The Thorn in my Side

Most people who know me describe me in similar ways (trust me, I know, I have asked). They say I am bubbly, outgoing, talkative, friendly, loyal, sometimes a bit know-it-all and controlling when I want things done my way (which is, of course, the right way!). I know my strengths and I know my faults.

I have learnt these things not just from talking to others but from the soul searching I have done over the last few years since my first marriage fell apart. I know what I like and what I don't like. I know to listen to my gut about things as usually my feelings are spot on, even when I don't have a logical explanation for them. I know I have a tendency to be competitive and aggressive in certain situations, so for the most part I avoid those scenarios. I have issues with food and weight, as well as other addictions that I have had to combat.

I am ok being honest about these things.

But there is something in my life that I am not ok with.

I don't talk about it.

I don't like to acknowledge it.

It makes me feel weak and useless.

And if there is one thing I don't like, it is feeling weak and useless.

It won't seem major to you guys. I know it seems like I am building this up, but I doing that less than I am just not sure how to say it without sounding stupid.

Because I get sick.

A lot.

I have migraines that put me in bed for a couple of days at a time. 

I have other days where my body shuts down and I can sleep the entire day.

If I don't do this I get migraines or illness or who knows what other ailments. 

For every two days I work/study I spend one day recuperating. 

And it pisses. me. off.

It also scares the bejeezus out of me. This is because when I was married the first time I was very mentally unwell. I was on a lot of medications to deal with what was going on in my head, and one of the side affects of this was that I slept. A lot. Like 20 hours a day, no jokes. I get terrified every time I feel tired that I am going back to that. That one day it will move from a physical tired to a mental illness tired and I will be back in the hell I lived in for years and yet, by the grace of God, managed to escape.

My ex also hated it. I get afraid that my hubby now will one day get sick of it just like ex did. That he won't be able to handle me being like this and will pull away from me and leave. I know that he isn't like that (one of the reasons I love him so much) yet the scars remain and so does the fear.

I get scared that I will not be able to achieve all I dream about doing. I feel like God has pulled me in certain directions to do certain things and yet I feel that my body is stopping me doing it. That makes me scared that I am hearing from God wrong or that somehow I will fail. In my theological mind I know that the God I know doesn't have a achieve/fail rating on people, but in my emotional mind I am afraid of letting God down. I have been given so much back, should I not being giving everything?

I am afraid that I will always be like this. I know that there are others out there with much worse health issues than me. Off the top of my head I can think of three people that I keep in contact with whose health issues cause them pain, are degenerative, or have them in wheelchairs. I also have a mother-in-law who is battling for her life against her own body, fighting against cancer. I am grateful that I have a body that can do what it does and a mind that is able to write a thesis and be mentally well. Yet I am afraid that I will never have enough energy for having children, working full time, doing ministry, and a variety of other things.

At these times I remember Paul and the thorn in his side. No one really knows what it was, but some educated guesses reckon he was going blind. For someone who relied on getting letters to people, that must've been a huge blow. He must have hated it. Yet he speaks of giving thanks in all circumstances, of praising God for what has been given. This man founded most of the early church and was going blind! And while that should give me hope, it makes me feel the pressure of my own expectations to do as well with or without my health issues. I mean, if a blind man could, why can't I?

Growing up in this world we are faced with too many expectations. I had them from my family. I remember distinctly being told that our family aimed to be CEO's, not the workers. And to some extent I am proud of that ethos, even if it is misguided. Then the rest of my life I have been bombarded with images of what it means to be the perfect woman, mother, wife, worker. At church I am told how to be a great mother but that also church people are involved in 101 church activities. Even now my pastor and his family (who are great people and whom I love very much) set the bar pretty high by being involved in so many things I don't think they actually sleep.

Yet when I tell people what I am struggling with I am told to take it easy, rest it worship, do what I can and no more. But this is at odds with everything else that the world is screaming at me, what I see in my church, and what I fundamentally believe about myself from what I grew up with.

So how does one accept where they are at? 

