also the privilege to pick and choose what internet provider we have without wondering if they can give us a modem in a fifth wheel or not. Some would say they miss the privacy, but I honestly don’t mind; I like the option of not spending the majority of the day in my room, I didn’t have that at the other house since we hadn’t really had a legitimate “family room” for a while. I do miss everyone having their own bedroom though; I’m the only one with a “bedroom”. I miss the clear and obvious room separation and the kitchen not being limited to just one wall. I miss being able to use the microwave without worrying about if I’m going to blow a breaker or not.

There are a lot of “I miss’” but there’s also the flip side. My mom, bless her heart, has gotten into the habit of fixing dinner at least 3 times, if not more, a week. It’s the one time we get to spend together as a family, and I cherish that. With no internet connection we’ve gotten to put the blu-ray player to good use. I’ve been able to focus on doing schoolwork without any distractions – I’ve been taking a Real Estate class this summer. We finally have air conditioning for those unbearably hot days when before we’d have to sweat it out and pray we survived. I get to spend more time with my dog since I bring him inside every night. He sleeps in the bed with me and he’s honestly the light of my life and the best part of my morning. I’m convinced that when we move into a real house he’ll be a couch potato and not an outside dog. The single most best thing about living life in limbo is that there is a clear and bright light at the end of the tunnel.

That light is the possibility of renting from my dad’s sister once she’s done playing around with the house she bought. The only down side is living outside of my comfort zone –  about an hour away from city we've grown to call home for the past twenty years – but it’s the only downside. Everything else I can think of is coming up roses. It’s located in a nice neighborhood, we would be five to ten minutes away from my brother and my beautiful, beautiful nephew, and a bathroom to call my own. Even if we don’t end up living in that house, there’s still that bright light leading us out of limbo. There’s still a home waiting for us to move in and give it new memories. I have a room that’s waiting for me to decorate it the way I’m already imagining. There’s a backyard for Lennon to run and play in off leash. There’s a home waiting for us to give it so much love and that’s what I look forward to. I look forward to new beginnings out of limbo.

For now though, I’ll enjoy family dinner in limbo with the ones I love most.

II. Lessons in Health & Moving

I always knew I'd have to move. I'm almost 31 years old and still living with my parents. If I had my way, I would live with my parents (or at least next door to them) for the rest of my life. It's always been in the back of my mind - moving. We've played around with the idea of it, my dad even goes out with his sister on Sunday's to look at houses. Moving away from our home of over 20 years was something we all knew would have to happen someday but all of us thought we would be the ones to make that decision. No one ever thought we'd be forced out.

A couple months ago we were told by our landlord that our home had been purchased for land value. We have until June 20 to move out 20 years worth of possessions, 20 years worth of memories. Ninety days is a short time, but we've made it work so far. There's still a lot of stuff to do and it just seems like we don't have any time to do it.

There are moments when I feel like I'm in limbo. I have a temporary home, a trailer my parents purchased with intent on moving to a trailer park (more on that in a minute), but at the same time it's not permanent. A trailer park would be an ideal temporary place because we'd have an address, proof that we have a physical place to live. I'll be the first to say I'm not a big fan of neighbors, but it's always nice to be able to trust someone to be on the lookout while you're gone and you're guaranteed that at a decent trailer park. However, all the ones we've called have a ridiculous application process. They either want to come in and inspect your trailer (something you own, so I kind of see it as an invasion of privacy), require you to pay for your own background check (I'm sorry, you want a background check on me you can pay for it yourself), pay extra for any pets you have, or all of the above and more. Who knew finding an ideal place at a trailer park would be like putting in an application for an apartment?

I dream of the day where the four walls I can call my home is on a foundation and not on wheels. This whole process has just been so emotionally stressful and it's all been done while I've got a dozen doctor appointments to go to so I can get my health in check. Every time I see the doctor lately my blood pressure is sky high and I'm pretty sure they're considering putting me on HBP medication.

