She believed her own eyes. Then she turned around and walked in the other direction, the direction that led to peace and freedom. All this time, she had thought that turning around would be scary, but she was glad to find that she had been very wrong. She walked down the street, in the opposite direction, and was quite alright in the end.
The more I realize that I don't know what it truly means to have self confidence.
Because if I say that I'm OVERWEIGHT and that I need to EXERCISE, the self confident woman tells me that my body is lovely and that I shouldn't obsess over being skinny or muscular.
Because if I decide that my body is beautiful exactly the way it is and there is nothing wrong with it, the health and exercise-conscious woman tells me to exercise self control and get my dumpy ass off the couch.
How do I find the balance of having positive body image while trying to lose weight? Is such a thing possible?
The truth is, I really don't know. I believe self confidence and true body love looks completely different for every single woman. Personally, I'm still figuring out what it looks like for me, but here are a few things that I do know.
#1 I am a size 12 and that is perfectly okay with me.
#2 There are parts of me that jiggle when I walk. This is also okay.
#3 Coming from family with the genetic tendency to be overweight, I know I'm going to have to fight a weight problem my whole life. It will be hard, but I'm up for the challenge.
#4 Rome wasn't built in a day. Goals will not be met with a quick fix and a half-assed effort. I'm trying to learn this and be okay with it.
#5 Success in this department does NOT equal a particular size or a particular body type.
# 6 Success in this department means never giving up on my goals and always striving to love the reflection in the mirror. Because if I don't love my body now, I never will and there won't be a victory that is good enough for me.
It has been quite a while since I've posted anything.
OH HAI THERE.
I've been a very busy bee. A lot has happened. It's the week before finals, so I haven't much time but I want to just do a leetle update. So here we goes.
#1. I'm roughly three (3!!) semesters away from graduating.
#2. I submitted a short story to a university writing contest and it won third place!
#3. I have a new job.
#4. My seester came to see me!
Aren't we cute?
#5. This happened.
#6. Also this.
#7. I'm going to see Mumford and Sons with the lovely man in the picture above(To protect his identity, I'll refer to him by his nickname, Beanz [bet you'll NEVER guess his real name]), and several other dear, dear people.
#8. Aforementioned (I love that word) music event with Beanz will be in Austin, TX which means we'll be DENTON-ing as well!
Update (almost) over. School's almost out and when it is, I'll have much more time to sit on my fanny watching unhealthy amounts of Netflix blog and write and do many happy summer things. As of right now, I must away to write a ten page research paper and study for my final exam in Deutsch.
Ich bin in Schwierigkeiten! (No yes I didn't did use Google Translate)
I'm officially putting it in writing and posting it on the internet so that it is official and forever etched into our cyber-world. I'm making you all aware of something that I have been putting off for far too long and simply must get started with.
It's time to get healthy.
It's time to eat well.
It's time to MOVE.
It's time to get in shape.
I'm going to finish what I started nearly four years ago.
I'm doing it for me.
I'm doing it to be healthy.
I'm doing it to lose the weight and keep it gone.
I'm doing it for the future.
I'm doing it because I'm wearing a strapless dress in my best friend's wedding. (I get one shallow reason!)
DON'T YOU FEEL MOTIVATED?!
(I sure do!)
Though, I'm sure none of you really care about this, (and I mean that in the least dramatic way possible. I probably wouldn't care if I saw someone posting something like this) I just wanted to confess the beginning of this continuing journey to the world. For the sake of posterity and documentation, I suppose.
There is a treadmil, a stationary bike, weights, an exercise ball, and resistance bands across the hall from my bedroom and I've been putting the use of them off for way too long. I've been pinning beach abs and dancer butt workouts to my fitness board for weeks now but I never do them.
I'M STOPPING THAT.
