My Shameful Secret

                I have a secret. It’s something I find hard to talk about. It’s the shame that I feel that keeps me from talking about it. My wife is bipolar and suffers from clinical depression. That is not a secret. If you have a question about that, my wife will welcome them and engage you in an open and honest conversation for what that means and has meant in her life. The secret is that I refuse to talk about it.

                I don’t talk about because I am ashamed of the way feel about it.

                I feel selfish. I have read books on how to cope when you have a loved one that is depressed. They say things like make sure you are taking care of yourself. No one tells you how to not yell and take out your anger on your depressed loved one. They don’t tell you how lonely it feels. They don’t tell you how to get over that selfish feeling of wanting to make this about you and scream, “I know you’re depressed but what about me!”

                I think the bigger issue is how afraid it makes me. It scares me. I’m scared because I don’t know how to handle it. I’m scared because it is full of what ifs. I’m scared because I can’t stand the thought of losing Lavender to this disease.  I’m scared because I don’t know how to say the right things. I’m scared.

                The truth is in the past 4 ½ years it hasn’t been a big issue. Lavender is doing well. She has great self-awareness. She takes time for her emotional health. At this time, she doesn’t require medication. Then why you ask do I refuse to talk about it. Well, the moments, the very brief moments this disease has shown itself in our relationship, I did a horrible job of handling it. I was selfish and scared.  I said the wrong things and acted the wrong way. If I can’t handle these brief moments, how can I ever handle a full blown major depressive period? How can support the person I love during this? How will I be able to sit in the darkness with her? This is what scares me.

                When Lavender tries to talk about it or someone else mentions it, I shut down. I know this hurts her. I know she wishes I was able to have an open and honest conversation with her. I know she is patiently waiting. I’m getting there. I need to let go of the shame and talk about how it makes me feel.

What Version of the Truth Do You Want?

I haven’t blogged in a while because I can’t decide what version of the truth I want to say.

I have slowed down on running and it makes me feel terrible inside and out but I have been running ten mile distances almost every week and that makes me feel great.

I have gained 5 pounds and that makes me feel like a loser but I am not training (yet) for a marathon so thinking I could maintain a 0 pound weight gain doesn’t even make sense.

I am happy that my daughter is doing so well at college but when I hear talking about moving out of our home for good, it makes me sad.

I am grateful that my mom came to see me and even more grateful that she said she would probably never come see me again.

I love my job and where I work. I hate that if the wrong person/people find out I am gay I could get fired.

I need to start looking for a new a job but I don’t want to.

I hate living in chaos but have never known anything else so all this stability in our house is great and making me miserable.

My life is amazing and I can’t fully enjoy it because I can’t stop thinking about all the things that might happen to mess it up.

The truth I know for sure I am surrounded by great people full of love.

Running Has Taught Me, I Decide What I Can Do!

I am running the Hot Chocolate 15k tomorrow! I am excited. It is my first time running this race. Let me tell you why.

Two years ago around this time I wanted to run the Hot Chocolate 15k. People told me not to do it. They told me I couldn’t do it. In their defense, I was overweight and I had only been running for two months. I listened to them and didn’t sign up.

The week of the Hot Chocolate I felt really bad about myself. I hated my body. I hated the way I looked. I hated that I was 35 and in school. I hated that I listened to someone else tell me what I could do!

So, I did what any sane person would do.  I got off the couch, put on my running shoes and ran ten miles. When I was done my body hurt in ways I didn’t know were possible. I had blisters on the bottoms of my feet. The inside of my thighs where rubbed raw.  My arms felt like they might break off. I felt like I was going to throw up.  I will never forget that run. It was one of the best feelings I have ever had in my life. I claimed my power that day. I decided what I could do and I did it!

Perspective and Teaching

I went to a beer festival a couple of weeks ago and someone was handing out cheap gloves. Me, being the school teacher, asked for a few pairs to add to my lame bag of prizes for students. I actually call it my "lame bag prizes."  It has free things that I collect and then give away for birthdays, games, and good behavior. Students truly seem to enjoy getting to pick something from my “lame bag of prizes.” They also seem to enjoy the name.

Anyway back to the gloves. I was holding a study group for a math test the next day. I really wanted the students to do well so I offered incentives like pop and chips to come to my study group. I was secretly patting myself on the back when 22 out of 44 students showed up. I mean that is an awesome turn out. I had been working hard for the past three weeks to get them motivated to learn associative, commutative, and distributive properties. They were also learning scientific notation, rounding, and place value. I was pleased with the growth that I was sure they would show.

Back to the gloves. It was the end of the study session. I offered the best behaved and hardest working students a pick at the lame bag of prizes. One of my students looked at me at said, “really we can take these gloves.” I assured him that yes the gloves were fair game. He said, “I’m taking the gloves then. Winter is coming and my hands were cold last year.”

The powers that be are appalled that my 8th grade students don’t know their multiplication facts. Lesson in perspective - 8th grade students who don’t know their multiplication facts are more concerned with keeping their hands warm, taking care of their siblings, and finding food than multiplication facts.

Brunch

When I started this healthier me journey (almost three years ago), I was worried about all the wonderful food I would be giving up. The reality is that I haven’t given up any food just added more wonderful foods to my list. I love creating and trying to new recipes. I love playing with flavor combination. Today’s brunch menu was no exception to this. Everything was pretty, flavorful, and each piece was 100 calories or less.

