What A Week

I’ve had a bad week.  Wow, how excited are you to read this blog now?  Hey, I’m just being honest.  I know, some of you come here for inspiration and are thinking you’re not going to find it here today.  Well, let’s see where this goes.

Why was my week bad?  Let me unfold it for you chronologically.  Monday morning I looked at my bank statement online and found that someone was on a shopping spree, and it wasn’t my husband Wil or me.  The short version of the story is that someone got hold of Wil’s debit card number, our home address (which is the part of this that creeps me out the most), and with that and an email address they opened up a PayPal account on our dime.

Mac

Tuesday is when things got bad for Mac, my 18 year old cat.  For those who don’t know him, Mac is an enormous gray cat with a white mustache.  He’s one of those “dog cats” who follows you around, and who you like to have near you.  He is so sweet that he was once invited to a birthday party that Wil and I were not invited to (true story.  A human’s birthday party.  They asked us to drop Mac off and pick him up when the party was over.  Really).  And for those who do know him, they know that Mac really is a great cat and that I’m not one of those crazy cat people who thinks their cat is wonderful but is really aloof, evil or a combination of the two.  Everyone loves Mac.

Anyway, on Tuesday I got home from work and saw that Mac couldn’t really walk.  Remember, this is a “dog cat”; he comes to the door when you come home.  Mac tried walking over to me, but he kept falling over and just really couldn’t get his back legs under him.  This led to an emergency rush to the vet (who kindly stayed open after hours to check Mac after I called, rather than sending us to an after-hours vet who we didn’t know) who gave Mac some fluids and sent him home with us, along with the need to make that awful decision that every pet owner has to make eventually.

For us, the decision was excruciating but obvious, so on Wednesday we went back to the vet and I said goodbye to Mac, the enormous gray cat with a white mustache who everybody loved, the cat that followed me everywhere and slept on my left shoulder pretty much every night for the last 18 years.

Believe it or not, Thursday was even worse.  You’re thinking “what could be worse than your favorite pet dying (and to Zelda, my other cat, if you’re reading this, please don’t be upset.  I love you, too, but Mac was something very special.  Hey, just being honest)?  Well, how about your husband losing his job?  Yup, that trumps it.

I admit that Friday wasn’t too bad, but at that point I’d say the entire week belonged in the loss column.  So why on earth am I writing such a downer of a blog?  Well, something happened on Friday that I wanted to share.

Friday is my Weight Watcher meeting day.  When I went on Friday, there was a slide up on the monitor in the front of the meeting room.  It said something like “what happened this week that was significant to your weight loss journey?”  As I sat down, I thought about the question and pretty quickly came up with the answer: all of it.  Yes, my week sucked, but nothing about it was unusual (because, sadly, having your credit card number stolen is status quo these days).  People lose their jobs.  Pets die.  It happens.  But what’s significant is how I coped with them.  I worried about our bank account, I cried over Mac, I got scared about Wil’s job (or the lack thereof).  When I was really stressed I worked out or went for a walk at lunch.  And at the end of the week I ate the chocolate parts of an Oreo (and why do they put that white filling in there?  It just takes up space in the package where more chocolate cookies could be).  But please note what I said.  An Oreo.  One.  Six years ago a week like the one I had would have caused a trip to Wendy’s for a Classic Double, Biggie fries and a large chocolate frosty.  And that would have just been Monday.  I would have hung out with my friends Ben & Jerry, would have looked for some comfort in half a pizza pie, and that one Oreo would have been accompanied by 9 or 10 of its closest friends (all of whom would have had the white filling scraped off.  Yuck).

I’ve been on my journey for over six years, and in that time I’ve gone from stuffing my face to facing my stuff.  I’ve had crappy weeks before, and there will be more of them in the future (at almost 12, Zelda is no spring chicken herself).  But I’ve learned to deal with them in ways that aren’t so self-destructive (albeit delicious). 

Zelda

This week will be better.  Wil’s debit card has been shut down (so if you’re the one who stole it, sorry, but the party’s over).  He’s also excited about whatever his next job will be.  And Zelda has started sleeping on my left shoulder.