I’ve definitely been feeling better about myself lately, which is marvelous. I think, no, I know a major part of this is down to what I’ve been eating (healthy, mainly unprocessed, often vegetarian, lots and lots of water) and because of the resulting weight loss (25lb* in 6 weeks – yay me)!

Pentax K1000 and Kodak Ektar film

I can’t wait to be thin! There, I’ve said it. It may be a statement that a future, fatter me looks back on and howls at in misery, but I genuinely feel like it’s now simply a matter of when and not if the skinniness happens.

Lubitel 2 and 120 film (can’t remember what sort)

I had a battle last week – oh it was hard! I fought the demons though and stayed on track. My routine had been scuppered from nursing poorly boy and I found myself in Sainsbury’s with an empty trolley, an empty tummy and only a hair’s breadth of will power. Luckily that was enough and I managed to battle the pastry demons and cake monsters. I know I would be feeling totally different writing this today if things had gone badly.

The words seem to be skimming off the page today; like flat stones on a pond. I LOVE THAT! Hey, maybe this me is now the real me and it will always be like this, everything will be easier and happier. Maybe I’m leaving behind forever the grumpy, miserable, no-hoper who dreamed of one day sticking to a diet for more than three days. I like this me, this is the me I want to see more of and introduce the world to. Yes I may turn into a terribly annoying, egotistical show-off but at least I will fit into skinny jeans! Ha, no, that’s a bit shallow even for me, but whilst this new person may not be to everybody’s taste I think she’ll definitely be a happier, more genuine person.

*Yes, 25lb sounds and indeed IS a a major achievement, however quite a bit of this was extra blubber that was piled on after Christmas – plus, believe me, I have a LONG way to go yet! What I am most happy about though is I have moved down a size in jeans. Jeans don’t lie.

I am so fed up with my current web-hosting company that I have decided it’s time for a move. This website itself will stay the same, as will the url and your RSS feeds but there may be some interruptions whilst things transfer over (although as this site has been down half the time since I launched it back in May, you won’t notice much change)!

overlapping photos taken with Diana F+

I’m delving around my (now heat-addled) brain to try and explain a character trait that I’ve always ‘suffered’ from: split personality. Now – I’ve just googled this and I hasten now to add, I am not mentally ill (despite what people say – ha!) what I mean is, I have two very different sides to my personality.

If I was less cynical I might put this down to me being a Gemini.

Up A Tree

I remember my 10th birthday party very well. All my classmates came along to the party I’d begged my parents for and I chose to spend it sat alone in a big lilac tree in the garden; I was literally watching from afar. I sat up there in a purple party dress that matched the lilac blooms emerging and was perfectly content to simply be an observer. Nothing would persuade me down.

I know that I adopt this approach as an adult – perhaps not physically (I’m not sure I could even climb a tree nowadays), but I am often feel myself detaching from the person or people I’m with, chatting and nodding but not really THERE.

On A Chair

Cut to me, three years later – I am standing on a rickety, wooden school-chair doing impersonations of teachers and telling jokes – I’m talking fast and wild and loud. I have the crowd in my hands. Look at ME!

This is sometimes who I am as an adult too; desperate to be heard and craving attention (but, I fear, far less amusing than I was as a teenager).

So?

The issue is that I am both these people. I swing from one extreme to the other and struggle with toeing the middle line; the line of normality and rationality. It can be a problem if I’ve been the ‘on a chair’ person with somebody on the first meeting and then the ‘up a tree’ for the second – people often take this as aloofness or dislike. The other way round and they think I’ve been drinking!

If I was one way all the time I would develop certain strategies for dealing with situations. It only dawned on me recently that what I actually need is two strategies for each situation, depending on what my predominant mood happens to be. Reading this back it sounds so obvious, but I have honestly only just figured this out. My armoury for dealing with life needs to be diverse and adaptable – the tools I’ve used for fixing things so far has only been working half the time and now I know why.

Personifying the different me’s by referencing thse childhood examples has really helped. For example, one of the things I’m learning to do now is not use my inner voice to shout or criticise myself if I’m in my Up A Tree place. This just leads to a downward spiral of self-loathing – the On A Chair me can take it, and requires it, to get results but I need to know when to engage my gentler inner-critic.

Am I making any sort of sense? Hopefully I am – it’s helped me to write it down like this anyhow. I guess we’re all multi-faceted to some degree and have various aspects to our personality. Do you find yourself dealing with a number of different yous?