Totally not kosher...

Another gorgeous day in Tel Aviv. The sun was shining bright, the sea was sparkling blue and the breeze was blowing. I should have been ready to charge out and enjoy another day in Israel, but the day certainly didn't start out that way.

For whatever reason, still not totally sure what triggered it, I woke up this morning in a really lousy mood. I couldn't seem to get moving and once I did I was faced with my daily battle with breakfast. This is always the hardest meal for me, but today it seemed to up end me. Despite the immense Israeli buffet breakfast available I barely could find anything that looked appetizing and even after I did I was barely able to eat. Nothing tasted good and I just wasn't hungry. But of course the less I wanted to eat the more upset I got over it, and left breakfast fighting tears. My mood was totally not kosher!!!!

My first reaction was to curl up in bed and hide from the day, but decided I was not wasting the day so reached out for help from someone back home. Unfortunately at the time (fortunately looking back) the response I got was more a kick in the butt than the comfort I was hunting for, but either way it got me moving and I decided to take on the day, I am so glad I did (and grateful to the person who kicked my butt, we may not agree but at least it shook me out of my funk....irritated is a motivator for me at times).

As part of the response I was given, I was also asked a very interesting question, why am I so paranoid about gaining weight, especially since I know it will come back off in a day or two? It is a question I have been asked before and always came up with a lame answer for. Today I didn't even bother to answer when asked. Ok truth, I shot back with a bitchy response (sorry about that still) and moved on. I wasn't ready to be fixed, I just wanted help coping with where I was at, but I got more fixing than I realized at that moment.

Not answering the question didn't remove it from my mind, it never does. I chewed on it threw my totally non-kosher shrimp lunch at the namal (old port of Tel Aviv) and as I walked back along the Tayelet (the boardwalk that runs the length of Tel Aviv along the sea). As I walked the mile or so I was becoming more and more amazed with each step that I was taking that walk without struggling, stumbling or even the least effort, that I was able to walk on the beach with trouble (something I found incredibly difficult in Hawaii a year ago) and just how carefree the walk was. The ability to use my body now is something I far from take for granted and which leaves me shocked and stunned every day. it is just such a different world for me.

As I was standing in awe of how things have changed, the answer washed across me like the waves on the sand. I don't trust that this is all real, it is too good, too fast and I fear losing it. I have tried for 30 years to lose weight, I have tried for 15 years to walk again, and have had it fail on me at every turn. In the last 4 months I have done what I had long written off as undoable and while I have moved past not believing it can happen, I still fear it not lasting. And it is a level of fear that is visceral. It is driving my thoughts and my actions and I didn't even know it was there. I fear returning to where I was a year ago so much that I am missing out part of enjoying having it now.

This is another one of those posts, where I feel like I should have some profound answer I found, about dealing with that fear, about how I am going to get past it. But I don't know that answer yet. Just realizing that was what was going on is still settling in with me. Fear is a weird emotion for me, it is one people dont expect from me (I get told all the time how brave I am, boy do I have the world fooled on that) and one that I dont appreciate in myself. I see fear as weakness, as something I should be beyond. But I realized today that this is a really deep seated fear and something I need to figure out or I am going to keep coming back to the place I was at this morning. This is not something that ignoring it will make it go away.

Gui has said to me repeatedly that the biggest battle I have left to fight is in my head, but I never saw that as dealing with fear, now I wonder if that is actually the issue he was pointing at all along. If all my obsessing is just desperately trying to hold on to those things I fear losing more than anything.