Breaking down

I've been slacking.

It's horrible. I know.

I need to be writing and instead I'm baking cakes for baby showers and birthdays. I'm making incredibly crafty diaper cakes and going shopping for things for my new nephew.

It's been good to have something else going on to keep my mind off what it keeps wandering to.

Oddly, at a time when I least expected it, it all came pouring out.

I cried.

I pretty much melted in my husband's aunts presence.

And she listened. She supported and she told me "You need to get it out."

And she was absolutely right.

The oddest part of it, was that I hadn't even seen or talked to this aunt in several years. But seeing her at the baby shower on Sunday, and having her acknowledge that she knew about my mom it instantly broke me.

No one talks to me about my mom anymore. They pretty much talk to me about anything else but avoid the whole fact that I even had a mother, let alone one that passed away. But Aunt Pam wanted to tell me that she was sorry to hear about it, and then she wanted to know how it happened and where it was. She's got cancer too. Similar cancer to what my mom had only they caught hers early. It started in her bone and they found it and she now has titanium rods in her leg that help her get around. She had the same cancer as Terry Fox and we both marveled at how only a short time ago that would've meant a complete amputation. 

She understood what I had to say. She was there. More than there, she understood completely about my other heartache.

The one that people don't even realize hurts the most.

The fact that I wasn't able to fulfill my mother's dying wish and how much it hurts every single day.

I didn't want to dwell on it. I was at a baby shower after all. And I'm so happy for my sister-in-law and the baby she's carrying.

But it was so hard to not acknowledge that the only thing my mother asked of me when she was diagnosed was "Any news on the baby front?"

And there I was pouring all this out to Aunt Pam.

I even told her about the extra heartache I had at my sisters house this week when reading the card she got form my dad. He had handwritten inside "Thank you for giving me grandchildren."

When I read it, I felt my heart sink. I felt like a failure.

Aunt Pam completely understood. She admitted that she wanted children so bad, but at 33 she had to have a complete hysterectomy. Her own secret reason for why she never had kids. She told me that I could do so many other things and to not stress about it. If it was meant to be it will be, something my mother admitted to me the day I took her to chemo and told her about my troubles and how disappointed I was in myself.

Around the time of my mothers funeral, I had a conversation with someone, sadly I cannot remember who. And they told me that the things that I would rely on my mother for, I would find myself relying on other people. They told me that they knew it would be hard for me to believe at the time, but that it would come. I had so many great people around me. I always assumed the people that would stand up and help me would be in my immediate family. What I find so funny about that now is that they are all hurting so much, missing my mom so much, that they need someone to step in my mom's role too. They can't support me and help me through my grief, pain and disappointment, because they are going through the exact same things.

But I've been amazed by how much compassion I've been shown by people that may not have ever known my mom. I've had people stand up and support me that I never would've ever thought to ask.

And so I really want to thank Aunt Pam for talking to me privately. For listening. For caring and understanding and taking the time to actually look me in the eye and talk to me about something so difficult rather than toss it under the rug and say "Oh if she wanted to talk about it, she would."

I'm sick and tired of people not talking to me because they feel that I'll cry.

It's okay to cry and it's okay to say something and make me cry. I didn't give up mascara because I didn't want to cry.

Grieving is a life long process. I did some reading and forwarded some things to my husband so that he could understand it too. Sometimes, it's a life long process. People that have also lost a parent have told me that over time it hurts less but the hurt will still be there. They suggested that I don't shy away from it and to talk about her as much as I can. They told me that it's good to remember the good times and laugh away the bad.

I do not want to forget about her.

I do not want to forget about my mom.

Don't let me forget about my mom. 

Exercising with Jenny McCarthy

I did something I very rarely do last night - I went into a video game store.

Yes me. And no, my husband didn't bring me kicking and screaming.

He was on the hunt for some game, I think a racing game or something. He never plays with the games he has now so I wasn't entirely sure what the sudden pull was. We had nothing going on, I was having a very down day so I really didn't care what we did as long as it wasn't wallowing in the sad funk that I found myself in on my drive home yesterday.

Anyhow, enough about that.

We went to the EB Games near our house and immediately upon entering I found an end of rack area set up with fitness games. I've been talking about how I wanted to start getting fit using the Wii for awhile now, but my lazy arse couldn't be bothered to put in any batteries into the balance board so it's just sat there taunting me for a few months. Okay, maybe it hasn't been taunting me. It is hidden behind the laundry and so therefore I did shut it up quite good.

Back to the games. There were a few that I was interested in.

#1 - an MMA Fighter fitness game that was all about punching and kicks and stuff to kick your ass into shape. It had this handy little contraption that wrapped around your leg and was connected to controllers so that it was able to track your movements.

#2 - A Zumba fitness game that had you dancing and shaking your way into fitness. I was very intrigued as I've heard nothing but positive things about Zumba and about how much fun people have. This game would've been cool, but it came with a belt that I could tell would fit around my fat leg and not my fat stomach as they showed on the box. It was built for smaller girls, not for big girls like me, so I ruled it out.

#3 - A game that features a video camera that is mounted to the game where they actually can see you and your progress. You don't have to stand on anything and you can be any size fat ass that you are in order to start. Jenny McCarthy acts as your personal trainer, or at least her digitized cartoon version is. Per the box it says "Fitness that's fun and focused on you."

Intrigued by all of them I called over my hubby. He told me "If you want it, go ahead," and then proceeded to leave me alone to fight over the differences. As you can tell by the title of my blog, the one I chose was #3.

Your Shape featuring Jenny McCarthy

I brought it home, put on my workout gear (minus the sneakers), got the camera set up and prepared to get started. No time like the present right? There were some minor glitches with the camera - the angle it was focused on, that I was wearing black pants and the camera couldn't differentiate between my legs and the bedspread behind me because they were both dark, but we worked through them and I found that I actually felt good from the work out.

Of course I ended up doing extra because I screwed up in the beginning and had the absolute wrong weight set in the system for me and there was no way to correct this once you got past the initial run - which is a big glitch in the game in my opinion. But other than that, I really felt the game lived up to what it said. Because they could see my movements, they were able to tell me what I did wrong, which was a nice feature. Next time, I'm going to wear sneakers though because push ups on a carpet with socks on are very difficult.

So essentially what I'm saying is, thank you Jenny McCarthy for making it possible for fat asses like me to get up and do some exercise. I look forward to working out with you again.