go back to the start

I feel stuck.

It's not by choice, either. Rather, it feels like someone took my tennis shoes one night and filled them with wet concrete. Then, they somehow slipped the shoes back on my feet and crept out of the room. The next morning I couldn't move. And I haven't been able to move since.

I can't pinpoint when it hapenned either. There is no one spot to place the blame. There is nothing I can look back on and say that's where it all started to get really really hard.

I've mentioned how hard this journey has become. There's a wall I have hit. I am tired of the frozen dinners I bring for lunch. I am over the amount of water I am drinking. I am somewhat bored with my workout routines. And I am wondering if this journey to lose 100 pounds is even worth it.

I can look back on the past three months and see the changes I've made. It's evident in the way I feel, how much easier it is to do little things (like tie my shoes or get out of my low-to-the-ground car). And I see it in my clothes. How much shirts are a little baggier and how there are dresses I can wear again - dresses I haven't worn in almost a year.

But to take that evidence and apply it to everything else? I'm not quite sure how to do that.

I haven't completely lost my drive. I'm still working out. Though recently, it has only been 5 or 6 times a week instead of 8 or 10 times a week. I'm still watching what I eat and documenting (almost) everything on Lose It!. Though recently, my choices have not been the best, and hamburgers (and fries) sound so much better than salmon, tilapia, and baked potatoes.

And the weight is still slowly coming off. Painstakingly slowly. I want to say it has most to do with my choices. But I don't know if it does. Because I've worked hard this summer. Harder than I've ever worked before. And while it has paid off in the ways listed above, it hasn't paid off in the way of a diminishing number on the scale.

I tell people all the time not to focus on the scale. I even remind myself of it. But the scale means something to me. It means a whole new wardrobe and a new me.

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I am putting my identity into the number on the scale. Maybe I am losing sight of the reason I started this whole journey. Maybe I am too focused on the end results I want and not focused enough on the steps I need to take to get that end result.

Maybe I'm overthinking all of it.

There is so much more that goes into a journey like this than just counting calories, breaking a sweat at the gym, limiting my diet coke intake, and drinking liters of water a day. Those things are important, but more important than those is to understand the reasons a journey like this is necessary and to take the time to put yourself first and overcome the internal obstacles you need to overcome.

And so, while my calorie intake has been higher and my calories burned lower, I have taken the past few weeks to care for myself in other ways. Getting some much needed healing. Backing out of some commitments that were not where I needed to be at this moment. Letting people in. Slowly asking for help when it is warranted.

Those are hard things for me to do. So much harder than I can even begin to describe here. But they are necessary things. And, of cource, the most necessary things are also the hardest things.

This journey is also, I think, teaching me how to slow down. Because I want so badly to jump ahead and be at the end of the journey. I don't want to be less than a pound away from having lost 20 pounds. I want to be at the moment when I have lost 100 pounds and am in dire need of a new wardrobe.

That's how I have always been. I've always looked forward to the next stage in my life. The next big thing. I'm so rarely happy and content with the current stage. Even back to when I was 5-years-old and playing with Barbies. All I really wanted was to be a teenager going to high school (and living a life exactly like Kelly Kapowski). And so often, I was disappointed when I finally hit the long awaited moment and discovered that high school in Texas is nothing like Saved By The Bell.

So I am trying to learn how to slow down, how to say no, how to put myself first, how to have grace with myself, how to enjoy my life, how to not only look to the future, and how to eat right and exercise.

It's a journey with no real map. But it is a journey that, as hard as it might be, I will not give up on.

And one day, hopefully soon, my shoes will no longer be filled with concrete, and I will no longer be stuck.

(title from "my broken heart" by noah and the whale)

for all these epiphanies

I want to be content in my life. In every aspect of my life. My job, finances, our house, my marriage, my friendships. This is something I have prayed for and sought after the past few months. Sometimes whole-heartedly but usually as a means to an end.

