The twists and turns of quiet contemplation

"Remember that the sun will still rise tomorrow even if I had one too many slices of pizza or an extra scoop of ice cream tonight." 17 magazine Body Peace Treaty

The last week has been incredibly rough. I feel as if I have a myriad of things holding me back right now. My body has felt like it was quitting on me, like I was pushing slightly too hard through a series of pained joints and muscles and I realized, that I might have been. In an attempt to get myself to the goal of a 12 minute mile, I pushed myself too hard and burned myself out. I was not properly warming beforehand, nor had I really built my stamina up to get where I need to get to achieve that goal. I just saw the goal and wanted it so hard that I forgot that I have treat my body well in order to get there. It was frustrating and a bit disheartening. I kind of gave up on myself for a few days there. I am not proud of it at all, but it happened. I just kind of threw in the towel and fell back into some of my bad patterns or laying around a lot.

There are times when I look at myself and just feel like I am not getting anywhere and thinking that this whole thing is pointless. At some point I should see a difference, not only feel a difference, but I should be able to look in the mirror and see myself shrinking and I am not seeing that. For a few weeks I was doing everything right all of the time and was not seeing what I thought I should see and if I cannot see any change doing things the right way, why deny myself things I desperately want like soda, chips, candy and fast food. I know, my body cannot handle fast food the way it used to, but I still miss it. I miss soda and to everyone who tells you it goes away, IT DOES NOT!!! No substitute gets me over missing it. Oh I know what would happen if I had some, it would be gross and I would feel sick because I am not putting it in my body anymore, but logic goes out of the window when I feel down on myself.

Sometimes I feel like I am in a bad relationship with myself. I know logically what to do, but when I am feeling down logic holds no place. Logic has no place in an emotional setting and let's face it, a relationship with one's body is emotionally fragile. I wake up some days thinking I am about as awesome as a man can be, but often times I wake up and think that I am never going to get it right, so why try? I thought this feeling about my body would end when I got out of high school. Then I thought it would end when I found someone who loved me, now I am wondering if it ever really ends? At what point do I realize that this is who I am and it is up to me to get right with it? I am 50lbs lighter than I was at this point last year and I am down 85lbs from my highest weight in my life when I was probavbly 24 or 25 years old. I am basically at my lowest weight since high school, but I am also in better shape than I was in high school. I am, otherwise in the happiest place I have been in my entire life, minus the whole lack of job thing. So why am I still at such odds with how I look? Why does it matter so much?

Generally I feel more confident than I have in my entire life. Today I jogged for 12 minutes straight and just missed my 12 minute mile. I can do push-ups now and at work when it is slow I am doing squats and lunges and these standing push up things. I do not sit and eat popcorn when it is slow. No, I am trying to make myself the best version of who I am. However, I realize in my quiet alone moments, I still have so much work to do on the inside. I still have to get myself right with who I actually am. One of the things I am trying to work on is not defining myself by my job, or lack of job. For so many of the last 5 years I have struggled to find a full time job when I have needed it. When I get a chance to interview for a job, I get it 95% of the time, but it has been a constant point of contention in my life. I need to feel like I am doing something to contribute to the world and to my own world. I have to work on reminding myself that I am not defined by not having a job. I hate telling people I am an usher at a movie theater. I hate going to work because I feel like I am doing the exact same thing I was doing when I was 16 years old because I am doing the exact same thing I was doing when I was 16 years old. It makes me feel like I have not accomplished anything in the last 16 years, which is totally stupid, but again, my relationship with logic is shaky at best.

I have to admit this post has not gone where I set out to take it, but clearly I have had some things on my mind that I have been struggling to express outwardly. I should have known writing it down was the only way to get it out into the world and out of my head. The quote I put at the beginning of this post came to me from The Biggest Loser last night. For some reason it really hit me in a major way. After last week's frustrating events, I remembered that every day I get to start again, so that is what I did. I stretched out, I made a nice breakfast, I walked down to the gym and I got on the treadmill again. Keeping a good pace, when 10 minutes of pure jogging passed, I pushed myself to go two more and I did it. After a bad week, I had a great morning. I had a great long shower, I am going to make a great lunch and make some salmon for dinner. I am going to read a book and I am going to send my resume to three places today. I am going to spend this day reminding myself that it is okay to have a bad day and it is okay to slip and fall because I am able to get back up and try again. I am going to remind myself that I have great qualities that I need to love about myself and I need to remind myself that my relationship with my body, while volatile, is MY relationship, and I am the only one who can change it. I am the only one who can get right with it. I am the only one who can look at myself and tell myself that it is going to be okay and that as long as I am trying my very best to be the best version of myself, that I can hold my head up high and be proud of myself, which is something I never let myself be. When I graduated college, I did not let myself be proud of myself, and when I finished the Teacher Credential Program, I did not let myself be proud of that, but now I realize that I am the only one stopping me from being proud of who I am and what I have done and what I continue to do.

Okay, I am too emotionally drained to continue. No more truth from me today.