I was talking to my friend, and theologian, Immanuel Koks the other day about this. He is in a wheelchair because of dealing with Cerebral Palsy since birth. He is highly intelligent, gentle, and teaches me so much about love and peace just by being around him. I asked him how do I accept where I am at. He answered that it is less about accepting the illness and more about accepting the days when you don't accept it. In other words, it is ok to have days where you are pissed off, and you have to be ok with them.

Well people, I am pissed off.

And I am NOT ok with that.

I am not ok with not knowing each day if I will make it out of bed.

I am not ok with my hubby having to watch his wife have bad days.

I am not ok with this at all.

And what I am really not ok with is that this is most likely my fault.

That is right. I did this.

When I was mentally unstable I was on so many drugs I can't even remember all of their names. They were all drugs that affected my brain. And when I decided that life was too hard, I decided to try and OD on some of these potent drugs. I ended up in hospital, vomiting up charcoal they forced down my throat, being observed in ICU. The lethal dose I took of these pills and the type of pills they were means that there is a very high chance that I was the one who damaged my body.

I am to blame.

I don't know if I can put into words what knowing that does to me. I don't know if I can capture the regret and anger and frustration that I feel. I don't know if you will understand how that compounds all the other feelings of failure and guilt that I feel around this issue.

I believe in a God who takes away the sins of the world. I believe it and know it to be true. I know that I have been forgiven, accepted, healed, and delivered from my past just as effectively as if it had been someone else's life. Yet the repercussions remain and I feel bad for praying for healing because I feel I deserve the pain for what I did to myself. I feel like it is pay back.

I know that is wrong.

I know I am worth more than that.

I know if I was counselling someone else in this position I would be telling them that they were forgiven and don't have anything to pay back.

I know it.

So how do I believe it??

Why I am Safe from Serial Killers (and other stories)

Hubby and I love the programme Criminal Minds. We have all the seasons on dvd which we watch fairly regularly. We just got the latest season so most nights are spent curled up in front of the tv watching people learn new ways of killing others.

It's good fun.

I have learned a lot from this programme about how to avoid death at the hands of a serial killer. But what I have discovered is that I am in fact pretty safe from the psycho's that roam the world. 

Here are my top 5 ways that you too can be safe from serial killers:

5. Be a Snob

You are a social person who loves to meet new people. Well, stop it. Criminal minds has shown me that staying at home and avoiding people at all costs is really the only way to go. When you finally get to the desperate situation of HAVING to go out to get food, toilet paper, or any other essentials (and trust me, you can learn to live without a lot) then ignore anyone who may talk to you. Check out assistant asks how your day was? Avoid eye contact and say nothing. World Vision collector asks for your spare change? Scream, throw some newly acquired shopping at them, and run to your car. An old friend wants to catch up? Tell them (better to yell it at full volume) to leave you alone, you don't know them. Snobbing people could save your life.

4. Never, ever, under any circumstances, move to America

We all know that Americans are strange. But did you know, as Crim Minds has enlightened me, that all next-door neighbours in America are in fact psychopaths just biding their time? It's true! The nice old man to the sweet little child are all waiting to kill you! So avoid the whole country. It is simply easier that way. You just have to pretend that this very large country doesn't exist and then you will never want to visit it.

3. Stop exercising

That run that makes you feel really great is going to kill you, but not in the way that you think. Serial killers seem to hang out along running trails. They have their serial killer meetings in places where people will be jogging or biking or anything that involves exhausting your body and making you easy prey. Fit people are targets simply because they exercise. If you HAVE to exercise then make sure you do it in a group. But be warned, this too can be deadly unless you have police checked the backgrounds of everyone you are running with. Apparently it is most likely to be someone you know that kills you. You put that together with the whole serial killer obsession with running tracks and all I am saying is that you are gonna die if you keep doing this.

2. Shave your head

It is a well documented fact on Crim Minds that all the victims have perfect hair. Psychos love their hair do's. I mean who doesn't. So it is obvious that in order to avoid said killers, you should go home immediately and shave all your hair off. No crazy person wants to pick up a bald chick, it just doesn't happen. Some of the people on Crim Minds could be hair models!! All you will have to do when attacked it shine your gleaming bald pate at them and they will be the ones running away screaming. 

