Tag: honest

Taking Up Space.

Not your usual before and after, but this journey for me is about embracing all of the things about myself that I don’t like and turning them into loves.

I wear a size 12W.

As if the 12 is not enough, my feet are also wide, probably because I live in Texas and flip-flops are life.

Everything about me just always seemed so big. If I could have somehow made myself invisible, I would have.

I never knew how to take up the space that I do. That seems like a really wierd statement when I read it back to myself, but I don’t know how else to explain it.

I just felt tall, and awkward, and big, and there. I wanted to not be as noticeable, fade into the background like a nice clock on the wall, but there I was, in all of my glory.

These ‘big’ things about myself just made me feel…not feminine. In my head, to qualify as feminine, I felt I had to be petite, and everything about me had to be small.

But there are so many of us in so many different shapes and sizes, that means that statement is just simply not true.

So, shoes were never something I fell in love with like most women. They were even worse to shop for than clothes. This made special occasions or even bowling something to dread.

I decided to revamp my shoe space – from a pile of clown shoes to an organized section of my bedroom – and I also added some fun shoes to my collection like platform sneakers, cheetah, gold, and even sequins.

I’m going to take up space in style.

Today, I’m wearing some cheetah print flats to work and the compliments have been rolling in.

My feet might be long and wide, and I won’t be able to change that – but I can still take up space with them fashionably.

They’ve taken me wherever I’ve needed to go during my 31 years on this earth.

So, they are pretty damn special and beautiful when I think about it.

I’ve also been stealing glances at my new shoe area in my room and smiling.

It feels like I’m finally starting to grow into the space that I take up and own it.

–S.

A Bowl of Pasta is just a Bowl of Pasta again.

I have such an emotional connection to pasta.

You’re probably like WTF is she even talking about, but hear me out here.

It’s the vessel that held some of my deepest secrets, darkest seasons, and periods of extreme loss and longing.

Most of us have a go-to comfort meal. For some it’s a #5 at your favorite drive-thru, or a family size bag of chips and dip, something sweet, or carby cheesy fried goodness – something that you consume in need of comforting as your own personal demons consume you.

Spaghetti. Linguine. Lasagna. Bow-Tie. Elbow.

Toss it. Top it. Layer it. Fill it. Twirl it. Swirl it.

It’s a form of immediate, but short-term relief like any other thing – spending money, alcohol, drugs, gambling, whatever vice you can think of, but once the high or the haze of it all wears off, you’re there – ashamed, with pain that is angry and raw and ready to be addressed.

And you beat it away for the moment – to be addressed at some later time, as it grows and grows and grows – sometimes into a monster that can be all-consuming.

I was miserable about how I looked because I was fat, but I was fat because I spent money, drank soda, and ate extremely unhealthy foods because I didn’t love myself.

When can I get off this roller-coaster that I’ve been on for two decades now?

And then I did.

Not slowly, not gradually, but all at once.

I ripped that safety harness off and tumbled down into the pit of my despair.

What’s the color that comes after the deepest darkest black?

That was the color of my pain, my shame, my guilt, my self-loathing, my lack of self-unforgiveness, my fury, my rage, my anger.

That is where I ran into myself – the person I had been running from all along – and I had to face myself.

If these points, steps, ounces, pounds, were going to mean anything, if they were going to stick this time – I had to face every demon I had along the way.

I journal my way through it. I action my way through it. I self reflect my way through it. I learn my way through it. I teach my way through it. I fail my way through it. I surprise my way through it.

When I took my own hand several years ago, I knew I was finally ready to do all of the work necessary.

I had arrived.

I knew the weight wouldn’t come off and stay off if I didn’t take my heart, soul, spirit, emotions, and mentality on this wellness journey with me.

There are many pounds to go, but I’m light on my feet.

I wake up with joy in my heart.

I look ahead now and get to be curious about what’s coming on the horizon for me.

Something I paralyzed myself from doing before.

I say all this to say, that a bowl of pasta is just a bowl of pasta again.

