Coming full circle

There are so many thoughts going through my head right now about how I want to focus this morning's entry. The past few days have been long and somewhat difficult, and I'd like to organize my thoughts somewhat to eliminate my tendency to ramble. So here's what I'll talk about this morning: Friday-Tuesday recap, current weight, new motivation and plan...

Weekend in review: My friend Courtney spent the weekend with us. She and I met in Granada in January through Amalia, the translation/interpretation program director there who I studied with in 2005 before heading off to Monterey for grad school. (Got that?) Amalia contacted me initially because Courtney was looking for an evangelical church to attend in Granada, and I was more than thrilled to introduce her to our church, Centro Familiar Cristiano. Since all students had a long break last weekend, she asked me about coming down to spend time with us and visit Almería, and we were more than thrilled to have her. Knowing how stressful life can be in Granada, our goal was for her to relax and disconnect from everything school-related, which I think we were able to achieve.

Yesterday was somewhat long. I got up with the intention of doing Turbo Jam and only got through the first five minutes. I didn’t stop because I was tired- it was more like a lack of motivation to finish. Plus I was pressed for time since I had to get ready for work. I thought about exercising after lunch but that didn’t happen either-- I fell into the nap trap again, staying in the bed until it was time for me to head back to work. In retrospect however, the extra sleep was a good thing since I came back to a pretty chaotic afternoon. Cristina and I ended up leaving the office later than usual, and instead of heading home I went back to Almería for English class with Jennifer from 9:30-11pm.

During our class my brother-in-law called me to let us know that Quintino, one of the teens at our church, had lost his battle with cancer and passed away. It’s hard to believe, frankly. I didn’t know him on a very personal level, but it is still quite a shock. The hope in it all, of course, is knowing that Quintino is with the Lord. He is now in a place where there is no more crying, pain or suffering. The burial is this afternoon at 4 and Chechu and I will be attending.

I titled this entry “coming full circle” because, in essence, it’s what I have done over the past couple weeks. I got on the scale this morning and I’m back up to 223.6 pounds, my “starting” weight. Of course I’d like to blame that on the hormones, the excess water, etc., etc., but I can’t in all good consciousness. I know that this has happened because I haven’t put my all, or even half of that into this. That’s the honest, mirror-in front-of-your-face truth. And I accept that.

It’s back on the wagon for me. I count all of these moments as part of the journey, so I don’t agonize over them. I do, however, want to be conscious of the time I spend finding my way. I want this blog to be positive and show results—I don’t want to ramble on endlessly about how much I want to lose weight, all the while not being willing to make the sacrifices and put in the extra effort that it obviously entails.