If I can be content with where I am, then maybe I will no longer have to be where I am. Maybe I can finally move forward.

Contentment is becoming harder to come by. It seems the more I think about it and the more I pray for it the less I have it.

My thought has been that maybe I'm not supposed to be content. That maybe I am supposed to be discontent until I find where the place I am meant to be. And so I have searched for lots of things that I thought might bring me contentment. All of the searching has done, though, is lead me back to where I started.

I mentioned this to a friend a few nights back. I touched on how frustrated I was and wondered on why I was struggling so much with being content. I even went so far as to ask if she thought my discontentment was because I wasn't supposed to be content where I was. Her response was simple, but it caused me to think on my life in that moment and has continued to make its way into the forefront of my mind since our conversation.

Maybe it's a test. Like when you ask for patience and all of a sudden everything tests every ounce of patience you have. Maybe the same can and should be said for being contentment.

I wanted to brush the notion aside and hold tightly to the thought that I was not meant to be content with where I am. But then I remembered how exhausting it is to focus on everything except for the present. And how it is so easy to miss all the good and wonderful things when concentrating on what comes next instead of on what is in front of you.

There are some things I should be discontent with. There are things I need to work through and past. Those are things like my weight and my eating habits. I should strive for better. I should seek to leave my current state and enter a healthier one.

But there are other things, more numerous things, that I need to be content with. These are the things like money, jobs, and our home.

During my lunch break, I spent time in the pool. I half-hazardly participated in aqua zumba. My muscles were sore from Monday's two workouts, and I was exhausted from a somewhat restless night's sleep. Instead of focusing on how high I kicked my legs or how closely I mimicked the dance moves, I concentrated on conversation with the others in the pool.

picture found here.

We touched briefly on jobs and more deeply on marriages. A woman ten years older than me told me that one day I would look back on my current life. She said I would laugh and wonder how I was ever that stupid or silly. She said my husband and I would reminisce on the decisions we made and ask how we ever ended up where we did. She said she knew this from experience.

It made me realize that I have been so focused on the future that it's impacting my present. I'm not quite sure if the impact is a positive one or a negative one, though.

I don't like to make mistakes. I also prefer for others to not make mistakes. And I am then terribly hard on myself and others when those mistakes were made. And I mean any mistake - not just a large one that results in s car accident or a hefty medical bill of some sort.

It's exhausting to live like that - to want to keep everyone from making mistakes and to feel a need to be so in control of everything that there are no mistakes to be made. It's exhausting to plan all of that out and to then decide on a way to execute the plan.

So maybe my discontentment stems less from the money, the house, and the job. Maybe it stems more from the exhaustion that comes from trying so hard to plan and prepare for every little thing instead of taking life as it comes and riding the waves or powering through the current.

On Sunday night, before turning off the light and maneuvering myself around the dogs, I searched for contentment in the Bible. The first verse I turned to was 1 Timothy 6:6-7. My hope had been for a verse that would detail how I could find contentment. What I got was another reminder that I bring nothing to the table, that everything I have is a gift and that no amount of effort (on my part) will keep life from happening.

As I search for contentment, I hope to move away from discontent and closer to an understanding that no amount of trying (on my part) will ensure that life follows the path I set. As I continue on a journey that has no specific end, I hope to focus more on the events on they occur and less on the end result I want.

And I hope to see the blessings that I have instead of only the blessings I hope to have. Because they are there - waiting for me to take notice - even if I refuse to acknowledge them.

(title from "hold on" by mary beth maziarz)

from another life

I watched two episodes of "Dawson's Creek" tonight.

I'm not sure if it was nostalgia or something else, but I felt a need to revisit a show that shaped my life in ways I'm still trying to figure out. I pulled out every season and read the summary paragraphs. The desire to start with the seasons I prefer, when Joey and Pacey begin their relationship and everything that follows, was there, but I started with the beginning. Because even if I am not the biggest fan of the beginning, it is where everything started.

