In November of 2019 we took a trip to Texas to see family. Before we left we took some photos to memorialize the visit. When I saw the photo, I could hardly believe it was me standing there. My first thought was, “that photo must be distorted”. But it wasn’t the photo that was distorted, it was my view of myself. In the photo I am holding my youngest child and she looks normal sized. The realization that I had let things get so “bad” overtook me. Apparently, without even noticing it happening, I had taken myself out of the picture, figuratively and literally for so long that when I finally saw my self fully, I didn’t even know who I was.
Over time I had become skilled at hiding in the back, getting only the best angles, sharing only cropped photos. All while putting myself in the back from a health perspective also. I stopped caring for myself in the ways that make me better able to care for others. For example, the hectic and crazy schedule of being a full-time work outside the home, mother of four young kids left so little time for dinner, that often I would make fast, easy dinners for my kids, enough to get them fed and off to bed and then, instead of making myself a plate, I would just eat the leftover scraps from their plates to save time. I hate to even admit these facts, but I was tired. So. Tired.
What happens when you spend years fueling your exhaustion with caffeine and sugar so that after you put the kids down, you can “get back to work”, whether that be house work or catching up on office work? You get fat. You get soft. Your light burns a little less brightly. You inch away from the healthful person you may have once been one exception, one “just this time”, one “I need this” at a time. Before you know it, you’ve created a space of denial around yourself so thick that it takes actually not recognizing the sad, stressed, tired, overweight person in the photo who is masquerading as you to wake you up.
I woke up. I woke up hard.
I felt a fiery determination to “fix this”, like I had never felt before. I decided to make 2020 the year I took back my life, one meal, one day at a time. I didn’t know yet how I would do it, but for the first time in a lifetime, I knew I WOULD do it.
What sparked your fire to start your “recovery”. Was it a photo, a comment? Let me know in the comments.
Whole 365 