Gabby Writes

More than a year ago, I was working on improving my health. I was eating better, drinking less Pepsi, doing Pilates two days a week, and walking five days a week. I was using a walking app and everything. I think I was doing pretty well.

Then, as frequent readers know, my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. Suddenly, none of that seemed important. I simply didn’t have the energy to work on my goals. I was at the hospital every day during her first stay. I wasn’t reading or writing, but I managed to mostly stick to my Pilates two days a week — mostly because I’m paying for a membership and didn’t want to waste it.

Then as this year went on, her health got worse, and my wedding day was slowly creeping closer. I needed to be able to pay for everything and finalize timelines and all that shit. I also had to accept my mom would not be there, My husband often said we could cancel the wedding if it was going to depress me that she wouldn’t be there but we were getting so close that I just wanted to get it over with. I didn’t want to lose all the money we already put into it either. Then the alternative would be doing the wedding after my mom died, which I think would’ve been even more depressing.

So, now with the wedding done and my mom gone, I feel like there’s more space in my brain to focus on goals again. I may still be hindered a little bit by depression, but that’s been my whole life, so I’m used to it.

My Goals:

• Lose weight/eat healthier
• Start writing frequently again (maybe actually finish the novel I’ve been working on for years)
• Have a baby (kind of goes with losing weight and being healthy)

Now, with losing weight and eating healthier can be tricky for me. I’ve never been diagnosed with an eating disorder, but have participated in disordered eating behaviors. In high school, I weight myself three times a day. I rarely had breakfast, hardly ate anything at lunch, would make myself throw up after dinner, and work out in the basement at home. Not being diagnosed meant I never really got treated for it. My therapist and psychiatrist focused more on handling my depression and self harming,

Anyway, I started a little chart to track my mini goals for losing weight.

There’s room for more major goals to be added, and I figured three pounds lost was good for tracking, I started using the My Fitness Pal app again, and this time I’m paying attention to more than calories. I’m looking at my sugar, cholesterol, protein, fat, sodium, etc. How active I am depends on the week. I go to Pilates classes, sometimes use a Pilates app at home, and will walk for a half hour on the walking pad I bought.

In the back of my mind I’m wondering if this is just my brain working for some kind of control after not feeling like I had it for a year. I weigh myself almost every day in the morning, and I’m telling myself it’s because I need to see and understand that weight can fluctuate a little and that gaining a pound or whatever isn’t a tragedy. But what if I’m just lying to myself? I still eat without throwing up later, I just try to cut down on snacking and drinking Pepsi (gotta watch my sugar with a family history on Type 2 Diabetes). But am I eventually going to spiral and let it consume my life? I don’t know. I do know that when/if I get pregnant, I’m not going to focus so much on how much I weigh. Because the baby will be so much more important. So, maybe I’ll turn out OK.

I learned that I loved writing when I was 10. I wrote some stories for fun that a few friends and my mom read. One young adult novel I started working on when I was 17, which has been rewritten several times. I even self-published it when I was 27 on Amazon, but I didn’t know shit about marketing myself. I’m also sure it needs another rewrite.

Night Life: Escape

You can read it at that link if you want. It’s probably not that good and I didn’t think to format it so that the physical copy would look like a regular book. And I’m sure you can tell I didn’t work too hard on the cover. I kind of put it up on an anxiety fueled whim. Sequels were planned and a spinoff series or two, but I haven’t worked on it for a while.

I did dabble in fanfiction for a few years. People seemed to like my work too. Maybe I need to start posting original work online somewhere so I can get that feedback again.

I’ve written very little since I’ve started to try and take my life back after everything. My dream for a long time has been to make writing a career in some way. I would love to get traditionally published, but I know it can be hard to achieve that (especially if you’re not writing anything, Gabby). I’m working on a different young adult novel and am on my third run a restarting it. There’s been so many long breaks between, though, that editing it will be a bitch when I finally finish it.

Finally, the goal to have a baby I’ve already talked about. I hope that since I lost about six pounds and stayed around that weight might mean it’ll be easier for me to get pregnant. They always say that if you’re too fat or too skinny it makes it harder to get pregnant. I guess we’ll see.