1. Get Fat.

This is my number one tip. It ties in nicely with number three, though number two may inhibit the amount you can eat to achieve this. All I am saying is that you never see a fat chick on the slab in the morgue. I may not be able to run fast from a person with a knife/gun/rope/taser but have you ever tried to move 140kg of dead weight? That sucker is never gonna get me in his car/van/basement. They are gonna give up after all of 5 seconds. If by some miracle they do manage to get me into their psycho pit of doom, there is the added benefit of a sharp instrument not penetrating as far into my body as with a skinny chick. I may survive a stabbing due to my bulk, whereas those skinny girls will definitely have a major organ hit. So start putting on the pounds people, it may save your life.

I can tell you without a word of a lie that these steps will save your life. I should now, I am a bald, fat, non-exercising, recluse who hates America. And I am safe from some tortured soul torturing me!!

I in fact did not go bald to save my life, but to support someone who is fighting for theirs. My mother in law has breast cancer (let me take this moment to say CHECK YOUR BOOBS LADIES). She is one stage below terminal and going through chemo at the moment. And her hair is falling out. Though this potentially is a bonus at keeping her safe from crazies, it is a difficult and emotional process and one that is not fun to go through.

When we saw how much she was struggling with losing her hair, hubby and I decided to shave our heads to show her that it is just hair, you can be bald and beautiful, and that we are with her every step of the way. 

I didn't think it was that big of a step before I did it, really I just though "woo, let's cut it all off!" Yet afterwards I realised a few things. Femininity, in our culture, is so tied to our hair that when I took it off I felt ugly, less of a woman, exposed, and...well, weird. I became worried that my husband wouldn't find me attractive anymore. I worried about going out into public because it felt like I had branded myself with "CANCER" on my forehead, even though i am not the one with it. I was emotionally rubbed raw, all from just losing my hair.

It has been eye opening to go through it though. I feel I am beginning to understand what my MIL is going through. I feel like I am getting an insight into what it must be like to not be able to hide your illness from others, to see them look, to see the sympathy in their eyes and yet have no one actually say anything about it. It is quite a journey and I have so much respect for the women who have to go through it. It has brought me so much more emotionally closer to my MIL, in ways I never thought would happen due to hair. 

Mama, we love you, and are praying for you.

BALD EAGLES UNITE!!!

Gaming Crisis

As many of you know, I have spent the last year working on a thesis about video gaming and Christian ethics (for related posts see here, here, and here). Apart from this meaning that I haven't blogged consistently for a while, it has also lead me to conclusions that I never thought I would reach. I am, in fact, having a GAMING CRISIS.

When I first started out on my thesis, I was pretty sure I knew where I was gonna end up. I am a pacifist by faith and by nature and the violence that I saw on video games haunted me. Watching my hubby and his friends play Black Ops together really use to bother me, even though what they were 'killing' was a) zombies and b) pixels. My first inclination was to run away and hide.

So when I started talking to hubby and friends about their gaming I was pretty sure that it was wrong. I thought it only glorified violence and killing and that didn't sit well with how I understood my faith and the person of Christ. I also just didn't think it was normal for anyone, no matter what faith, to enjoy watching others get killed, pixelated or not.

I was a student who started on research believing I knew what the conclusion would be. Hopefully I am not the only one who has ever done that.

Colour me shocked when I realised about two months ago that I was changing my mind.

Thanks largely to the work of Kevin Schut and his book Of Games and God (if you are into this kind of stuff seriously spend the few dollars to get this book, it is epic and so well written and easy to understand!) I started to delve into the world of Christianity and gaming and the beauty that there is in this art form. Schut, to my delight, didn't gloss over the difficult questions of violence etc, but rather engaged with it in a way that showed deep commitment to his faith and deep consideration of his love of gaming.

In short, his book blew my mind....and changed my thesis.

