It Could Just Be Because I'm Older

Lately I have been forgetting words for such mundane items. That and a lot of other things that I know I should not be feeling but I am. And I cannot help my self. 

For example, I've had to pause several times recently because I could not recall the name of my sister's dog, the same dog that's been living with us for more than two years. All I could recall was that the dog was white and fluffy...and that he had a unique name. Even the names of regular household items have eluded me several times. 

The worst part? Forgetting words that I have had no trouble using in the past. I think my worst nightmare has come true: I now have a limited vocabulary. That and I have lost most of my ability to spell. Hmm, the second one I can maybe credit to autospell. 

Well, that's not exactly my greatest fear is forgetting the names and faces of my children. I am only 34, and most people would say that I am way too young to be forgetting things. But I am, and I continue to forget things. And I am also plagued with constant paranoia. 

Not paranoia in the sense that I think someone is out to kill me, but paranoia in the sense that I might have forgotten where I put my wallet or my wallet might fall out of my backpack. One time, I thought that I had lost my coin purse where I had stored all of my IDs. I looked all over my room, even went as far as reorganize my space at work. Guess where I found my purse: inside my makeup kit. My see through makeup kit. My son was looking for the purse along with me, and I was too embarrassed to tell him that I had found my coin purse inside my bag. 

I am also constantly feeling insecure. 

No matter what people tell me, no matter how many times my friends tell me I look fine and that I am pretty, I always see an ugly person whenever I look in the mirror. The only thing I can see when I look at my body is a fat mess riddled with stretch marks. From my belly down to my calves, all I can see are stretch marks. And I always tell people that I am not a huge fan of shorts (hence the shortage of shorts from my wardrobe), but real reason why I do not wear shorts outside of the house is that I think my stretch marks are ugly. And if people were to see my stretch marks, they would think I'm ugly too. 

I remember an article in one of the major publications about a celebrity who had stretch marks. Granted that the article was in the entertainment section, the writer's reaction to the said celebrity's stretch marks made a huge impact on me. It made me look at stretch marks as something that beautiful people did not have, that anybody who had stretch marks should cover up and never expose their scarred bodies lest they be called ugly. 

I am fat. Well, not as big as Melissa McCarthy but I am bigger than your average Filipina. I am short and stubby, and according to the BMI chart, I should weight 50 pounds less than I do now. 

I want to lose weight. I want to be skinny again. I want to belong to that group of people who don't get called fat. I want to look like I did when I was still in college and competing in martial arts. I was 112 pounds. I want to look like the old me, back when I did not have children yet. 

But food just tastes so good, and sitting on my ass the entire day is more pleasurable than going to the gym and lifting 80 pounds for my warm up. Going to the gym also makes me feel guilty sometimes because it means missing quality time with my children. I have stopped drinking alcohol tho. At least, I have stopped drinking beer every week. The last time I had been was about two months ago, and I have also stopped chugging Mt. Dew three times a day, five days a week.

I just realized that the older I get, the more insecure I have become. Although I tell my self and the people around me that I could care less if ended up a single old lady, the truth is I do care. I am afraid that the only people who are going to love me are my children and my family, that I am never going to find a man who will want to be with me because of all the baggage I will bring into the relationship. I am afraid of dying alone. 

There I said it. 

Please excuse the rambling. This blog is going to be full of my musings, and there are going to be days when I would want to write down all of the things that I want to write down because I might forget them. My memory has not been the best lately, and I am afraid that if I don't write things down I may never have any proof that I thought about those things and that I had something to say about those things. 

I also somehow wish that someday my children might find this blog and understand me better. If I may be blunt, I don't like to share things about my self to other people. Hell, I don't even talk to my closest friends about my children. If my kids read this blog, I hope they realize how much I love them, and I also hope that they see me as a person and not just as an authority figure. That I am more that just "Mamy" or "Mom", or that person they need to ask for permission whenever they want to hang out with friends past curfew. That I am more than just that strict person who hardly ever leaves her room when she's home. That I am sorry that their lives are so different, that they had to grow up fatherless. I hope they understand that I am frustrated because I want them to have the things that they deserve but I am unable to give them. 

I realize that when I was younger, I would have never even had the courage to say these things to myself much less write about them. But maybe I have changed, or it could just be because I am older now and wiser about the world. Yes, I am wiser. Not much better, just a bit wiser.