Tomorrow I will run my first race. I will be alone. But with a goal to be fast. Tomorrow I will be even more of my new person. I will have achieved a goal and have future aspirations. I will be a runner.
16 months ago I was not a runner. I was 280 lbs. I was depressed. I was unhealthy. I was barely alive. I was someone else.
I write this out of frustration. Try googling "life after weight loss" online. I found pages and pages of life after weight loss surgery, cosmetic surgery, vanity, etc. But nothing about the struggles of breaking out of the shell that covered you for your entire life. How does one really truly live, after being 2 totally different people in 1 lifetime?
In a year and a half, I went from 280 lbs to 150 lbs. From a size 18/20 to a 0/2. That is more than just losing some weight. That is losing an entire person. How do you say goodbye to that self that you lost?
I wonder if anyone knows what that REALLY feels like, to say goodbye to yourself, to say goodbye to the person you thought you were...to have experienced the awe of how it feels to look back at yourself and know that you as a person no longer exists, and its for the better. To be happy that you no longer exist! To mourn yourself is humbling.
I look back and cry for the person I was, for the choices I made and the agony I felt. At the time i could not recognize it, but now that I have peace in my heart, any pain like that would agonizing to me now.
I would feel sorry for anyone I meet today who was like me 2 years ago (and 5 years ago, and 10 years ago, 20 years, etc, etc) When you lose yourself, you lose the old attachments. You lose the old materials. You happily let go of the old relationships that contain bonds that are no longer beneficial to you. The old unhealthy habits, the old thoughts, the old pain. How incredible to mourn yourself, yet how liberating and beautiful! You can open up your body, every cell and molecule, and let them go. Because they will regenerate into new, more beautiful you!
People spend lifetimes trying to obtain that, in therapy, counseling, reading books, getting as much motivation from any sources possible. Because something just isn't right with their life. The true strength that will bring you peace is within yourself. It's within your cells and your molecules. It's in your bones. You will not find it outside yourself.
I found myself in yoga and running. In that feeling of a different, faster pace of life. I have connected with myself- I pushed myself, bargained with myself, became friends with myself, loved myself, all through the acts of running and yoga.
16 months ago, I could barely walk a mile or touch my toes. Now I can run 11 miles in 2 hours and I can touch my feet to the top of my head. For 16 months I have been in recovery. I still struggle with defining that. Recovery from what? Food addiction? From my addiction to defining myself by my misery? Recovery from depression? I am not sure exactly how to pinpoint it, or if the lines all blur together. But I know that I am in recovery from a bad life. And I struggle every day to make it good.
Tomorrow, it will be even better
Tomorrow, it will be even better
