My birthday gut feelings

Tomorrow, December 12, is my 48th birthday.
Baring a midlife crisis, I am trying to actually reflect on where I have been, where I am going, what it all means and how I am doing right now, scorecard wise, on the human, parental, career and life scales.
First up for consideration, my weight loss this past year. While not stellar, as it was when I was 28, (100 pounds in a year) 45 pounds is nothing to sniff at. My legs, thighs, butt and hips are all looking pretty good. My face has slimmed down, too, and my arms aren't as wattled as they once were. Gravity has had its way with me in the last 20 years, however, and my sagging breasts and drooping belly are a testament to that. I am trying to accept them with as much grace as possible, but its still difficult to face the lack of firmness on my torso when I bust a gut with ab exercises 4 times a week or more. I know there are muscles under that chub, I can feel them when I work out, but they're not going to be evident until 60 pounds fall off my person. And I am impatient enough about that to have daydreams of liposuction.
Which brings me to why those daydreams will stay just dreams; the death of my career in journalism. In case you've been hiding under a rock all year (and I can't say I'd blame you if you did, this year has SUCKED, big time) you might not have read the gruesome daily reports of newspapers and magazines closing, downsizing staff, cutting paper size and frequency of print runs, and publishing houses going under with alarming regularity. In short, the economy stinks, we're in a lousy recession that feels more like the second 'great depression' and there are a LOT of people out of work, broke and without prospects for employment any time soon. So I should be grateful (and I am, really) that my husband has a job, that we have managed to hang onto our house by our fingernails, and that we are able to eat regularly. My Crohns medications are costing us a fortune each week, and our crappy insurance won't cover them for more than a month, so unless the pharmaceutical company decides to have mercy on us and allow us a deep discount on Pentasa, that financial hemorage isn't going to change, unfortunately. At any rate, this has been my worst year yet as a freelance writer/reporter. I have only worked on brief projects and one-time articles that have yielded me all of maybe a thousand dollars over the course of the year. The year prior I was able to get a couple of larger projects that saved the day, financially speaking, but this year legitimate freelance work has been hard to come by, though there have been hordes of scam artists and sleazy web publishers willing to manipulate writers into working for free, or worse, working for rates so low they are insulting. I have had more than one web magazine/page publisher tell me that I should be grateful they offer to pay me $20 or $30 for an article at all, when there are so many writers out there willing to work for 'the publicity' and 'exposure' alone. Poppycock! Any writer dumb enough to work for non existent publicity isn't really a professional writer anyway, and the web site will get what it pays for, which is horrible, sloppy, error-filled copy that isn't worth reading. I have gotten a little work with a marketing company, and that has proven to be a nice learning experience, as I was able to learn to write press releases and gain some knowledge into that industry. And the woman I've been working for is a lovely person who pays me on time, which is refreshing, since I've had to beg editors of magazines to pay me for work I completed 6 months ago. The stress of sending out queries, resumes, letters to editors and soforth, and only getting a response one time out of 100 has been tremendous.
Which leads me to the state of my Crohns Disease, which is not good. I've been having bad Crohns flares now since May, at least 4 times a week, more when I stopped taking Nortryptaline at night because it causes heart palpitations. Without Nortryptaline, I had Crohns flares every day, twice a day, and that got old really fast. I don't like having to spend hours in pain, in the bathroom, tied to a toilet. So now that I am on my specialized food plan via WIO, I am eating more high fiber foods, and my spasming colon is wringing the life out of me every other day. I have to take pain pills just to function, which is no fun at all, and makes me depressed and tired. Yet I continue my struggle against fat every day, and I work out 5 to 6 times a week, and do my best to eat correctly, though I have to constantly be vigilant against my evil sweet tooth, which finds new ways to tempt me daily. I have learned that I cannot be trusted around sweets. I will eat them if they are there. I will over eat them if I can, and there is nothing in this world that will make me stop craving sugar and bread, except perhaps death (and even then, it wouldn't surprise me if I ended up in the angel bakery in heaven, snarfing down vegan cookies and cinnamon rolls). I know it isn't politically correct to say this, but I could live on bread and fruit and sugar and seafood. Other than soymilk, I wouldn't miss anything else, especially since I can't eat dairy, eggs, nuts and onions. It is really hard for me to eat low calorie multigrain bread that tastes like cardboard and makes me ill. It's harder to eat vegetables like spinach and broccoli that I know will hurt my colon like heck. It's harder still to not be able to eat oatmeal in any form, because I love the stuff, but it doesn't love my bowels. So losing this next 60 pounds is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done, because I am going to have to get used to going hungry. I didn't have a problem with that 20 years ago, because after working out in the evening, I usually didn't feel like eating supper, and if I did, I wanted, at most, a small bowl of grapenuts and milk. My metabolism soared, I ate a mostly vegetarian diet of small amounts of breads/cereals and fruits, sometimes meats, and I was good. Now after I work out in the evening, I am starving, and supper is supposed to be my smallest meal of the day, low in carbs and fat. So each night I wrestle with frustration and hunger, and sometimes I win, while other times I lose and end up eating more than I should.
On the parental side of things, I am not certain when it happened, but my son has somehow morphed into this kid who is lazy and doesn't want to do anything but eat everything that isn't nailed down (especially if it is junk food or candy) and play video games or watch TV shows that are for teenagers, not for 9 year old boys. He was evaluated this week by an occupational therapist who basically said that his handwriting problem is due to his laziness, and though he could use some more shoulder and core strength (read: he needs to get out and exercise more often), she wasn't concerned about him needing any special help to learn to write and spell properly. We have to work with him every night on his writing and spelling, but the OT seemed to think it was merely his gender, and boys general lack of linguistic skills, or being late to come into those skills (vs girls) that was at fault for his illegible handwriting. It's also hard to get Nick to go to bed at night, and really hard to get him awake and dressed and fed in the morning. So Jim and I had a talk with Nick about being more responsible and growing up now that he's 9. Nick responded by retreating to his room and crying himself to sleep. Hence, I felt like the worlds crappiest mom, and the stress wasn't helpful in getting me to sleep, either. Nick is generally a good boy, he is bright, has a great sense of humor and is a loving person. He's just not easy to parent, and he becomes harder to work with the older he gets. I am not looking forward to the skirmishes of the teenage years at all. But on balance, I'd say I am a decent parent, and that as long as Nick doesn't turn out to be a serial killer, I will have done my job properly.
So far, I've gotten a snuggly blanket, flannel sheets and a gift card for a new waterproof coat for my birthday, so I will be warm, if nothing else, in the coming year. Here's hoping things are looking up for 2009.