The menu-
Mushrooms stuffed with spinach
Eggs and salmon with asparagus & red pepper
Granola cups with yogurt & fruit
Mini huevos rancheros using quail eggs



Mini huevos rancheros using quail eggs
small corn tortillias
quail eggs
vegetarian refried beans
salsa
a very small amount of cheddar cheese

Put about a small amount of beans on each tortilla. Make a hole in each mound of beans. Crack eggs into each hole. Bake for about 4 minutes or until eggs are set. Garnish with salsa and cheese.

Eggs and salmon with asparagus & red pepper
8 eggs
8 oz of salmon
1 package of frozen asparagus
1 red pepper
garlic
pepper
thyme
basil
olive oil
Sauté in about a tablespoon of olive oil red pepper, garlic, and spices about 2 minutes later add the salmon. When the salmon is half way cooked add the asparagus. Cook until asparagus is hot and salmon is cooked through. Divide the mixture between 12 muffin tins. I use the square ones just because I like the way it looks. Beat eggs with some water. Divide over the mixture. Bake until eggs are set about 12 minutes.

Granola cups with yogurt & fruit
This is the only recipe I did not make up. I got the recipe from here-
http://www.mommiecooks.com/2012/01/09/granola-bars/

Stuffed Mushrooms
12-large mushrooms
1 package of frozen spinach
1 cup of TVP prepared according to the package
olive oil
¼ cup chopped onion
fresh garlic minced
1 vegetable bullion
sage
brown sugar
clove
black pepper
red crushed pepper
Bake the mushroom caps for about 10 minutes. In about a tablespoon of olive oil add garlic and onion. Cook until onion is done. Add the TPV and spices (I don’t measure things so you’re gonna have to guess). Add spinach cook until heated. Stuff into caps and bake for another 10 minutes.

Run On!

One of the views while running to the beach from my house!

The whole reason I started this blog was to track my feelings and progress on running and weight loss. Turns out, that running creates a space for me think about my life and weight loss has brought to surface lots of past life challenges. SO, what I end up with is what seems like a very random blog. It actually just goes to show how everything in life is intertwined.

Here is the update.

I have been the same size for almost a year. Total weight loss is 110 pounds. There for a while I thought I was going to drive myself crazy (Lavender too) with my obsessiveness and constant worry about gaining the weight back. I am happy to report that I am some better about it. It’s a progress. I think when you spend 2 years of your life losing weight you get at least two years of your life trying to figure out how to maintain the weight loss in a healthy way. I am trying to be grace filled with myself on this.

Now that we have the no fun yucky part of the way let’s talk about RUNING!

It hasn’t been easy with my schedule but I still manage to run. It is an important part of my sanity. I set a goal to run a 5k in under 30 minutes. I almost did it May. My next run is the Blackhawks 5k. I am pretty sure I can make this goal a happen.

I LOVE running in my new neighborhood! It is awesome. There are always people running and they are every size, age, and gender. I ran to China Town and Lake Michigan from where I live. Strangers out for their jog will fall into pace with me and carry on a conversation like we have always been running buddies. I often get live entertainment on my runs either by performers in the park or Mariachi bands practicing in their garage. My neighborhood is alive and full of energy and it fuels my runs.

The future includes the Hot Chocolate 15k, the Turkey Trot 8k, some TBA runs, and October 2013 will be my second marathon!

Run On!

Do you think I deserve less than you?

“I will be your friend and love you even if you support Chick Fil A. I support and care about you as a person. I want to know your thoughts and views. I want to be able to share my thoughts and views with you. My connection to you is deeper than a chicken sandwich.”

This was my Facebook post. I still mean it. I do want to be able to hear and know other peoples thoughts and feelings. I don’t know if it is because I am having a rough work week but hearing other peoples view points this week has been hard.

I celebrated my three year wedding anniversary. I had a church wedding. It was amazing. Listening to people debate if I can legally get married because it’s against the bible is hard to understand. I am not sure what the bible has to do with legal marriages because plenty of non-reading bible people get legally married. People who say they only believe in biblical marriage makes me wonder if they ever read the bible. I don’t see women legally being forced to marrying their rapist, legally becoming a man’s property, having to marry her brother-in-law if her husband dies, or husbands taking on multiple wives. I am just saying if we want to keep marriage biblical maybe we should think about what that means before saying it.

I work in state that can be fired from my job for being gay. I love my job. I work hard and put it long hours. I am always early and always stay late. Is it fair that because some person doesn’t agree with who I love, I can get fired?

And then finally let’s talk about family values. My wife and I we both work in jobs where we service others. She is a pediatric chaplain. She spends all night sitting with people in the darkness. She cares for children and their families that are going through the most difficult times of their lives. I am special education teacher in an urban area. As a family we raise money for various organizations as well as donate are own money. We donate our time and talent. And if you need a dollar, a ride, or a hot meal we are there for you no matter what you believe. Our daughter is a smart, caring, talented young lady getting ready for college.

The debate about Chick Fil A brings me a lot of pain. Not because I want to take away a groups rights to free speech or freedom of religion but because of what it says to me. It tells me that some people think I am of lesser value as a human. It tells me that some people think that my child is not as worthy as their child because as a family we get fucked when it comes to taxes. It tells me that some people think that in an emergency the person who knows me best should not be able to make medical choices for me. I want to scream at people right now, “YOU ARE NOT DEBATING FREEDOM OF RELGION OR FREE SPEECH. YOU ARE DEBATING MY RIGHTS.”

This is not a campaign issue. This is not religious issue. This is about me. I am your friend, your co-worker, your aunt, your cousin, and your niece. When you talk about these things to me, you need to know that you are talking about not giving me the same rights you already have.