Tonight on my way home from the weekend work and fun, I heard on the radio that there is a critical time in people's lives when they stop feeling as if they are valued inherently as a person and they start to believe that others only value them for the things they can deliver--money, food, business acumen, etc. At that point, people begin to feel alone, and they no longer feel the kind of friendship that is "deep," the kind that most people feel when young--friendships that are perceived as solid and not dependent upon anything except the relationship and caring that one person shares with another. As we grow older, the report said, people begin to feel alone and when it reaches this point of feeling unvalued, that's when the purpose in life is no longer recognized and honored--when people lose their faith.

I confess that I reached that critical point long ago, and my faith has evolved greatly since then. There are times when I feel totally alone in this world, and there are times when I feel like Jesus is my one and only friend. Then there are times when I feel like I have friends, but no true and close friends. Lately, I am feeling rather alone.

This weekend, my best friend asked me how he could help me. I wanted to scream at him to just accept me for who I am--but, instead, even though he says he loves me, he keeps telling me how I am too large to be healthy, that I have a messy and dirty home, that I am always complaining about money. I want him to just let me be me.

But I think this is largely upon my shoulders. That is, I have brought this on myself. He is right on many counts, but I just want someone to love me for being me--but if I can't respect myself, how can I expect others to do so?

I watched a television show this weekend that talked about social development, and there was an experiment with chimpanzees. If a chimpanzee is given only food, water and shelter--and no holding by a warm body--then that chimpanzee learns to be alone and never really adjusts to social situations. They develop a kind of social anxiety that doesn't change throughout their lives. And I feel like that--like I'm a part of society, but not interacting with the people in that life. I was a child that was two years younger than the older set of kids in my family--and I have a younger sister that I'm sure must have gotten most of the attention when she was born about eight months after me (as a twin, she was cherished after her twin died shortly thereafter). From what I gather, I was largely given all the food and basic care that was required, but I was largely put on the back burner as this pregnancy progressed and then the babies were born. I do remember being a very young child and not being allowed to go with the older children--and I was always too large to be considered one of the younger set. I gather I was largely left to entertain myself--and somehow I had to learn by observing the younger kids being trained and paying great attention to how the older kids behaved. I could give several examples, but there's no room here. My point, though, is that I have never learned to really be a part of a group, of a social group, and it can be very lonely.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I just want to go dig a hole and hide in it. My friend has been trying to figure out what to get me, and I told him to not worry about it--that if I were getting myself a gift, then I wouldn't know what to get me either. I want things that cannot be bought, and I know I won't get even one of them. I'm not that good a friend to a whole lot of people.

I am frustrated. I know that I am depressed. I can feel that I need to have something in my brain "click" and make me feel as if I am in a positive place. If my brain is not busy with some kind of intelligent, logical thought, then it calms down and makes me feel bored--and when I feel bored, I feel like I want to lay down, curl up in a ball and cry. So I try to keep my brain busy. I read. I watch medical or detective shows on tv. I work at my job...and if I get bored there, then I am in trouble because I just want to lay my head down on my desk and cry--so instead I violate the internet policy and surf the net. It's not good. Yet I can't get my butt up off my seat and start exercising.

Once I start exercising, though, I can't stop. I can't seem to stop whatever I'm doing. If I clean, I don't take a break. If I have a sewing project, there's no way I can put it down at bedtime and leave it for another day. I have to keep going until it's done. I know that if I stop, I won't start again. Whatever it is, I need to finish what I start or it will never get done. It's taken me a long time to learn that, but it's true.

And to make it complicated, my thoughts have to be somewhat intelligent. If I write, it can't be ordinary. When I blog, it's one way...but if I am at work, it is an extremely formal style of writing. And it's not a popular way of communicating with my peers, who seem to abbreviate everything. And it's very much at odds with my appearance, which is rather drab and droopy--not to mention that it's at odds with my spoken words. And I think it's all because in the silence of my head, the logic never stops...and if I can silently write it, then I can portray that higher level of thought. But when I talk, I'm very ordinary and can't seem to express the words in any kind of eloquent manner.

