• The Orion constellation was a guardian over me of sorts, and a lover from a past life. (lol)
• There was a lady in the lake where I camped every summer and I would build little shrines of bark and clamshells to her.
• There was a dragon in the swamp behind my house. It hid as this one particular tree, sticking its head up above the other trees to look around.
• Gnomes (think David the Gnome) lived in my sandbox when it was closed but disapeared when it was opened.
• God was the same as all the dieties in the various myths, yet also they were seperate and I wanted to make friends with them.

My horizon is in Texas. There's a little eco-friendly house that I've designed myself. It utilizes space to the max and can hold a family of five and a few cats or a dog. It's on land. A good acre or so. The land is natural. There's a huge vegetable garden to feed the family. There's chickens to naturally fertilze and airate the soil. There's a mulberry tree, a lemon tree, an apple tree, an orange tree, a peach tree, and an olive tree.

And I'm there, owning my own home, with my husband. We have our degrees, we have jobs we like that enable us to afford a home. Maybe there's a bun in the oven, maybe. Or maybe not yet. Either way the horizon looks good.

It's a horizon, it's distant, but its in view, and in reach.

I am so motivated.

Sometimes.

For some things.

I've been thinking today, how is it that you get motivated?

For example, I've been motivated for weight loss before. Twice, actually. Because I was obese. And ego-minded. I was really focused on my appearance, and how it was viewed by others. When I was 15 I just wanted the cool clothes and a little respect at school. And at that level of thinking, I was super motivated to get as skinny as I could. Which turned out to never be much more than a size 9 from size 12. (Before you freak out, I'm short, so that size at my hieght with the BMI I had was actually obese not just overweight. I know a 12 is far from obese for MOST people, but on me it was the low end of obese.) But still. I was MOTIVATED. At 22 I did it again because, well... I wanted cool clothes and I wanted to respect myself because at the time I was still kinda hyperfocused on the idea of being fat. That brought me from size 12 to size 8 (Um, barely!). I had the mental growth to say as well "I want the outside to be as fucking awesome as my inside." rather than when I was 15 and thinking that changing the outside fixed the inside. (It doesn't.) The difference between the two experiences is that at 15 I ran on angst for motivation, and at 22 I ran on the high that came from being around my Halifax friends and feeling awesome as a person. Now my higher self says I don't have to be skinny to showcase that aspect of me.

I'm still fucking awesome. (Not just awesome.) I just don't have those energetic people around me now. Which is a downer. Edmonton sucks that way, everyone is knocked up or lazy. Except Alexis. So we hang out a lot. I just have to beat some self confidence into that girl...

Currently, I am motivated, totally. But not about my body image. I'm motivated on getting Andrew and I to Houston, and getting into Uni, and becoming an art teacher, and getting our little country home with a big veggie garden one day.

Which is something I have to wait patiently to happen.

It would make sense viewing my past that I would be motivated to ALSO get skinny again, and fit those size 8 jeans staring at me in the closet.  But I don't have that.

Because I think I'm more excited about my future than I ever was about a fashion line.

And it's not so bad here in Size 10 Land. Sometimes.

And I'm way more spiritual (in a for real way, not an omg look I'm different and its cute way).

I've gotten more happyness out of mental and spiritual pursuits than the pursuit of the 8 Jean.

But every once in a while I still see those 8's looking me over like "Hey lady, you've got a weight watchers account, and you've barely used it. What gives?"

I don't know what gives. Maybe I've been dieting for too long. Maybe its just old now. Sorry, not "dieting", its "lifestyle changing" now. Whatevs, whichever you call it its still dieting because you're still taking away the junk to replace it with veggies. I mean, I'm a vegetarian, that's a lifestyle change. But that doesn't make you skinny. Muffins are vegetarian. So are chocolate creme oreos. (Oh baby!) I'm an all or nothing kinda girl. Either there are no oreos allowed in the house (or any cookies period) or I'm going to go to 7/11 and buy a bag and eat the whole thing through a World of Warcraft gaming binge, with icy soy milk to dunk.

I'm really good at maintaining. I don't gain a ton of weight at once. I've been sitting at 166lbs a few months now. It's lower from when I started weight watchers this year, but I haven't gone all the way. Hell, I haven't even hit the 10% Lost mark. You know, that mark that doctors say "makes all the difference" in your health?

And I do excercise, I use a bicycle to get around, including grocery trips, and I do yoga.

I am soft and stretchy, like taffy :D

I can choose two things here. Ditch the ww account and likely go nuts with the snacks again. Keep the account and hope something motivates me to go a little further.

And the little ego voice sitting back in  my head says "Don't ditch the account or you'll get shitty again. Get motivated. Get hot." Meanwhile the higher self goes on about more important aspects of life than body image and magazine pictures. Neither is neccessarily all that passionate about their options. So I, the thinking self, am at an impasse. How does one get motivated? Where does motivation come from? What if you don't neccessarily want or not want something, even when you know it's good for you and your family wants you to succeed at it? What if things that motivated you before no longer work? Is that when its time to give up the ghost?

Only just now, when it is 11:30pm in Houston, did it suddenly hit me.

Today was September 8th, 2008.

Samantha has been gone for exactly 3 years. It was only a little after 11pm when her heart gave out after being in the ICU all day.

I'm not exactly bursting into tears at the realization, but I do feel a little numb. When I talked to my mom on the phone yesterday and mentioned she went to the cemetary, it didn't even occur to me why.

What kind of sign is that?

I've gone ahead and lit a little white candle by her photograph on my desk's shelf.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd now I'm upset.

The first three years of my life were spent without her in it. She was born 6 days after my third birthday. When I turn 25 on Sept 22, she would have been 22. So I've just gone my first three years without her around anymore.

I don't know who lived in this apartment before me, but they left an iron on the carpet in the back bedroom once when it was still hot, and it left a mark.

Later, someone else will move in after me, and say, "I don't know who lived here before me, but they left a wet mat on the floor in the bathroom and it left a stain, and also left a hot iron on the floor of that back bedroom and left a mark there too."

It's slow. Sometimes you think the wound is sealed but it opens up again. But it gets better after it closes again, a little better than it was before. Eventually you'll be left with a light scar, a few simple memories, and you can move that limb pretty well again.