Health, what does it mean?

Health, what does it mean?  Is it a coveted set of unattainable measurements set forth by the fashion industry or some person you don’t even know?  Is it starving to fit in with a crowd you don’t even really like?  Is it telling yourself and the world around you lies so that you can live with what you see in the mirror?  No.

I’m on a continuing journey, one that is leading me, hopefully, to a brighter place.  Since April 2010, I have lost 150 pounds.  I know that number by heart and each time I see a digit drop on the scale I add it to that cache as if it were gold I’m ferreting away.  Yet, when I look in the mirror I don’t see it.  I am quite literally half the person I was, but I still feel like a beached whale, most of the time.  Before you get worked up at that statement I implore you to please read on, I promise it will make sense.

I was gathered round the kitchen table of my sister’s house last night.  Funny how we always seem to gather round the kitchen no matter which house we gather at; it’s as if the kitchen is the heart and soul of the home.  Where all our memories are made and shared and laughter wafts through the house filling it with love.  Last night, we were looking at old photos.  Of course there were some old ones of me.  There was one in particular of me sitting by the pool of my first apartment.  I was in black shorts, a pink tank top, gold sunglasses, my dark brown hair was cut in a short chin length bob and I had it pulled back in a severe half back to keep it from blowing in my eyes.  I’m sure at the time the picture taker thought it was a cute photo, a way to capture a lazy day by the pool with family.  But all I saw looking at that photo were the rolls of fat the protruded under my shirt like a roly-poly and how grotesque I looked like I had been broken and someone just pieced me back together but didn’t take the time to line up the parts.

Everyone in the room did a double take.  I’m used to that these days.  “My Kristmas, I’m so proud of you!  You’ve really come so far.”  And I know I have; but not far enough.  This journey isn’t about cosmetics, it’s about being healthy.  Though if I am being totally honest with myself there is a small part of me that has to admit, yes, it is also about wanting to finally be pretty in my own eyes.

For years I’ve hidden behind the “big is beautiful” motto.  And I do believe that as long as you are HEALTHY, that big can be beautiful, because not everyone is meant to be skinny, I am proof of that.  I could starve myself, but I will never be a size 2.  I would look like an alien with a really large head and a bag of bones for a body.  That’s not beautiful, or healthy. 

I woke up one day and was ready to shed the layers of self loathing that I was hiding behind and my journey began.  You would think that being half the person I was that my journey would find closure, but in many ways it’s only just beginning.  The last thirty pounds I have to go will be the hardest to lose not only physically but mentally as well.  Helping others to understand that this is not about them, and to accept that this is the real me is a challenge all of its own.  And explaining to others that this has all been for me, for my health so that I can finally love myself, so that I don’t have to hide, or lie or creatively stretch the truth to make others believe that I am happy when I am really wallowing in my own self purgatory of fat, ugliness and ill-health.  It was easier to be fat and unhappy.

I know that I am my own worst critic, and I will get comments targeting my abusive self talk, but to those who have never walked in my shoes, never been the target of others hurtful words, never been told to put down the pizza and do something productive, you can’t imagine what negative self talk is.  This is motivation.  I never want to be that girl again.  Everyone else may have loved me when I was 150 pounds bigger, but I hated myself.  I woke up every day wishing the world would end; wishing if it didn’t that I could somehow make myself invisible to the naked eye so that I could hide from the world.  I was embarrassed, afraid, and ashamed.  I was my own judge, prison guard and parole board, and ultimately I was the only one who could set me free.

I wish I could say that it’s been an easy road.  Then again it seems that I wish for a lot of things.  But after years of living behind the lie I’ve built a ferocious desire to hold my head high.  Each day I step a little further into the light.  It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done.  But Eleanor Roosevelt once said “Do one thing every day that scares you.”  She was a smart woman.  In my fear I find my strength.  I can do this.  I am worth it.  I know what health means and I don’t have to be anyones idea of beautiful but my own to achieve it.

Before - 150 pounds ago

After - only 30 pounds left to go!

The Mountain That Seems Too Big

Let me start by saying “Sorry.”  I know I have been M.I.A but it’s been with good cause.  This article is the first glimpse into that void that I’ve been hiding in.  And the journey that lay ahead promises to hold more stories that I will not leave untold.  I hope the New Year meets you all with smiles and good fortune.  Here is to another new beginning.  Cheers!

My thoughts are scattered on the breeze blowing in a million directions across the landscape before me like lazy flakes of snow unsure of which path to take.  I feel trapped by the reality that time does not stop while I stand frozen; waiting for what could forever alter my life.  And yet even as I write these words I recognize in my soul that the events that have already been set in motion have already irrevocably altered my existence.

It’s like drowning.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  One minute I feel oddly calm, almost as if I accept whatever fate is waiting for me. On the other hand I am flailing around with my arms waving madly about like angry little red flags begging for someone to grab hold of me and shake me back into sanity.  I can’t explain to anyone that I’m the strong one.  They look at me like I’m an idiot when I say that.  I’m well aware that everyone deserves the right to break down; but not me.  I can’t show the world I’m weak.  I can’t show everyone all my cracks.  If they only knew the truth that I’m like fine china, full of creases and crevasse hidden from the world.  If anyone ever knew how imperfect I really was I would no longer be indestructible, I’d be ordinary.

I’m on a lonely path, and I wonder if it’s one I’ve carved for myself or if it’s truly one that I’ve been chosen for because God wants me to learn something.  I feel an overwhelming brattish side of me that screams with ragging intensity, “haven’t I been through enough?  Do I really need to face this monster too?”  Even now when I am at peace with God I have moments when I get mad.  Is it too much to want peace in life?  Is it too much to want to be able to hold on to happiness if only for a little while?  But I digress.

