Adventures in Acceptance

I’m going to ramble a bit about all the stuff I’ve been up to and hope that it will circle back to acceptance and/or related topics.  😉  Wish me luck…

As some of you may have already read in a comment that I posted, I got that bookstore job.  Monday through Friday was exhausting with all the training.  Had the training not included giant manuals of corporate procedure and hours of standing around with two other trainees reading outloud, it prolly wouldn’t have been as tiring or as frustrating.  It took every ounce of my will to not scream in frustration at the 20 minute hand-washing training.  No freakin’ joke.  Ya see, we’re all starting out in the in-store gourmet coffee joint.  Management wants new-hires cross-trained and trained in cafe first.  After we master this, we can start branching out.  But, yeah, the 20 minute hand-washing thing struck me as such an insult to intelligence.  I am sure that this is mandatory for legal reasons, but… just yuck.  It did not feel good to be so condescended to.  Grrrr. 

After the first few days of depressing training in stuff I already know and that I’d hope the average chimpanzee would know, things improved greatly.  It’s actually been fun.  After my last job, this one is a piece of cake.  I could do this in my sleep.  It is also pretty darn nice to have a physical job.  I am burned out on sitting at a desk for hours on end.  I’m burned out from being physically tired from physical inactivity.  Agh, the irony!  That problem is solved anyway.  Check.  The employee discount is ridiculously sweet.  We’ll be saving a mint with the book discount, which makes up for the pay. 

I’ve also learned an important lesson about shoes.  Good shoes are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY important.  After all these years in desk jobs, I forgot the important of good shoes.  Sheesh.  My first few days, my left leg actually went numb from the inadequacy of my newly purchased, expensive Grasshopper shoes.  So, I pulled out my gym shoes.  My old gym shoes actually made the pain tolerable.  Yesterday, I got a new pair of really awesome Asics with all sorts of gel and padding and stability and whatnot.  I cannot wait to try them out and see how they feel! 

Now I actually will circle back to acceptance.  Oh, silly me…. let me tell you what I’ve been doing to myself for years… sigh.  I have been blaming myself for shoes that weren’t any kind of good fit for me.  I didn’t realize I was doing this, but I know it quite clearly now.  I have a few nasty little pairs of shoes in mind when I say this.  I just assumed that my lack of exercise was making my feet hurt and that’s why it sucked to walk or jog or whatever.  My idiotic biological father (who I have no contact with anymore, because he is an abusive stalker jerk – but that’s another story) convinced me of this years ago, when I still spoke to the MO-ron.  I had some foot pain, which he chalked up to me being overweight and fairly inactive.  He was wrong.  It was bad shoes.  Sadly, it has taken me several years to realize this.  Sigh…   My feet are just fine with the right shoes, thank you very much.  So, geeeee… maybe those Merrell sandals that hurt my feet from day one (though I didn’t feel this in the store… I only felt it after I could walk in them for more than five minutes) simply weren’t right for me.  I wasn’t too fat or inactive for the sandals.  Grrrrr… grumble… grumble…. grrrrrrrrrrrrr…..  With a new pair of sandals that suit me much better, all that pain that I never had before those Merrell sandals is completely gone. 

It always surprises me when that old “everything is fat’s fault” thinking comes back.  The culture is simply so saturated with it that I am convinced that I’ll be combatting this thinking until the day I die… or otherwise leave this stronghold of thin worship and fat hate. 

I had a similar experience when I went digging through my closet for a certain pair of shorts.  I couldn’t find them.  All I could find was all these shorts that are a size too small, but I keep them around cuz my weight is always fluxuating.  I’d rather not have to re-buy the smaller sizes if I lose weight.  With the anti-depressants and such that I’m on, I never know how my weight will be effected.  So, like Sas described in her last post, I got all the horrible self-hating thoughts that come with not having clothes that fit.  I caught myself thinking about dieting even.  Meh.  The really interesting bit is that when I finally found the shorts in my current size that I was looking for (and some other clothes that I was looking for that fit my body as it is now), I suddenly felt fine about my body.  I no longer felt ashamed or not good enough for clothes or whatever.  Yet again I realize how hugely important it is to have comfortable and well-fitting clothes available to us EVERY DAY.  It’s just not worth going through all the emotional anguish of not having clothes that feel right and fit well.  Clothes are important!!  Or so… I am realizing.  😉

In other news, hubby and I are trying to lure Mr. Orange (the stray cat that we feed) into a large cage with tuna in it.  Apparently, he’s bonkers for tuna.  If we can trap him in time, he has a vet appointment tomorrow morning to get his shots updated and to get some virus tests.  If all goes well, he could be in a no-kill shelter tomorrow afternoon.  We shall see…  It is storming today and Mr. Orange doesn’t like to visit us when it’s thundering.  Then there’s the noisy air and water show that we can hear all the way in my burb that isn’t helping things.  It may take us a few more days than planned to trap our little stray friend, but I am confident that we will succeed and soon! 

–AngryGrayRainbows