I can taste the marriage of the sauce with the veggies and the seasonings. That complex, yet somehow subtle build-up and layering of flavors.

It’s no longer sprinkled and tossed with my sadness and my pain.

Bon Appetit. ❤

–S.

Close – October 2014.

He is 9.

I am 22.

Tonight, we laid intertwined in our parents’ bed. His legs over mine. My left arm under his head. The fan blowing cool air over our rumpled clothes clad bodies. ‘I Heard the Party’ by Gem Club was playing through the computer speakers.

Tears run down the sides of his face. He told me that he remembered this song. I’d played it weeks ago in my room and when he heard it for the first time, he cried.

It makes him sad. When I ask him why he is crying he tells me that he doesn’t want any one of us to die. That he wants us to always stay together.

I promise him that we won’t die.

I don’t want to crush his innocence tonight. I just want him to be able to feel whatever his heart feels while he listens to the song. I know that society will soon try to shut down this emotional side of him. But he has a very big heart. I hope that it always comes out on top.

The second time we play it, tears run down the sides of my face. Although we are not necessarily crying about the same things, we are one. We are feelers. We get deeply connected to things. Our happiest moments seem to be lined with a little bit of sadness.

And we don’t have to talk about it.

We just let the melody and the lyrics of the song do that for us.

Even though we’ve barely exchanged four sentences the entire day – in this moment, we are closer than we have ever been.

Both mourning something that has yet to come and that we cannot explain.

–S.

A Perfect Day – Eleven Years Ago.

I took my little brother out for hot dogs, ice cream, and some hardcore dance sessions during the car ride to retail therapy outlet mall.

Every time I think I know everything there is to know about that nine year-old boy, he surprises me.

He no longer eats his hot dogs plain. They are topped with ketchup and mayonnaise now.

His favorite song range from Lana Del Rey to Daft Punk (which he calls Drift Punk, and he tells me that EVEN our dad knows that’s their band name).

As I shift through the three radio stations I generally listen to, he directs me to stop at the ones that play the first song that catches his attention.

I lower the music to point out the airplane in the air, or the dog on the sidewalk with its owner, and he nods and smiles quickly, and turns the music back up.

He still misses our cats and dogs that have passed, and doesn’t quite understand where they go.

He closes his eyes and gets lost in the music.

He moves his head to the beats and pretends to know the lyrics as he lip sings.

Sometimes he actually knows the lyrics, and I look over in surprise, and he gets shy, lowers his eyelids, and stares away with a secret smile.

He gets the cone with vanilla ice cream, dipped in chocolate, with some crushed nuts.

He has an ice cream mustache the entire time, and while I am driving – I am frantically looking for something to wipe his mustache away. I forget in moments like this that he is nine. He can wipe his own mustache – if he really wants it gone. He is almost growing out of all these things.

He will eventually stop asking me to open his coke, or rip open the ketchup packet, or help him pass a level on a game. He will start doing these things independently.

Along with this – our dance sessions while riding in the car will become rarer.

It’ll start becoming embarrassing for him to do so and he will become old enough to stay home by himself and pick playing Halo 4 over going to Target.

I like to write about these emotions, these memories, because one day they will fade as well. I won’t remember them quite as vividly. I won’t remember that I was wearing my aqua button-up shirt with skulls and roses – that is way too big for me now because I’ve been losing weight. I won’t remember that E smelled like my dad’s aftershave because he says it holds for 72 hours. I won’t remember that we actually saw a woman who was crossing the street get hit by a car with our own eyes. I won’t remember that he didn’t get ice in his drink because he says his Dr. Pepper will start tasting like water. I won’t remember that he had a small red pimple on the front of his nose. I won’t remember that he wore his Champion sweatpants backwards for the second day in a row.

One day it won’t be hot dogs, ice cream, and dance. For E, it might be girlfriends, skateboards, and staying up late. For me, it’ll be a career, paying off student loans, and going to sleep early. I hope we always at least vaguely remember a time when life was simpler. Moments where we were infinite with David Guetta blasting in the backyard, ice cream mustaches, and soda highs.