It's very frustrating when I go to bed. All I do is keep my brain going...thinking of everything and nothing. My sleep latency period used to be hours and hours, sometimes allowing me only an hour or maybe two hours from the time I go to sleep until my alarm goes off. Now, as I lay down, I have learned to repeat silently to myself, "sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep...." 7 out of 10 times I can go to sleep within a few minutes. But if my brain is too busy to pay attention to my "sleep" word, then I'm up all night.

And now it's time to go to bed. I'm exhausted, and I need to go to sleep, sleep, sleep.....

I had three Thanksgivings this last week, and none of them seemed real. I didn't want to think about being thankful, and it certainly was not a time for renewing family ties. I did enjoy the holiday dinner with my children and their friends, but the other two were in homes outside my original family, and it made me think of my family--but I didn't want to be with them. And that's what I though about.

I am upset, very upset, with my originaly family. If they were not my siblings and mother, I probably would not care if I ever saw them again..except for one sister. They disappointed me greatly in not following common sense, and they deliberately hurt my one sister, and they honestly believe they were justified. There's a lot more to it, but they do not recognize some basic tenets of life, including that there are two sides to every story. And by listening--and acting upon--to just one side was bad enough, but then to act upon those one-sided conversations was a bit much, particularly when people were truly hurt by their actions. And I just don't want to be associated with the kind of people that my family has come to be.

Of course, they probably think I'm a horrible person, too. My main fault being that I am always needing financial help, or at least, I used to. But this weekend, I realized, that a lot of the reason I was having financial difficulty is because my family relied so much on each other that I never learned to be independent. But I'm learning now. An important lesson to learn.

I read that I need to develop a norm that evolved from the past, but is never going to be like that old norm. That's a tough assignment, to create that new norm, but as I sat at the Thanksgiving dinner table with my children, it made me realize that the dinner there was friendly and warm and lots of smiles. And we all were kind to each other, and we respected each other. And, as are some other situations, we weren't smiling just to be polite--and we weren't digging into our deepest pockets to pull out conversation topics that might get the guests through another minute. We weren't guarding our words so that we didn't worry about offending people by just discussing our everyday activities. We spoke freely and it was good.

We had the basic meal, too, at all the dinners. Turkey, potatoes, dressing and pie were at all the meals. Different vegetatbles and salads at all of them. Still, I liked the food my family taught me, and I think my children liked that food. I am not a good cook, but I can cook Thanksgiving dinner--carbs and all. Maybe not good for my diabetic friend, but good for the family gatherings.

Maybe one day I'll again embrace the idea that family is more important than many other things, but that is not now. For now, I'll just love my children and know that my own small family makes all of us feel valuable and treasured, and that's a very good thing!

I am in pain. Major pain. And I want to cry, but I won't.

I think I need to get some exercises to strengthen my back...and some aerobics to get my heart and lungs strengthened. When a person is as big as I am, there can be no doubt that I need to get physically more fit than now. And for the last week or so, every day I have noticed that my heart races every time I so much as bend over--and my lower back is in agony after just cleaning the refrigerator out. The only person that can help this is me, and I need to start really working this through, and not just make excuses.

But two days before Thanksgiving is probably not the best time to strat restricting the amount of food I eat. So I guess I have to start giving myself firm instructions to drop the fats and sugars and concentrate on loading up on vegetables and fruit. I don't know how that will work, but it has to work somehow. Luckily, my daughter's girlfriend is a vegetarian, and that is starting to force me to work on finding some good vegetable recipes.

And as I do all this, I need to work on my attitude and really work on being a happy person, projecting a positive perspective in life so that the people around me can know how good life can be.

I don'tknow if I'm ready to forgive some horrible acts in my life, but I want to maybe also explore the possibility of promoting a feling of goodwill toward those with whom I really don't see eye to eye. I will try, but somehow my brain is being stubborn right now and not wanting to permit any kind of good feelings.

But this holiday season will need me to look forward to each day and the potential for joy that each new day will bring.

This Thursday will be Thanksgiving, and I'm feeling rather non-thankful. I don't like my life.

I am not a happy person, and I know I have to fix that situation myself. No one else will do it for me. Only I can change my attittude. And I want to make my week good so that when I make my family their Thanksgiving dinner--on Friday, not Thursday--we will all be able to smile and enjoy this life.