I began to seriously consider if I was one of those Christians that I had always despised. You know the ones. They are outside stores that are selling GTA with signs telling people how evil gaming is. I never wanted to be one of those people and yet my attitude was such that I was closed off to the idea that gaming could be anything other than violent and disturbing.

Meet my gaming crisis.

It is rather like a faith crisis, when you suddenly realise that everything you ever thought about the Bible was actually taught to you by a broken human being and maybe they didn't have everything right and maybe, just maybe, you know nothing at all about anything. That was my gaming crisis in a nut shell. I realised that I had formed my biased opinions on a small segment of gaming that I had seen and then blindly applied that to everything without stopping to ask if I actually knew what gaming was.

I was adrift in an ocean of gaming uncertainty.

To some extent I am still there. My thesis is not complete. In fact I am due to start writing my concluding chapters next week. Though I am excited about the discoveries I have made, I am also very uncertain that I really know anything about what I am trying to say anymore. All I know is, my conclusion will not be the same as I thought it would be.

I guess that is the nature of true research.

I have even started to game a little. I have started with Skyrim as my first game because of the possibilities that it offers. I am not tied into a particular character, nor do I have to engage in killing if I don't want to. It is perhaps a baby step, but it is something. This has come about due to the fact that Schut argues that you can't engage with a medium if you aren't involved with it. My friend Kent will be face palming right about now as he has been saying this to me for years, and I simply ignored him, so sorry Kent, I guess I couldn't ignore it when it was in print from a scholar of media haha.

So where does this leave me??

I HAVE NO IDEA!!!

Give me another two months to complete this thesis and I will get back to you. 

Just know, this crisis may end with me playing Black Ops after all.

Meet Albert

I want to introduce you to my friend Albert.

A 26 year old addict

Who lives on the streets of downtown Auckland

With his younger brother

Who begs across the road.

Albert looks old

Much older than his years would say

With years in his eyes that shouldn't exist

And pain etched in the lines of his face.

I met Albert when one day

I chose not to just buy him coffee

Not to simply give some coins

But to spend my lunch hour sitting on the curb

Watching people pass

And feeling as insignificant as he does daily.

A few days after meeting Albert I asked him

"what's your story?

How did you end up here with a strange woman

Sitting at your side,

Feeding you Mickey d's?"

He looked at me with a bemused smile and replied

"it's the same old story, nothing exciting."

I pressed on and eventually he gave in.

This is what he told me...

He told me of a mother with too many kids and too many addictions

Of a father barely remembered and gladly so.

He spoke of violence and police 

Of a string of houses

Where kids were paychecks

Siblings were separated

And sex, violence and abuse were normal.

Then he told me of the day a young 15 year old boy

Fled from a house that was never a home

Found his brother

And they stole into the night

On to the streets

Where they formed a life together.

At the end of his tale Albert laughed to see tears in my eyes.

For him, this story was typical,

For me, this story was terrible.

My anger at the injustice of it all burned within me.

He just shrugged and adjusted his blanket.

I got to know Albert more over the passing weeks.

I learned when he was high and wouldn't recognize me.

I sat with him when he was sober.

I saw him assessing the price of my engagement ring with his eyes when he was dying for a fix.

On those days I stood.

I bought him salad when he told me people only ever bought him fast food.

I learned his favourite brand of coffee.

And I met his friends.

Ross is a friend of Albert's.

They get high together, sharing a joint when money is low

Sharing glue when it is lowest.

He told me a story of a Christian family that didn't spare the rod or spoil the child

Of running away as a boy

Of finding solace with Mary Jane.

He ended up on the streets and tried to leave

After going to a detox centre 

Being set up in an apartment

Trying to find a job.

But life is hard in a house when your friends are on the street.

When no one will hire you for lack of qualifications

When you become reliant on the government to help you live.

'Corporate begging' was his name for the dole.

He was lonely

Alone

Afraid.

So he went where he was known

Went back to his street family

Went back to Mary Jane

And though he wishes he was clean, 

He is happier now than 'caged'.

