After a very long absence...

I'm back, at very long last. It's been a while... a very long while. As anyone who has followed my blogging attempts in the past may know, when I go blog-AWOL, it's not a good sign - it usually means I've fallen fair and square off the wagon, started eating like a demon and being slothful on the exercise front. This time is no different really, except that it hasn't gone on as long as previous bouts, thankfully.

But I'm back into it now. I hadn't done any exercise since getting back from holidays until yesterday, but I went to step last night, and I rode my bike to work today. I just stood up to grab something from the other side of the room, and discovered that my legs have siezed up. Crap, looks like the ride home will be interesting. But that aside, I felt SO much better once I'd done step last night. I tried really really hard to talk myself out of going, but once I was in there I enjoyed every minute of it (it was a different instructor, and she was awesome, hope she sticks around). This is the problem with exercise, it's the getting started that's the problem, not the doing. And the longer I leave it, the more sloth-inclined I become. No more I say!

On the D&M side of things, I really need to work through what put me in my food and slothfulness funk this time around. On the whole, I think it was just me trying to eat my stress and emotions - nothing new there. Why I keep falling back to that counter-productive activity is beyond me, but I do it time and time again. Life has gotten on top of me, and I've bitten back by trying to eat it. WTF?

Now, the sources of the stresses, where do I start? In Bali I guess. There were some definite good points to the holiday - some good shopping, lots of good massages, and some much needed time away from the office. There were also some bad points - my Dad is incredibly hard work these days. Alzheimers is a bastard of an illness, and I don't think anyone can really appreciate just how difficult it is to deal with someone with that disease unless they've actually lived through it. If the person you were dealing with was a child (and a lot of the time they do behave exactly like naughty children), you could punish them to bring them into line. What the hell do you do with a 6'2" 110kg "child"? Get incredibly frustrated and wound up, that's what.

So that part of the trip was tough. The other thing from the Bali trip which has given me cause for stress since my return is actually a guy - who would have thought! Ketut is someone who I met in Bali a couple of trips back, and we've kept in contact through Facebook and text messages off and on over the last couple of years. He is completely not the sort of person I would have chosen for myself... and yet I really feel something for him. I expected to go there this time and see him, and have it feel like just a friend, the same as quite a few others I have gotten to know in my many trips. But it feels like something more. I didn't get to see a lot of him this trip, with my dad being demanding as he is and mum not coping well, but what I did see of him was great. I've been kinda depressed about it since getting back, trying to figure out what to do, whether to trust it or not etc etc etc. The problem with people from Bali (in a broad sweeping generalisation) is that they know how to flatter those from the western world to get what they want. I'm usually pretty good at seeing through that kind of thing, but everyone has their weaknesses, you know? So I don't know how Ketut sees me... as a partner, as a friend who flirts, or a ticket to a visa and a better life. How the hell do you really know? I guess I haven't really finished working through the options, but I'm leaning towards doing nothing with it at this stage. My life is already too complicated without adding a MASSIVE complication like this. But it is a shame.

What else is going on? Well, Christmas is going on. On the whole, I love Christmas, but it is becoming a major headache these days. It's always hectic, but my mother has had a mini meltdown this year (and last year, when I come to think of it), and that leaves me to pick up the pieces. I don't blame her at all, her life with my dad is monumentally sucky these days. I do, however, blame my selfish, useless, good-for-nothing brother, who does jack sh*t to help anyone other than himself. While I spent 17 hours on Saturday (yes, 17 hours... left home at 8am and got home at 1am) running around to make mum's life easier - doing Christmas shopping, putting up their Christmas decorations, wrapping a pile of presents for her - he can't even get his sorry ass around to help with a single thing. My mum is really self sufficient for her age, but I seriously don't think she should be getting on the roof to clean the gutters while the place is flooding. But she does it, because useless-brother "doesn't have time" to help. Then he sends me a text to ask if I've bought mum and dad's presents for him to give them. No I f*ing haven't, and no I'm not going to, you lazy prick. OK, sorry about that, really needed to get that off my chest.

In other news I've been sick. Not super duper sick, but I've got a cold which refuses to die. Probably because I've been eating crap and not exercising, and generally a bit run down. I've used it as a great excuse to eat more crap and do nothing of course. Well, no more. I got through step without really noticing the head cold. The only sign of it on my ride this morning was when I had snot running down my face because the lights refused to turn red to give me a chance to blow my nose. Oh, and I had to spit a couple of times. Gross, right? I hate doing that, but the alternative wasn't good. Sorry about the TMI, I'm just putting it all out there today, I CBF editing the thoughts going through my head for what is appropriate to put in writing.

I could go on and on today - that's what happens when I leave a month between blogs I guess. I have still been reading other blogs, but I haven't been posting on them much. I'll try to be more diligent with that, although the next couple of weeks do promise to be annoyingly busy. I'll see what I can do, and I'll try to keep up to date with my own blog too :)