What makes the move even harder for me is my illness. I do my best not to focus on it because I know that if I'm just "woe is me" every day then yes, of course my mood is going to be down and I'm going to want to do absolutely zero to help out. But with fibromyalgia it's kind of like you don't any have a choice but to focus on pain and/or fatigue. I'll have one particular part of my body that will hurt one day, and be fine the next. I can also go from alert to no spoons in less than a second. The fatigue during the move is the worst, surprisingly. If I'm 100% productive and I've gotten a lot of packing and sorting done and I'm feeling great, the moment I sit down to rest I just want to sleep and I'll be like that the rest of the day and throughout the next. Pushing myself has been tough but I've tried and succeeded about 80% of the time, which is a good average.

I've also got a fibroid on my uterus; I can describe what that's like, but I'm not really ready to get that TMI with the internet public just yet.

Back to the whole reason I'm writing this post in the first place. It's really easy for me to be rightfully depressed about my whole situation (as is obvious from earlier commentary), and even though I have those limbo moments I know that there are people looking out for me, for my family. We're being split up, but brought together in so many ways. I still have a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in at night, clothes on my back...I am still so much more blessed than most and I am constantly reminding myself of that. Though we still don't know where our final home will land, we've got people offering up their land, their homes, as our temporary space and for that we are blessed.

I was watching tv when I was babysitting the neighbor kids last week and there was a promo for "The Last Alaskans" and this quote really hit home with me. It's a quote that's on my mind now 24/7. I want to write it on my walls, inscribe it on my body, and just say it to every single person I meet because it is that powerful and something that rings true for everyone who is surrounded by people they love.

"It is said that home is where the heart is. If that is true, then I am home."

I: An Introduction

My name is Kim and I have an addiction to food.

[Insert the drone of "Hi Kim"'s because this is clearly an AA meeting]

I've been overweight for as long as I can remember. To my credit, I have a bad memory so however long "as long as I can remember is" is pretty much up for debate. The one thing I do know, however, is I have been in a constant power struggle for control over my own body. I'm not going to give this spiel about how I don't know how I became over 100 pounds overweight, because that would be a lie. I'm this way because of my addiction to everything that is not right for me. Fried foods, candy, cakes, soda, sugar sugar sugar. I had horrible eating habits growing up, and I have horrible eating habits now. 

I have never ever been happy in my own skin and when you combine that with the fact that I am 100% an emotional eater, you have an endless cycle of trying to lose the weight and failing because I broke down and had a soda or ate a chocolate bar and then I gave up because I felt like that one fault was my downfall. I felt like every day I didn't excersize was a failure on my end and because I was on a downward spiral anyway, I just let it happen. I didn't fight my failure. And in the end, this was always my coup de grâce.

I stopped making New Years Resolutions a few years ago because my "resolutions" always were to lose weight and it never happened. True story of all resolutions though, am I right? Anyway I favor the idea of New Years Affirmations, and while it had been a good 5 months since the beginning of the New Year, I finally decided in May that it was time to get my life in check. I was, and I still am, dead set in believing in myself and finding the "me I always wanted to be." This doesn't just pertain to my weight loss (or the releasing of my weight as I like to think of it - I'm not losing it to find it again, I'm releasing it and letting it go), it goes hand in hand with finding my true mission in life. Finding that one thing that I absolutely love, that one thing that I would feel comfortable doing for free and talking myself into doing it for the rest of my life.

The one thing I've always been 100% sure on is that I live a blessed life. It has its ups and its downs, but bottom line is: I have a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and a bed to sleep on. I have people who love me and who stand behind me no matter how many times I've set a goal and fail. This is the reason why I've been so public with my goals this time. I know that the minute I stop talking about my exercise habits and how excited I am with losing 0.2 pounds in one day, there is going to be at least one person who is going to speak up. I am not going to lie to you, it's been extremely hard the past month for reasons I am not going to name because they are all just excuses. However, by some miracle I have managed not surpass 280 pounds since I got below that number last month.

My hope with starting this blog and chronicling my journey is to inspire and motivate, and also to find inspiration and motivation. It's hard going on this journey alone and by reaching out, you're bound to find someone traveling down the same path. I hope you'll join me on my path and allow me to join you on yours.