–S.

23 didn’t know that 24 and 25 were going to rock her world.

The twenty-third year of my life was about swimming in an ocean of mistakes and coming back onto land to take chances. Both unfamiliar territories for me, for the record.

There is really something to be said about making mistakes that send you rolling into a gutter. You’re flat on your back. Everything hurts. Something might be broken. Your feet can’t carry you any longer. Some people in the gutter look up and see a pitch black sky. But if you look into the eyes of the others, you see what looks like a million shining white dots.

Stars.

And it’s in these eyes that warriors are born. I’d like to think that after everything that has happened up to this moment, that I’ve fought harder than ever to maintain my view of the stars. To still believe in the good. To not turn off their light. Even when the night almost consumed me. That I stripped away the layers of myself that died in the comfort zones I surrounded myself with and gave birth to a warrior.

A warrior ready to attack life because it’s going to attack right back. I’ve laid in quite a few gutters in the last year and I anticipate that I’ll lay in many more in the years to come. But the stars always light the way for me.

–S.

Put yourself in the way of beauty.

I’m grateful for the Sunset.
The sunrise too, but I’m rarely ever awake for that.

Several years ago, I was feeling lost, and I started driving to ghost towns around Texas and venturing out into towns and cities where no one knew my name. I was like a highway vagabond on my days off.

I fell in love with photographing the sky – especially the sunset.

No matter how ugly the day was, it always ended so beautifully.

It taught me that both endings and beginnings are magical.

The sky is never the same twice. Each day – it joins the sun and the moon to create something unique and I fell in love with that.

This is one of my favorite Cheryl Strayed Quotes:

There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it,’ said my mother. ‘Put yourself in the way of beauty.

I hope you’re putting yourself in the way of beauty in your own life.

–S.

Sorry Mama, but tonight I’m cleaning out my closet.

It was a pretty disheartening day yesterday, but this journey is all about transparency and authenticity for me, so I wanted to share my truth.

I’ve been meaning to clean out my closet for a while now. It’s overflowing with what seems like nothing that I want to wear and nothing that I feel good in.

I read somewhere that your closet should make you want to dance. My closet makes me want to cry.

So, yesterday, I took all of the clothes out of my closet and lifted them up one by one.

I saw crop tops, sheer tops, why did you ever buy these tops, burn these tops, use these as a rag tops, I will fit into these one day tops.

I saw muffin top pants, walking through a creek pants, never seen the light of day shorts, never fit over my thighs workout tights, I will fit into these one day bottoms.

The list goes on and on.

With more items in the donation pile than in the keep pile, I was feeling pretty awful.

I’d wasted all this money buying clothes for myself that I WISHED I’d fit into, or what I WANTED to look like, but nothing that I truly would or could wear.

I only let myself keep one box of – I really love this and might fit into this eventually clothes.

So, five bags for donation and a whole lot of self-pity later…I honestly feel lighter.

I WANT to and CAN wear everything in my closet now.

I don’t have to sift through all of the bullshit anymore.

I also splurged on a few new pieces and added those to my closet – clothes that fit, not clothes that fit a fantasy of who I think I should look like.

So, I don’t know that my closet necessarily makes me want to dance yet, maybe tap my foot and nod my head to the beat, but I’m done looking like I’m ready to attend a funeral, and now I can get ready for the party instead (let’s be real…the party of life).

Anyway, that’s my truth.

–S.

Running.

I don’t really remember running.

I’m sure I did as a child, and was forced to during the annual fitness test, and for certain gym class activities.

But you know your brain can block out traumatic experiences, so I’m sure that’s what happened.

I always saw it as something only ‘skinny’ people could do, so why bother?

I walk at least an hour every day now and it never fails that I see at least one person running.

For a second, those old feelings hit me:

You can’t run.
You’ll never be able to run.
You’ll never have a runner’s body.
On and on they go.

Lies that I tell myself that I’ve collected over the years – I don’t even think half of the statements are true.

So, I called bullshit today.

I’ve known since last night that I was going to attempt to run today, so I stalled all day.