I want to introduce you to my friend Albert.

A 26 year old addict

Who lives on the streets of downtown Auckland

With his younger brother

Who begs across the road.

Albert looks old

Much older than his years would say

With years in his eyes that shouldn't exist

And pain etched in the lines of his face.

He is man who is broken and asks for some patience.

He is a man who wants to be seen.

Do you see him?

2 Years On...Have I Learned Anything?

My husband and I just celebrated 2 years of marriage.

We met when we were both students with no responsibilities or commitments to speak of.

Nawww...look at us, so CUTE!!!!

Now he is working, I am studying (still), and we are looking after a teenager! Things have changed somewhat in the last two years. 

So I decided to do my top 5 things I have learned from being married to this amazing man...

5. The joy of Turtles, Butts, and Limpets.

Yes you read that right.

All of these three things have one thing in common: they are all nicknames that hubby and I use for each other. Kinda gooey and gross I know but we have a lot of fun with our nicknames. Turtle can become turtlebutt, or turtle limpet, or turtlelimpetbutt etc. I have no idea why this started. I know the first one was me calling him sweet cheeks (and not because of his smile wink wink, nudge nudge) but from then on in, it took on a life of it's own.

In fact, I am not sure I can remember the last time I actually used in name properly without any add ons or funny accents or anything. And I love it! It makes us laugh, keeps us from getting to serious with each other, and when you are angry with someone how can you not laugh when they are calling you a funny name to make you smile???

Look at that ass....


4. Dates to the Supermarket

If you have ever been a student you will know how hard it is to stretch the budget for anything other than the essentials. So for hubby and I, since day one of our relationship, actual dates have been out of the question for the most part.

So where do you go when you can't afford to go anywhere?

TO THE SUPERMARKET!!!

No jokes, one of my fav things still to do with hubby is just go and do the weekly shop with him. He may not feel that connected to our shopping adventures, but I feel like they give us time to slow down, pick little things out that we know each other likes, and a chance to talk about nothing much. When I don't do the shopping with him I find it stressful and icky. But doing it with him reminds me of when we were first dating, holding hands around everywhere because we couldn't get enough of each other, and choosing presents for each other.

Love in the vegetable aisle!


3. The Mundanity of Life

I love doing nothing with hubby. Seriously. As I write this we are sitting on different couches on our separate computers doing our separate things. But every five minutes or so he will look at me and say "I love you" or pull a funny face, or sing a line from a song, or 101 other weird things that he does that make me feel so loved. He also has this habit of getting up every once in a while just to kiss me, or reaching out with a hand or foot so he can touch me, even just for a second. I know he sounds too cutesy to be real, but it is true!

And I love it. I love doing the laundry with him and laughing as he pretends to get lost in the washing that is hanging on the line. Or cooking dinner and having him come up behind me to hug me and kiss my ear. Or cleaning the house and watching him rage over the vacuum cleaner. All these little things make life that much more amazing.

It's the little things....


2. The world's cheapest bouquets

One of my most favourite things are the flowers that hubby gets me.

He doesn't buy them.

He picks them.

Yup, this man is so perfect that he goes out of his way to look for pretty flowers to pick for me.

In fact, the other night, on our anniversary, we couldn't afford to go out and do anything special, so my man faked a phone call, went outside, found different kinds of flowers, and brought them back for me.

Now some people will say that is cheap. But for a girl like me who had never really been given flowers before in her life, the fact that he thinks of such things makes me go all gooey inside. That he wants to go out of his way like that for me, or that he would see a pretty flower and think of me. I don't know if it would be better if he had spent heaps of money on a flash bouquet. To me, his ones are perfect.

If they are good enough for God...


1. CUDDLES!!!!

My absolutely number 1 favourite thing of all time is getting to go to bed with my hubby and lie in his arms as we talk about our day. It is the place I feel safest and most at home and most loved. I love it when we are falling asleep and he rolls over to snuggle into my back. Or when he randomly grabs me and hugs me during the day. And I like it when things progress to the 'special cuddle' too :P

My man is definitely a lovey dovey kinda guy and it has taught me to be as well. He commented the other day that in the last two years I have become so much more relaxed and carefree. And he is right. I have. And it is thanks to having someone who makes me laugh all the time.

