Day 147 Question 147:

How have you changed over time?

Ok, so as a lot of you know, I went on a date on Saturday.  The guy lives about an hour and a half away from me so he drove up and we went to the beach and then went out for sushi.  We went back to my condo and ended up just talking for hours.  It was really nice.  I am unsure of what will come of it.  I don’t want to stress about it or psyche myself out.  Having a man in my life isn’t a requirement.  If it happens it happens and it would be a bonus…not a need.  Thinking in this way is a HUGE change I made in my life.  I have changed in so many ways.  I have grown and I have found myself.  I used to be the girl that was desperate to have a man in her life because being in a relationship is the end all be all.  I settled for men that did not at all compliment my life…in fact they didn’t treat me well at all.  I wanted that companionship and that feeling of being wanted but my relationships were unhealthy and come the end of the day I was just being used in some form of another.  I believe some men were able to sense my insecurity so it was easy for them to take advantage.  I don’t blame them for that…I mean some of them are douchebags but it wasn’t them that needed to change…it was ME!  It took me a loooong time (into my 30’s) to finally get my head on straight.

I have thought long and hard about where my life was and where it is now and honestly, I am thankful for the place I am in now.  I finally feel healthy both mentally and physically.  For so long I was living to please others and I didn’t have a voice of my own.  I always just kind of sat in the background and let everyone else run the show.  I had this warped idea of what life was supposed to be like and I was always jealous and bitter because nothing seemed to be going right for me.  All of my girl friends had boyfriends and everyone else had better jobs and everyone else had better bodies.  I was constantly attending my own pity party.  It took a long, bumpy road and a whole lot of jumping outside of my comfort zone to realize that I am in control of everything in my life.  I had no right to bitch about things that I could change.   I was very overweight and I had no real right to be upset about it because it was me that got me to that place…no one else.  I could blame to fast food restaurants or chocolate distributors but they aren’t the one’s shoving the junk food down my mouth.  I was the one that chose to be completely lazy.  I finally could not take it anymore.  I could not take the self-loathing and the self-blaming and I KNEW that I needed to make changes.  I started to read…A LOT.  I read stories of others journeys and I read self-help books on the issues I was dealing with.  I researched and I asked questions.  I made myself change because I knew this was the only way I was going to be healthy.  I knew I didn’t want to look back in 40+ years and know that I lived majority of my life unhappy…unhappy over things that I could have changed.

For so long I knew I wanted to work in the human services field.  I wanted to fight for women’s/human rights and I wanted to be part of a positive change.  I remember one day I was feeling down and I realized that I had no business helping others if I was such a mess on the inside all of the time.  How do I preach to others something that I don’t practice myself.  How do I tell young girls to love themselves and not worry about their bodies or the way they look when I was tearing myself up every single day.  Pretty hypocritical I think.

I can’t give anyone an exact date of when this change occurred within me.  Honestly, I think it was just a build up from different events in my life that put me over the edge.  I am thankful that I am the person that chose the direction of change to better myself as opposed to digging the hole deeper (unfortunately a lot of people choose the latter).  I saw a counselor for a while and she had a lot of insight.  She stressed that my body was not WHO I am and that is 100% truth but I also knew that I needed to get weight off (for me and me only) if I wanted to be physically healthier and mentally healthier.  I wanted to be an example that young girls looked up to….I wanted to be a model of health.  To this day I still have about 30 more lbs. I want to lose but I have come so far that I don’t stress over that last 30 (I have lost close to 70lbs now-I was about 250lbs).  I don’t have the “perfect” body and I am ok with that because now I feel more comfortable in my clothing and I am able to move with greater ease because I am holding onto a lot less weight.  My body functions so much better.  I am like a well-oiled machine.  I want to teach girls that it is not about having the body of a supermodel and it is not a requirement to be skinny to find a boyfriend….it is all about being healthy….practicing healthy habits.  I couldn’t have taught this to young girls before (well I could have but I would have been a hypocrite) if I was not practicing what I was preaching.

For anyone it could be easy to allow your problems to swallow you up.  It could be very easy to give up and just throw in the towel.  Apparently for me, I had something deep within that I dug out that didn’t allow this to be an option.  I knew the potential that I had and I was no longer going to waste it.  The past was the past and there was no going back and changing anything and the future hadn’t happened yet.  They were/are both illusions.  I had the NOW and I was going to take advantage of it.  I stopped dating guys that I knew were completely wrong with me.  I actually stopped dating all together for a while so I could find myself even more….and yes I had moments of wishing I had someone to snuggle with or just be with…but for majority of this time I have fallen more and more in love with my journey in life.  I have learned who I am and for the first time (probably in my entire life) I have loved the person I have become….I love who I know I will be.  I have become less wishy washy and have taken a stand on my beliefs and I have stopped allowing everyone to make all of my decisions and form all of my thoughts.  I still have a hard time when I know people don’t like me or get upset at me but it has become a lot easier to accept because I have learned that in life, no matter who you are, there will be at least one person that doesn’t like you.  I changed my life for me.  I wanted to love me.  I wanted the happiness that I have always talked about and now that I knew happiness is a journey and not a destination my mind is so much more at ease…I am at a greater peace.

I could go on and on in this entry because this is stuff that I love to talk about.  I love the idea of change as well as the act of change….for the better of course.  I look at my life and visualize where I was 10 years ago and where I am now and it is as if I am not at all the same person.  As strange as it sounds, the person 10 years ago seems like someone else completely.  I don’t dislike that person because she taught be an obscene amount in life but it is me, right here, right now, that I love because I am finally practicing a healthy lifestyle as opposed to just wanting and thinking about it.