I think my biggest problem has been lack of motivation and time mismanagement. I've come to the realization that one set routine isn't going to work for every week, as each one is different. So what I've decided to do is each Saturday night (STARTING TOMORROW) I'm going to map out my fitness schedule for the week and just back into the swing of things.
I know it's going to be hard.
I know it's going to hurt.
I know I'm going to want to give up.
But I'm not going to quit this anymore. I only get to be this young once, and I'm taking advantage of this fact. I will revel in the freedom I have now and make the most of it.
Do you feel the same way? Because, if you do, I would love some accountability in food, exercise, or both! (If you're feeling adventurous!)
This evening, I found myself in a familiar place - it is the place I almost always take myself to when I am restless and unable to sleep.
The best thing about this place is that I can go to it wherever I have the music. The above video is Mumford & Sons's set from Bonnaroo 2011. Whenever I'm feeling listless, I like to go back to this music and remember the time I fell in love with it. These men, their music, the words - a sea of flawlessly empathic beauty - illicit so many different emotions from me: joy, giddiness, heartbreak, and nostalgia to name the most poignant.
I fell in love with this music at a time in my life when so much was new and unknown, but I was living in what I have come to realize was a familiar, safe season of my life. If you know anything about me at all, you know that I used to live in Denton, which is a small town in Texas. You also know that I love Denton - its places, its character, and, most of all, its people. It is my home and so many of my favorite memories are tucked away in the sidewalk crevices of the Square and in between the pews of a beautiful church on East University Drive. I've left pieces of all the love I have to give in this town - its places as well as its people.
I continue to fall in love with the music, which means that this beautiful place will never be left or forgotten. So tonight, I went there in my mind. The place is and is not Denton. It is everything that I associate with the music and with that time in my life. This happy place is not restricted to just Denton, but all the places I went during that season of life. It includes cities all over Texas as well as a few stops along the way in Tennessee, which is where I live now, ironically enough. This place is also the faces that I see in my mind's eye and feel in the recesses of my heart which bitterly miss them. This place is the memories that I swear to carry with me as long as my memory remains with me.
It is also the memories I continue to make. And, believe me, I am already in love some with some of them.
For whatever reason, though, this happy place was more bitter than sweet when I came to call on it this evening. I felt the pangs of nostalgia a little sharper than I had wanted. The tears were inevitable and a welcome source of relief. I have so much love for the things that I miss, but not enough brain capacity to tell you how much. This is my curse, but what a beautiful spell to be under, to have so much to love and be thankful for that your heart can literally find no words to adequately describe their worth.
I find myself feeling more and more hopeful every day. Part of the reason why is because I have come to the realization that I do not have to leave seasons of life behind in order to make way for the new one. In a sense, certain parts of my life are over, but they are never lost. They have done more than merely shape the person I am now. They are inseparably attached to my self, just as much a part of me as I am of them. They come out in conversations with other people, they inform my decisions of the present, and they comfort me on nights like tonight, when my most fervent wish is to go back, if only for a few hours. Nothing can touch the seasons of my life that I now realize do not ever have to go away. Nor should they, because without them I would not be where I am at this very moment in time.
Tonight I learned how to tie my hair scarf into a chain knot.
I was so proud of myself that I decided to snap some pictures and put them up here.
As I was editing said pictures, I started playing all the Aretha Franklin on Spotify. And Chain of Fools came on as I was editing photos of my chain knotted hair scarf.
As Miss Piggy would say, "what an unbelievable coincidence!"
I am sorry that all my recent posts have been short and seemingly inconsequential. I've been incredibly lazy over the Christmas break and somehow the time has slipped away from me and school starts on Thursday! I've written maybe 500 words these past three weeks, and none of them have been satisfactory, in my opinion. This semester I'm in three major writing classes so I am sure to pay for my slacking off. I am excited, though!
Side note #1 - 2013 is shaping up to be a pretty good year.
Side note #2 - I resolved not to drink ANY soda this year. Thus far, it has stuck and I'm feeling fantastic!