Two years is not a long time but it has been long enough for me to realise that there is such a thing as joy in life. It has shown me that even when stresses happen (and believe me, the last two years we have had our fair share) that they pale in comparison to the fun and happiness that can come from just letting yourself be a little bit silly and letting yourself be loved.

So Turtlebum, happy anniversary. I love you xxxx

All I Want For Christmas is EVERYTHING!!!

Christmas.

A time for family.

A time for holidays.

A time for presents.

A time for me to get totally pissed off at the world.

Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is a Christmas Rant blog.

The hardest thing for me to decide while writing this blog is what pisses me off the most about what Christmas is in my Western, consumeristic, individualistic, narcissistic world. So I am gonna number them off, in no particular order, to help me not ramble too much and to keep the rage to the minimum.

THINGS THAT PISS ME OFF AT CHRISTMAS TIME:

1) Advertising.

Now advertising pisses me off most of the time. It is a constant in my life that I have become comforted by: when all else is falling apart I know that the TV will be a continuous and stable source of aggravation. But around Christmas time the advertising gurus go into overdrive. Buy this massive TV for your mum or you are an awful child. Buy your child this amazing gift they have never heard of but definitely need otherwise you are the worst parent in the world. 

But there is one thing that gets under my skin more than anything. The ads that tell me that I need to spoil myself this Christmas. If all the gifts from other people aren't enough or aren't really good enough, I should spend copious amounts of money on getting myself diamond earrings or a new outfit.

WHAT IN THE CHRISTMAS FUDGE NUGGET IS HAPPENING HERE????!!!!!

When the flip did we need to buy ourselves Christmas presents?? Have we become so self centred that the one day where OTHERS get to buy us a GIFT, as opposed to the 364 other days when we get to buy stuff for ourselves, is so crap, their gifts are so abysmal and depressing, that we reject them for what we can get because at least we will like that??

Come on people! I mean if you believe in nothing else about Christmas apart from family and fun and gift giving, then doesn't this mentality defeat the purpose? Haven't we killed Christmas, or what we believe Christmas to be, by making it about ourselves? Which leads me to…

2) It's ALL about family.

Family is great. We all love our families….most of the time.

But for some people, including me, we don't get to see our families at all around the Christmas season. This can be brutally painful, especially when it is shoved down your throat every second of the day for about 2 months leading up to the big day.

Happy families, family all together, go visit your family.

OK ALREADY! Let's just make us all feel so much worse for not being able to, thanks.

But not just that, when did family become such an idol of our society? What about inviting in strangers who have no where to go? What about helping the poor or homeless?

I have a Korean flatmate who told me that her tradition for her family and her church every Christmas is to visit the old and sick and to make them happy with gifts and singing. EVERY CHRISTMAS!!! I love this! When was the last time I though of people outside of my immediate circle for Christmas day?

3) Christmas songs.

I swear if I have to hear Snoopy's Christmas one more time while shopping I may start throwing things. I think this is slight post traumatic stress disorder from the year I went shopping in the Warehouse and this song was on a loop. I drove me mental and I can no longer hear that song without wanting to rip my ears off.

But I digress.

Christmas songs are loved by many people but because of my Christian beliefs and my life in NZ I find them increasingly bizarre. My beliefs tell me that Christmas has a meaning, namely the birth of Jesus, and Christmas songs seem so hollow and shallow when they are about presents and missing people etc and not about the actual reason for the event. I also have only ever once had a winter Christmas (in England in my teens) and so songs about white christmas's and running through snow really seem counterintuitive to me, which explains…

4) the New Zealand inability to create their own cultural Christmas

In NZ we seem unable to celebrate Christmas without the fake snow decorations, snow flakes stencilled on walls, snow men, and Christmas songs clearly singing about the Northern Hemisphere. We do have a couple of crappy Christmas songs about celebrating on the beach, and one (which I actually love) called Te Haranui about the first Christmas service in NZ (which will be celebrating 200 years next Christmas!!). But we seem to be so influenced by America and England that we can't break this trend. We will decorate Christmas trees with snow flakes and then go out to the beach for a swim. We will play Christmas songs about reindeer while cruising with our windows down in 25+ degrees C. It's nuts. It's a cultural schizophrenia.

