Miserable

*sigh* I am feeling terrible emotionally, and it shows in my eating. My good habits learned at kripalu are slipping away, and I feel so crappy that I almost don't care. But of course I do care, and it's really bothering me. I know it's work and the stress/current managerial challenges here. I feel trapped by my circumstances as the primary breadwinner (practially only since the !@#$%^&*() ex isn't keeping up with his $$$ obligations - bastard!) of the house, the good education the town we're living in provides, current standard-of-living, and the need to pay for massage school for the next year, which could easily surpass $10K. When I feel trapped, I get anxious. And I want to eat to numb it, make it go away, make it feel better, make it different than it is. Which it never does. Hmmm.

I'm closer to "rescue" mode than I was yesterday, but not close enough to refrain from drinking coffee, which I was doing SO very well at not drinking, and eating too much portion-wise, and seeking out sugar sugar sugar. I've already gained a pound, no surprise, and I'm afraid to weigh myself the rest of this week. My pants are still falling off me (the bigger pairs, anyway), so I'm not in trouble yet. I will if I don't stop my downward spiral. I need to acknowledge that a year ago, this would have thrown me off for weeks or even months, and the year(s) before that - forget it! So I'm still making progress.

Even being able to just *identify* the source of the feelings is HUGE for me. In the past, it would have taken days/weeks or maybe not happened at all. Now the knowledge is there (it probably was before but I wasn't as able to access it) much more quickly/clearly. What a blessing that is in most ways, beyond the "great, now I have to do something about it" reaction that I'm currently dealing with.

It's always been difficult for me to be flexible/spontaneous (that is one thing I can thank the ex for - he made it impossible to be fixed/rigid in my plans, so I got better at going with the flow) and not hold a perfect picture of how things must be. It's very difficult for me to be open to other answers to my work dilemma. It frightens me to think about having to change something that I have been doing for almost 9 years, to take a risk and do something new/different that could help me stay in the town that we're in until the kids get out of school (and/or possible longer). I'm comfortable here (at this job) - it's stressful, but it's known stress, and I have flexibility which would be challenging to find in a new job (until I had paid my dues). Ideally I'd love a part-time job with benefits. I know they exist, but they are extremely rare, and I wouldn't leave the hell here to go to a job that didn't have a better culture, even if it did have benefits. At least I know the players here, and how to work with the situation to the best of my abilities, whereas a new place would be a stress on its own, if only for the sake of being a new and therefore different place. As I mentioned, I'm not the most flexible person (although I can do a kickin' triangle pose!), so to try to go to school while I am adjusting to a new job? No way, dude!

I can't go part-time here. As it is, our dept. is understaffed, so that wouldn't be an option. Once I get my certification at massage school and build a reasonable clientele, I can look into part-time work. Benefits are still a huge concern, so I've joked with the bf that I may have to marry him for his benefits. Thank you to our current healthcare system for this difficulty. If it were just me/health insurance, I could save money every month and hope that I stayed healthy, but the kids are involved and will be for at least the next 10 years or longer. I certainly can't count on their (I use the term loosely) father to step up to the plate on this either. Bastard.

My rescue plan for the moment: I just ate my orange, and am drinking my water. I have a small portion of veggie calzone left for a late lunch - just enough to satisfy me but not too much so that I feel gross. Stay away from the coffee for 2.5 more hours. Go to my yoga class. Go home and roast the veggies that I have from last week for a curry salad with the chicken that I still need to cook up. Feed the kids salad and their chicken for dinner, or maybe the barbeque tofu that I pulled out of the freezer days ago and still haven't done anything with. Clear off the clutter that's starting to accumulate on the island that I spent hours last week clearing. Of course, all I've been wanting to do when it hits 8:00 or later is to crawl into bed and sleep away the pain. *sigh*