I am a people-pleaser by nature. Historically, when I have experienced emotional discomfort, pressure or cognitive dissonance, I have eaten food and put myself into a cozy food coma. Magically, the situation would always get better. But this way of life kept getting me sicker and sicker and fatter and fatter. 

Since my DS, I can no longer slip into a food coma to get away from people and things I want to avoid.  I find myself having to live my life more authentically. By that, I mean that I have to feel REAL feelings, all the way to their end point, even if they suck. No more Scarlet O'Hara "tomorrows." I've got to deal with things live, as they happen.

To that end, I find myself speaking my mind more than ever and being very frank about my feelings. I'm new at this, so I've got the training wheels on. But I think I had a breakthrough. 

Yesterday, I had to have a beat-down with a semi-negligent mother at our health club pool. Her 4 and 7-year old brats were unsupervised animals (who had been yelled at by the lifeguard for roughhousing a couple of times already) who ended up running over my toddler (and me!) in the zero-depth area of the pool. When I spoke to them about their behavior, they ignored me, so I grabbed my toddler and collared these kids and made them tell me where their parent was. 

After both lied to me and said she wasn't there, (which I countered with, "Oh, then let's call the police because she has to go to jail for leaving you here, unsupervised."), the little one started to look scared and then showed me to their mother who was in the restaurant section, 300 feet away, working on her laptop under a shady umbrella, not watching her kids. She of course, was shocked that someone would bother her about her brats. I politely told her what happened and the kids then did finally stutter out  the truth. She seemed irked that I would trouble her with this issue, so I was a bit bitchy.

I asked her if she expected the 7-year old to supervise her little one and she said "no, of course not!" I said "then who is supposed to supervise him if not him and not you, all the way over here? You need to watch your kids before something bad happens to them or--God forbid, one of us." She started speaking semi-stenly to her kids and I said, "Listen, I'm not wasting any more of my family's valuable pool time on you and your kids. But don't let me see them knocking toddlers and moms down again in the pool" and walked away. She was pissed, naturally. But she wisely kept her kids out of the pool for at least the next 30 minutes.

When I came back to the wading area with my toddler, another mom said to me "I admire you for doing that! I've always wanted to do that, but never had the guts!" I told her, without any thought at all, that "I went to hell and back to have weightloss surgery and change my life and I'm not about to start my new life by taking crap off anyone, especially kids that aren't mine!" 

I think Sheryl Crow had it right in "Steve McQueen":

I ain't takin' shit off no one, baby that was yesterday.