I have memories of watching the show at night when it first aired. Memories of watching re-runs of it while getting ready for the day. Memories of spending entire weekends in my college apartment, cleaning or doing homework, and watching seasons at a time of the show. Memories of Starbucks and "Dawson's Creek" episodes with one of my best friends. Memories of picking out clothes similar to the ones Joey Potter wore and hoping that maybe one day there would be something worthy of writing about in my own life.

And the music? It spoke to me in a way I hadn't experienced before. The lyrics took over the episodes at just the right time, and I had the childish dream that one day I would be the one to pen a series and select the perfect music for each scene.

There's a part of me still that has that dream. Though I have no clue what the show would be about.

It's not just the memories that "Dawson's Creek" evokes or how it wove its way into so many pivotal moments of my life. It's also the inspiration I found from the characters, the dialogue, and the music. It's the dreams it brought to almost reality.

I still find it now. It's harder to come by. Life gets in the way. My body doesn't do well staying up into all hours of the night. But there's still inspiration lurking; I just have to fight to grab hold of it and turn it into something tangible.

And I think that's what growing up is. It's not just a series of moments. It's more than celebrating birthdays, weddings, and babies. It's grabbing hold of the things you want and turning them into tangible items.

My story is not that of a television show. The list of characters isn't neat and tidy. There are no great loves that followed me through adolescence, puberty, and then eventually into life after college.  There is not a soundtrack of fifteen songs that I could select to play throughout those moments.

There are mistakes I would like to forget. There are loves that weren't really loves at all. There are broken friendships and severed relationships and a list of characters that I sometimes wish I still knew and other times am glad I do not know. And there's an iPod with more than 4,000 songs that speak to different areas of my life - past and present and maybe even future.

At one time, I wanted my life to be a television show. To have neat and tidy episodes. To keep only certain people close, and to live up to an expectation that I created - one that would please the viewers.

I can't say the desire has completely left. Because television shows have a definite end and beginning - in each episode, for every season, and ultimately for the entire show. Life has a definite beginning in birth and then an ending in death, but the seasons of life and days don't always end or begin so clearly.

Maybe that's why so much of this is difficult. The endings and beginnings rush together. Every step can be considered the first step.

I plan on rewatching all of "Dawson's Creek" over the next few weeks and months. And I plan on paying attention to the details - to remind myself of all the reasons the show made me laugh and cry and connect.

And I plan on taking several new first steps. Steps towards writing. Steps towards my future and what I want to be when I finally grow up. Steps towards losing a total of twenty pounds and then another eighty pounds.

My life is not a television show. There will likely be no clear or clean endings and beginnings, but I can still find bits and pieces of myself in the dialogue and in the music.

Joey: Dawson, I'm sorry I don't have the same dreams I had when I was 15 years old, and I'm sorry that I moved on faster than you did, but you know what? Maybe not everything that happens to you is my fault! And maybe just because I want more from my life than...
Dawson: More than what? More than us? You don't know, do you? You've never known. The entire time I've known you, all you've wanted to do is escape. From me, from Capeside. I mean, you say that I'm the dreamer. I'm the one who doesn't wanna live in the real world. Well, I'm doing it, Joey. Right now. I'm living in the real world. It's you who wants the fantasy.

Jen: No, no, hear me out, Dawson, please. Okay? Because this seems to be the day of truths, and I'm taking my turn. I lost my virginity when I was 12 to some older guy who got me drunk, I don't really remember his name but after the first pregnancy scare I went on the pill, and I used condoms most of the time, some of the times, I don't know, it's kind of blurry. I was really drinking a lot and having blackouts and stuff, um. I was sexualized way too young, and I don't wish that on anybody. I mean, sex at such a young age, more often than not, is a bad idea. I finally got caught having sex in my parents' bed. Daddy's little girl fornicating right before his very eyes. He still can't look me in the face but then again he shipped me 200 miles away so he wouldn't have to, but Dawson I'm not that girl anymore. I never really was, and I'm not that white-as-snow image you've got either, I'm somewhere in between and I'm just, I'm just trying to figure it out.

