There was a time when I was dependent on my parents for gauging my successes, failures, and life path. As soon as I was able to I started to rebel against their standards... The unfortunate thing was that they had never allowed me to dream. I wasn't able to decided what I wanted for myself, and my imagination had to stay in the "silly" category. This picture is right before I started to really fight them earnestly. My sister had been born, and I was considered the "prodigy" at this point. In swimming of course... This was right around sixth grade- I was already done growing at 69 inches. I was around 135 pounds, and every bite of food that I took inside my house was monitored because I was ranked 5th in the nation... Had to keep me "lean". I have been talking to one of my dearest friends over the past week about the concept of trusting me with myself (and her with herself). It is an overwhelming theme in my adult life that I have decided to do something, and just not done it. I might have tried for a while- you know, how many "I will start this diet on Monday"?? The problem is that I have never followed through with one fucking thing! In the past year I have started putting this new practice into motion, but it is a constant battle. Yesterday morning I had ice cream as a side dish with my Raisin Bran for breakfast. Not a good start to the day, but I cannot do anything about it now.
Or can I? Can I trust myself to not do that again? Pretty much. Can I compromise next time and just have a bite, instead of a serving? Sure. Will I face this again? You bet.
I never learned as a child to trust myself. I was told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. There were very few opportunities for me to experiment (that would come later in very destructive forms), or choose. Yeah. Not too hard to trace back to why I didn't know how to do anything but rebel by the time I graduated from high school.
One interesting aspect of this (never ending) is that I was told by my parents that I was smart, but that I would never be a natural student, and that put me in the average category. They accepted the fact that I was weak in science and math, and was strong in the other areas, but that I would never be able to get those kinds of grades. They explained all of this to me, but expected my grades to be above average. With the 5-6 hours a day spent in the pool, I am not sure when they thought I had time to be a student, but that is for another post.
So I naturally quit swimming, and got extremely fat... but I also fucked up school pretty bad. I barely graduated, and failed out of college the first go around. Ever time I decided to do something I didn't. I believed that I was going to flail in my own bullshit for the rest of my life (and besides I couldn't stay awake), and that I was fucked.
Can I tell you what can happen in a year? Mistakes, triumphs, heartaches, joy, constipation, empowerment, learning, repeating past mistakes, enlightenment, tragedy, asskicking, mutherfuckingasskicking, and some other stuff. I have fucked up a whole bunch, in fact I did yesterday! I have come so far though, and I have learned that when I decide to do something- I CAN FUCKING DO IT. I CAN BE BRILLIANT! I CAN WEIGH LESS! I CAN COME TO PEACE WITH SOME OF MY CHILDHOOD! I CAN STAY AWAKE!
It just isn't how I thought it was going to be! I started the weight loss thinking it would be over in a year, like I would be under 200 by now. Not so much, but I am okay with my progress, and lack of- I thought that I would be able to do a lot of stuff in a very different way, but I know now that if I want to do something, and commit to it- I COMMIT TO FIGHTING IT ALL THE WAY UPHILL (BOTH WAYS), IN THE SNOW, WITHOUT GLOVES...
but that battle makes it so much sweeter in the end.
