insight – Sweat & Sparkle

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I spent most of the night listening to my husband’s soft breathing beside me, watching shadows shift slowly on the bedroom walls, and thinking. A lot.

Maybe it was actually a blessing in disguise, because instead of getting frustrated that I couldn’t sleep, I decided to go with it. Think. Pick up that thread. Pull on it. Keep following it. And when the train of thoughts got uncomfortable, I pushed on, let it sting, and then simply asked: “So what now?”

I won’t bore you with too many details of my late-night pondering. Hours of sleep-deprived imaginings are not exactly coherent, anyway. In a nutshell, I just got to thinking about how I am back to playing games with myself, doing a half-hearted workout to say I did one, snacking and not logging it in my food diary, convincing myself I will do better tomorrow, and how all of that is inevitably going to add up to being right back where I started.

The very thought of that made me feel like someone was stepping on my chest. Hell, no! I worked so hard to lose this weight, to get stronger, to run again, to be proud of myself. Why am I so hell-bent on shitting on all of that and ruining all of my hard work and progress?

I woke up today, after finally dozing off, with one thought: I am going to succeed today. It’s non-negotiable. I owe it to myself. Get back on track, finish this journey strong, find new goals to focus on and surpass.

I don’t want to regain any more weight or slowly slide back into unhealthy habits that leave me discouraged and unhappy. I have wasted enough time in that dismal head space over the years, and I don’t want to go back.

I don’t know why last night’s insomnia-induced musings finally opened my eyes, but it is worth the fatigue I am slogging through today. I just keep repeating to myself, “I am going to succeed today.” And I will. And tomorrow too, and the day after that.

I owe it to myself, and no one can do this for me, so time to get back to work.

I like this quote so much that I saved it on my phone. The hard truth is, I have done exactly the opposite for quite some time. Without wanting to, I have let the slow drip (and more than occasional flood) of other people’s toxins seep into my head, and it has taken its toll.

My focus and clarity clouded, obscured for so long that I accepted as normal things that should not be a part of my life. I have walled myself off from feeling as fully happy and free as I could.

This likely doesn’t make much sense to anyone but me. That’s okay. I just wanted to attempt to set free some of the thoughts and words battering the inside of my head.

I am sorting through a lot of thoughts, actions, and habits. I am holding each one up, inspecting it, determining if it adds quality to my life or drains positivity from it. I am tossing away what needs to go and holding on even tighter to what needs to stay, like my best friend, my husband; the pure joy I get from hobbies like reading and gardening; and, of course, writing.

I had drifted away from writing here much because I was still categorizing my blog as a my “weight loss blog”, and what could I possibly say when there is little to no weight being lost? Compartmentalizing pieces of my life, like my health efforts, has been part of the problem, part of what I am changing. Everything about me, all pieces of my life, are intertwined and interacting. Why try to tease them apart and draw hard lines where none naturally exist?

Self-improvement is a foreign concept to some unfortunate people in my life. I have prided myself on not being like them, but at the same time, I have unintentionally allowed their negativity to hold me back. I never realized just how much until recently, and now that my eyes are wide open, I refuse to shut them at all.

There are a lot of changes in the works. I am not even certain yet what all of them are. But I feel excited, happy, and hopeful for the first time in a long time.