Surely there is a way to do Christmas in a way that is authentically Kiwi without missing out anything important.

5) People who gripe about Christmas without seeing the good in it.

Just when you thought I was the grinch come to steal your fun and joy, I come out with that stunner.

I may have issues with Christmas and what it has become, but I love the idea of getting together with loved ones, celebrating Jesus' birth, swapping gifts, and spending a day having fun. Celebrations are important and this is one worth doing well. I love Christmas. I love going to church and knowing that every where around the world my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are remembering this same moment, that we are joined in celebration on this one day. I love buying people gifts and seeing them laugh and smile when I give it to them. I love decorating and cooking and the build up. I love watching my niece and nephews freak out on too much sugar and presents. I love remembering that I have a God that loves to celebrate too, that Jesus' birth had singing angels and presents and wandering strangers welcomed into it.

But I don't love what we have made it into. I don't want everything I see for Christmas, but I do want a small thing that someone has thoughtfully chosen for me. I don't want crappy, meaningless Christmas songs, but I do want carols that retell the story of Jesus birth. I don't want to make it all about me or just family, but I do want to celebrate it with people I love. 

So what do you want for Christmas, and are you celebrating well?

Run Fat Girl, Run!!!!

The other day I had a crisis.

I wanted to go for one of my mega walks but when I went through the clean washing disaster struck.

My sports bra had broken.

Now if you are a woman like me and perhaps weigh a few big macs more than a happy meal, not having a sports bra when exercising is a problem of monumental size (no pun intended!!). I need a sports bra! I MUST HAVE A SPORTS BRA!

So I went shopping (thank you hubby's plastic card) and I was faced with a dilemma that strikes me every time I look for sports gear:

The world does not want big women to exercise.

Oh believe me, the world TELLS big women to exercise. Read any magazine, health website, or watch TV and very soon you will realise that being big is THE sin of today. You want to lose weight, you MUST lose weight, or you will die in your sleep TONIGHT!!!

If the bombardment of messages finally seeps through our fat layers to our simple minded brains (not me saying this, just the impression I get from the ads) then the first thing you MUST do is buy the equipment, work out gear and shoes.

Equipment: check. Shoes: check. Gear:…..

WHERE THE FLIPPIN' DO I BUY GEAR!!???

Sports clothes come in sizes that may cover my forearm and nothing else. If I am to look at sports clothes and deduce anything it is that skinny people love to exercise, while big people don't go near the stuff.

Which may be true, I mean it wasn't through doing exercise that we put on the weight.

But if you are like me and you are sick of being big, then you need the clothes that won't fall apart as you walk down the road. You need support in all the normal places, plus probably a couple more. You need something that will stop chaffing, will allow air flow, and won't show the sweat patches that arrive as soon as you stand up from the couch (oh yeah, I am sexy).

But when you go shopping, you can find none…of….these.

Bike shorts? Forget it. Good tops? No can do. Sports bra? Only if you are the size of a skinny teenager.

Even if you want to buy scales to keep track of your weight, most of the at home ones only go up to 120kg. Now this is a lot but I weigh more and these scales do NOT like being pushed beyond their limits. I should know, I broke my mothers.

So what is one to do? Believe the ads that tell you to move that lazy ass, or to believe the shops that tell you that you don't really want to do anything more than walking around the said shop and then going home for a lie down.

Luckily I eventually found what I was looking for (at 3x the price of the smaller sizes) (if you need to know where I went message me and I will let you know) but the mixed signals and the frustration of feeling like the world wants something for you but won't support you in it was almost enough to put me off.

This new bra better last forever, that's all I am saying.