Trouble with the Curvy

If I am not writing, I am probably busy eating something that would make Shaggy and Scooby jealous... Not writing makes it easier to ignore that I am not living up to a commitment that I've made to myself. Writing reminds me how often I have taught others how to treat me by how I treat myself. Writing exposes me to exactly how uncomfortable I am when I am vulnerable. Vulnerability is why I eat like cartoon characters and pretend I won't gain weight like a human being.  I am certain that I am not unique in this dance with vulnerability. The world is a briar patch full of thorny shit and long ago we humans learned how to armor up to protect ourselves from being stuck around every corner. When we are kids, fresh into this chronologically excursion through the pricklies, we are just trying to figure out the world, it doesn't take an immense amount of brains to realize that getting poked hurts, hurting sucks, and protecting yourself from getting poked means you will hurt less. T

Friday night I got to attend a paint night that I will never forget. This is not your wine sippin' paint by numbers kind of paint night.. It's the kind of paint night you don't shut up about all week to anyone who will listen.. the kind of paint night where you light shit on FIRE! I implore you to top that.  I am super grateful to a new group of friends who invited me into their night for this incredible activity. I had the MOST fun.... I did bring cakepops and macroons to ingratiate myself (I mentioned how I love to spread love through food right?!) and came away with some memories that will always mark the first weekend living in Connecticut where I felt genuine belonging. It was awesome.  Feast your eyes on these puppies....  <3Katie 209

James Clear wrote an incredible book called "Atomic Habits." His own experience after a tragic accident helped him to identify how teeny, tiny, little changes can add up to remarkable progress. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to make a change and writing today is one of my first atomic changes. While I chose to eat an apple today when I could have grabbed carbs, today wasn't a day where started going to the gym or made any sort of substantive change but it is a tiny change to write a post and log a check-in with my accountability tool. If I keep writing every day eventually it will help motivate me to do the things I want to write about. At least that is how this tool worked last time and it made a big difference.  It is also reminding me again that since the last time I wrote consistently, so much has changed. My address, job title, marital status, and other pillars of a life are most obvious but I live inside this eccentric head of mine and the change that

6 years and 10 months ago I posted the last entry on this blog. When I reread it this morning it kind of floored me because all of the things I wrote in that post were a foreshadowing of what was to come and back then I couldn't have possibly recognized it for the storm it truly was.  I worked hard over the 3 years that I kept "Trouble with the Curvy" but the things that made it hard to stick to a healthy routine of good habits were left completely unaddressed. With the luxury of almost 7 years of hindsight it is completely clear to me that the addiction to food that I mentioned in that last entry was a pattern of numbing things I didn't know how to fix. Food still brings me happiness and is a way I like to bring happiness to others and has been a dominant coping skill for everything I have experienced since posting that last entry.  All those years ago I was about to get married and thought that Skowhegan, Maine would always be my home. I loved my house, my fiance, a