If I put on my running shoes and ran as far as I could, would it carry me away from this pain?  Would the pounding of my feet eradicate the pain of my soul and pain of my loved ones who feel my hurt for me? But the Angel told me once; I can’t protect them any more than I can protect myself; free will or something like that. Instead I stare into the abyss and I challenge it to swallow me whole.  It will never take me; I taste too much like the life I cling to. So I find my inner voice forcing myself to stay in the here and now facing the monstrosity in front of me.  The mountain that seems too big to climb will become the pinnacle of my objective.  This monster will be just another one that I slay.

But today, just for today, I want to be angry.  I want to ask the forbidden questions.  I want to know, why me?  I want to lay my head down on my pillow so soft and let the tears drip off my eye lashes where they linger on the tips before soaking into the green fleece sheets scented softly of mountain clean.  I want to hear sad music in the background, and I want to let my heart hurt because I’m tired of being strong.

The Chance To Live Again

“I’d surrender everything to feel the chance to live again.” 

Those are lines to a famous song and words that echo fragments of a fractured past.  The only problem is, is that to surrender is not in my vocabulary.  I am survivor, a fighter to the very core.  So to surrender to anything, or anyone, is such a foreign concept that it’s never really crossed my mind as more than a wandering whim and yet the thought is so seductive now that it’s almost impossible to ignore.

You might wonder what this means coming from a self-proclaimed happy person.  But being happy doesn’t mean that you’ve faced all the skeletons in your closet; it just means you are content in the present.  And I do have many skeletons that I’ve been attempting to face.  It’s quite clear to me that being happy and carving out a sense of life and purpose go hand in hand.  That also means facing the music and realizing and accepting parts of the past that have recurring consequences in the future.

I learned a long time ago to cherish moments that bring joy to this life; the memory of joy sustains us when the world seems bleak.  Though life is full of trials and tribulations, I truly believe that ultimately life is what you make it.  No matter how difficult the road, there is always beauty if you open your eyes to see it; everything is about perspective.  One of the simplest joys in life is sharing time with those you love.  Sometimes time is the greatest gift we have, it gives us memories, it gives us joy, and it has the ability to give us peace.  Time is a giver and a taker and it should be respected.

I bore witness to a significant and special moment last month as my childhood friend prepared for her wedding.  I chatted with her as the sun cascaded into the brightly light lodge room through several large bay windows dampened only by sheer white cloth blinds, giving a fresh feeling of being cradled in the comfort of nature.  Wrapped up in a white terry cloth robe she had her hair done by her soon to be sister in law; the most intense decision of the moment was if she should have her hair up or down.  I helped her sister get the wedding area ready for the bride and grooms big day.  Isha had entrusted us to make it look like her fairy tale, the kind of day she had always dreamed of, and always deserved.  We dotted on her as friends do on a girl’s wedding day, laughing, sharing in childhood memories, chatting the morning away.  Taking in the way the sun rose and the dew melted off the grass to give way to the kind of beautiful day every bride who gets married outside dreams of.  The morning was a ritual of saying goodbye to the girl she once was and hello to the woman she would become.

When her hair was in place and her make up was done to perfection it was time to step into her dress.  But before she could complete her ritual she paused, looking around anxiously for something that wasn’t there, and asked for her Mother.  She was adamant that her mom be there to help her into her dress.  She said that while they may not always see eye to eye it was important to her to share that moment with her mom.  At that instant I thought nothing of it, though the moment did resonate with me on some level; it was a natural and normal request.  We tracked down the Mother of the Bride and I watched, a stranger (even though I am like family to them) in an intimate moment as her mom helped her step into her red wedding dress (the brides favorite color, unique and vibrant just like her) and then zip it up.  Her sister took pictures and made jokes.  The whole moment was full of love, grace and something I couldn’t quite place because I had never known it.

I was too busy in the day to take in the gravity of the emotion I was actually feeling.  But later the next day I realized why the moment resonated with me so.  I would never have anything like that and though I had always known that, realizing it, and seeing what it would have been like hit me with agonizing sorrow.

I have many people who would gladly fill the role of Mother and even Sister if I would let them.  But I had a Mother, and I have a Sister.  I’m not looking for a replacement, that’s not fair to the ones I had or have.  I believe that people have the ability to make things right no matter how far off course they may have gotten.  It may be difficult, and the journey may be full of challenges, but nothing in life worth having was ever free.  And though I may never have that moment with my Mother, when I do get married the women who will be there with me to help me get ready will love me as a mother or a sister would and we won’t need titles to define what they mean to me.  Love doesn’t need a label to be real, it exist because it’s felt between two people.

I’ve had a hard time writing this piece.  Labor Day marked the 21 year anniversary of my Mother’s passing.  I can face every fear I’ve ever known but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that some fears shape the very essence of who I am.  Some fear is healthy, I’ve spent the better part of my adult life studying psychology so I know that, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying.

So where do I go from here?  Do I surrender to the seduction of the chance to live again?  I guess you could say I already have.  There will always be obstacles in life.  There will always be things that test us to our core and create the basis upon which we stand.  Life is not meant to be easy, it is meant to develop character, purpose and a sense of self.
In each struggle we have a chance to grow, a chance to learn.  I’ve had a lot of transition this last year.  I’m making a new life for myself finding a balance between the past and right now. Some days are definitely easier than others, but that’s life.  In the middle of the chaos there is always a place of peace, just like the eye of the storm.  That place resides within me.  Sometimes we have to surrender to the storm to get to that place of peace.  Feel the emotions that logic cannot rationalize.  Explore the opportunities to do what you’ve always wanted and face the fears that have always held you back.  Life is about living; sometimes it just takes a little faith.