This has been a week of unexpected inspiration. Without telling anyone, I'd started to sink back into some very bad, old feelings. I've felt a little lonely and sad, a little frustrated and defeated. Then, Monday at Jazzercise, someone said something unbelievable to me: they asked me if I had had bariatric surgery. Holy crap. Who gets a compliment like that? I worked out like a woman possessed that night.
Then tonight, I went to a friend's 30th birthday party. It was a casual affair: I wore the same clothes that I wore to work today - a new dress I bought on clearance for $15, some leggings, and black boots. I like the dress, but honestly, it's still very hard to feel cute in clothes. I arrived at the party not thinking much about how I look, except to I know I'm not underdressed. So isn't it a surprise to me when everyone is completely jazzed about how great they think I Iook? It's so powerful, that kind of feedback: It's like mainlining positive energy.
And make no mistake: I am, even now, a creature of external motivation. I tell myself, and others, "I'm doing this just for me, so that I can be healthy and strong." Well, bullshit on that right there. I need, no, I crave the validation of others. But I'm not a lowbrow junkie: I'm not looking for the entrapment complement I've basically had to spell out for someone else. Hello, no. I only want the, blurted, spontaneous compliments from the person who is inspired by me.
For some inexplicable reason, I found myself telling my story tonight. From the very sad beginning of eating unbelievable amounts of pasta and watching Marigold On Netflix to seeing myself at the Fourth of July; from weeping uncontrollably to rolling myself from the couch to do 5 minuets of dance moves with my beloved Shahrukh Khan for the first time (5 minutes before I was out on the floor); then crying all of it out to the internet because I couldn't tell anyone in my life, but I somehow had to find some way someone that I just couldn't just die before my next birthday, so someone, anywhere, would hear me to get up each day, and tell myself, "Today is not a good day to die."
And the these friends, who have seen me at my worst, just showed up and filled with love and support and positivity and motivation to begin a new today. They were inspired by my story. Though I hear those words, I still can't make any real sense out of them. I am still fat and flabby and don't fit into clothes, and the scale still taunts me. Who is this girl they see? But, at the very same time, I crave those words like a starving man craves a meal. I live outside myself, in the world of perception. It's not right, it just is. So, my buddy almost young enough to be my son, who tells me I look hot, even though he definitely doesn't mean it quite that way, he makes my day. When two of my girlfriends who, in their own right, look absolutely amazing, go to the trouble to tell me how beautiful I look an how amazed they are with my progress, I'm speechless. But most of all, when someone hears my silly story of getting up off the couch and letting Shahrukh Khan call me back into the light, And cries, CRIES, by the power of the story. the POWER of the STORY? The "getting up off of my ASS" story??? I am simply overwhelmed.
These people: the lady at Jazzercise, the students at school, the friends in the sports bar, they all rekindle the fire that got me here in the first place. One friend this evening, "but you're in such a good place now." It's quite shocking to hear that, because I constantly feel like a piece of glass That could shatter at the slightest pressure. To be clear, I do this for me. I want to be healthy, I want to be happy. But I would be a shameful liar if I didn't admit that the people In and around my life are motivating me in ways they cannot even know. And, to be honest, I'm not even sure I want them to know. A person's well-being to be such a heavy burden... At least now I know that every word that is said comes from a spontaneous place of support and positive feeling. It feeds the dark places in my heart, and it drives me to begin a new tonight. A new day, a new commitment:
I promise to keep trying my very very best every day if you (whoever you are out there, world) promise to try to remember every every day to honor my effort in some tiny way. I promise to be truthful you about how it's going, even when the going is shitty.
And I promise that, for one more day, I will stay the course. You know why. And to Brett, Dave, Poe, Molly, Paul, and ESPECIALLY to Beth/Beth...today's video is for you.
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