Around 5p, I was hitting the – yeah, I’m tired of working out every day, mood, y’know – good old self-sabotage.

Then I walked half a mile to the Elementary School behind my house – skinny women in sports bras, flat stomachs showing, everywhere on the track.

The Universe must hate me.

And then my feet hit the pavement, and something happened.

I ran.

I really believed that I couldn’t – wholeheartedly.

Like I really thought I’d make it about 5 steps and pass out. Roast in the Texas sun like a glazed honey ham – only to be found in the morning by a bird taking a shit.

I ran a total of .75 of a mile.

Something big happened.

Something shifted in me.

I thought of every time that I said NO to something because of my weight without even trying, but today I said YES to a future of trying.

I’m not a runner. Nor am I skinny. Nor do I have a runner’s body, whatever the fuck that is, but I ran today and felt alive.

–S.

Stretching in the Direction of Wholeness.

I’m grateful for how my body grew to accommodate me; more specifically, stretchmarks.

I know you’re probably rolling your eyes, but hear me out.

They showed up, I don’t know, pre-teens, I think. I say this like they just walked into the building unannounced, but they kind of did. Didn’t they?

I was always the chubbiest kid in any group. They showed up early. It seems like one day I didn’t have them, and then I did.

At first, it’s so…final. So…permanent. So…there.

I want to barter with the universe. I’ll give you back ALL the late night pepperoni hot pockets and beef ramen cups, if you take them back?

The Universe doesn’t respond.

I’ll cry! You hate to see me cry, don’t you?

The Universe doesn’t respond.

I mourn.

The Universe doesn’t respond.

And then they are so…angry. So red.
Or maybe I’m angry, so I’m projecting that onto them.

But we’ve been together over 15 years now, and it went how it usually does.

Breasts.
Arms.
Thighs.
Knees.
Love Handles.

And I promise myself…I’ll do the work. I will get it right. I won’t get ANY more.

But I got bigger. And there were more.

So, there I was. And there they were.

And….here we are now.

I hated them for a long long long time.

A deep sadness ran in me for something that couldn’t be undone.

Like their appearance diminished everything good about me. Like I was no longer a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a best friend, a friend, a college graduate, the list goes on and on.

And if someone saw them – it’d be social suicide.

But as time went on – I saw them on other people, and they just didn’t look ugly to me ON THEM, just on me.

The angry colors faded and so did my hate.

It turned into acceptance.

And eventually it was like a mole or a freckle or a battle scar.

I used to think it made my body…not soft. Not worthy of being touched.

But sometimes, late at night, right before I drift off, I run my hands over my stomach.

It made me softer.
And dare I say, more interesting.

I lived through something.
I’m still fighting it today.

But now I see fireworks, lightning, thunder striking the earth, shooting stars, hidden paths on a map.

I’m STILL me.

And if someone EVER tried to talk down to me about my stretchmarks, they’d get ghosted like the Universe ghosted me when I was trying to trade them out for something better.

One of my favorite Cheryl Strayed quotes is –
“How wild it was, to let it be.”
And honestly, it really IS wild.

I spent so much time thinking self-hate and negativity would get me somewhere GOOD.
It never did.
So, I’m trying this self-love, self-acceptance, and positivity thing…and I’m growing.

I’m watering the dirt. Flowers are blooming.

I hope that right before you drift off to sleep tonight, you take a moment and just touch your stretchmarks.

Literally touch yourself.

How soft. How magical.

How there.

How YOU.

–S.

Mama.

I searched and searched and searched for a friendship that would top them all. Someone to love me through my shortcomings, cheer me on during my accomplishments, and make me face the growth that I so desperately tried to avoid.

You were always there.

To hear about a friendship that ended. Or the butterflies that came with the start of a new one.

You never faltered. Your presence always one of the greatest influences in any move I made in my life.

It took me a long time to realize that you are my greatest friend.

I am lucky, honored, and humbled to share this life with you.

I have found you in every life before this one, and I will find you in every life after this one.

–S.