Joey: How would you know what I need?
Pacey: Yeah...you know you're probably right. How could I possibly know what it's like to let somebody go, right? How hard it is to let someone go. The pain of knowing that even though the two of you are right for each other, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're right for each other right now. What would I know about that, right? How could I possibly know that sometimes it just makes you want to scream, hit somebody, or sit out at the end of a dock and cry...
Joey: Of all the people to see me like this, it had to be you.

(title from "dizzy" by jimmy eat world)

stars in your eyes

After a week and weekend filled with delicious, but not so healthy food, I expected to step on the scale today for my weekly weigh-in and see one of two things: 1. No weight loss or weight gain or 2. The first weight gain of my journey.

Instead, I saw a loss. Over a pound loss to be exact. Bringing my total weight loss to 17.8 pounds.

After seeing the loss, I started to notice other things. Definition in my calves. Definition in my biceps. A smaller stomach. Stomach muscles instead of just flab.

It's a start. A step in the right direction. Something I needed after a week of feeling so far from my goal and a week of crying because of every little thing.

There is still such a long ways to go, but in mere weeks, I will be a fifth of the way there.

The further I head into this journey the more I learn about myself and about my body. I'm learning to not go to the gym and sleep in on the mornings when it hurts to open my eyes and my feet feel like bricks. I'm learning to push myself and increase weights when I feel like a work-out is too easy instead of just gliding through another morning of weight lifting.

I mentioned yesterday that I wished I could afford a physical trainer. That I wanted someone to push me - someone other than friends and family. I brought this up last night when we met with friends from church for our weekly community group.

And someone made a statement that stuck with me then - a statement that I am still processing in my mind. The statement was something along the lines of looking at how far I have come on my own.

When I stepped on the scale earlier today, the statement came back to me. When I noticed the definition in my arms and my soon-to-be toned stomach, I realized the truth behind the statement.

There's a part of me that wants to do this all on my own without the assistance of a trainer pushing me harder and harder. There's also a part of me that is terrified of doing all of this on my own.
Really it doesn't matter whether I do this on my own or with the help of a trainer. I'm going to achieve the results I want either way. I'm not going to fall victim to hitting a plateau or of giving up when things get difficult.

It's a choice. Every day, I wake up and make the choice to go to the gym or to sleep longer. Every day, I make the choice to eat what I brought for lunch or run our for a healthy (or not healthy) lunch. Every day, I make the choice to spend my lunch hour in the pool. Every day, I make the choice to eat a large bowl of ice cream or a single serving of dessert.

And I document all these choices on my blog, on twitter, and on facebook. I document the choices to remind myself that every choice really means something, and I document the choices to keep myself accountable with friends and family.

There's a part of me that hates sharing every up and down. It's the part that worries too much over how the words come out. The part that feels my emotions are too varying to share - the part that wonders if people won't get sick of seeing me happy one day and then struggling the next.

But there's a bigger part that loves putting my progress onto a blog. It's the part that smiles when I'm told I inspire someone. It's the part that remembers how loving people and how happy people are to see those they know succeed. It's the part that realizes that this blog and journey is so much bigger than me or the 100 pounds I'm striving to lose.

Because my story is just part of a much larger story. It is but a snippet of a life. There is so much more to my story and to the story of the world. But I still have the chance to write my story down and to hit "publish" so that my story is available to the rest of the world.

And I hope you realize that your story is also part of a much larger story. And that you also have the chance to share you story - that you should share your story.

And I hope you also realize that it's not about how many people read. I fall into the trap of checking the statistics to see how many views my blog has received. And I measure my success in the number. But then, there's that one comment that stands out to me. A comment that states I inspired someone, and I remember that my little story needs to only reach one person to really matter.

(title from "don't forget me" by way out west)