I thought I’d be asleep by now. This insomnia hit me quite unawares.

The thoughts just won’t stop. After I got back from dinner with the happy couple, I watched, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” with my mother and my cousin. My mother adores that movie, and my cousin had never seen it. Since I’ve been pretty busy and absent all week, I wanted to watch it with them. At some point, I made a comment to the effect of, “gee, I’m glad Dad doesn’t expect me to just get married and have babies.”

My mother replied, rather off-handedly, that, “Well, he doesn’t say anything to you about it…” and I gave her a look of disbelief and said, “What?”.

“Nevermind.”

Since I didn’t want to get into a fight with my mother in front of my cousin, and over something so inflammatory no less, I decided to drop it. However, it’s clearly not been dropped from my mind. I’ve been in bed since 9:45 doing the little puzzles in my head and realizing that my parents are in-the-closet with their old-school beliefs. Little things are coming together:

- My father asking me if I was spending too much time with my female friends.
- My father asking me if my friends make fun of me because I don’t have a boyfriend.
- My father telling me it was a waste to educate me.
- My father constantly harping on me about my weight and my appearance.
- My father constantly harping on me about “earning peanuts” and not making enough money to, “be happy.” My response addressed that money is not the only reason a person works… and that I’m very happy doing what I’m doing. This fell on deaf ears since my father is very old-school about that, too. You work in order to suffer and sacrifice and earn money. Work is not a place to have fun or enjoy yourself. How things have changed… or what a lucky girl I am, with respect to my career.
- My father constantly lecturing me about being too smart “for my own good” - he means I’m not docile enough and will scare away the men looking for a good little Polish wife.

The man is evidently not concerned with my own mental well-being. Rather, he wants to make sure that I’m married off to someone with a large income. In order to “help” me achieve this most elevated and all-important status (that of Married Woman), I believe my father sees all his emotional abuse as inspiration and support. If he tells me that he’s ashamed of me, perhaps it will teach me something; that since the only man in my life who is supposed to love me unconditionally is ashamed of the way I look, then I’d damn well better change the way I look and act if I ever want anyone to love me, period.

It’s such a crock of shit. And it’s kind of sad and pathetic that he doesn’t know me well enough to know that I don’t change myself for anyone other than myself. I’ve never changed myself for his benefit or anyone else’s benefit. When I found the discipline and energy a few years ago to lose a bunch of weight, it was because I was happy and feeling energetic and WANTING to be healthy. I didn’t do it for anyone other than myself.

Right now, I’m preparing myself for another round of self-discipline and ass-kicking. Why? The reason this time is that I want to be in good shape for my dear friend Theresa’s wedding in nine months. I want to feel confident and beautiful - and not to outshine her, but just to feel even 1/10th as wonderful as she will feel on that day. I drove around my neighborhood today, resetting the trip meter to zero at several points and plotting out several walking/jogging routes… I’ve got a 1.5-mile, a 2-mile and a 4-mile planned out. I can run on the treadmill, too, but if I take it easy outside and bring a big bottle of water, I should be able to keep my allergies from getting too bad. I won’t be able to run outside, but I can walk energetically. I read an article by a personal trainer in a magazine the other day and she was giving advice to a woman who couldn’t run because of some serious knee problems. She told her that she doesn’t have to jog or run and that walking is fine - as long as you walk “like you’re the baddest bitch out there”… strong heel-to-toe action, confident stride, etc. I liked that. I can subscribe to that mind-set.

Tomorrow will clearly not be a good day to start this regimen since I’ll be waking up at 6:30 after having only gotten 4 or 5 hours of sleep, and then I’ll be on the run until about 9 or 10 at night. It will be a bit too late to go walking then. However, on Tuesday morning I can get up at 7 and walk for a half hour before I shower and start getting ready for work. I worked with my weights today and did some arm work. I couldn’t lift a heavy weight with my left hand (the cripple wrist began to hurt, even with the brace on) so I took a smaller weight and did some shoulder presses since my shoulders and neck have been feeling weak lately.

It’s almost 1 a.m. I hate this. I really do. I’m absolutely wide awake and thinking absolutely shitty and angry thoughts. It’s hard to fall asleep angry… and it’s far too late to take any sleeping pills to knock myself out.