As has been made abundantly clear on this blog - I struggle like everyone else. There are days when I am down, I have no energy, I talked smack to myself, I want more and don't know how to get it or I am just in a general funk. I was talking with someone last week who is having a little trouble with the mental game and while I advised that 'we all go through that', inside I smiled - my times are fewer and fewer.
While I was overweight people told me I had such a 'pretty face' and a 'nice smile'. As I have lost weight people have said I have an 'infectious smile', I 'light a room' and I am 'unstoppable energy'. There was a period where I couldn't accept those compliments because I thought they were just saying them because I was thinner and people respond better to healthier looking people.
Then I realized I really couldn't accept what they were saying because I didn't see it. I would look in the mirror and see me, the old me - overweight, miserable, sluggish and dragging through life out of necessity, not passion. I still struggle with this sometimes. I still see the 'fat girl' when I look in the mirror. I spent the majority of my life with only one reality, so when I catch my reflection now, it is surreal to me.
However, by and large, what I see in the mirror is a happy person. Happy. That's not a word I bandied around much except with reference to holidays. Now it's often an answer I give to "how are you?" Yes, I am struggling with romance. Yes, my job has changed which is causing stress. Yes, I am once again caught in a battle between food and my self-respect. But overall, I am happy.
I've looked hard at that and know that it's not because I lost weight, it's because I know care about myself and my life in a way I never have before. While I have always been a passionate person, I am now about living my passion. I seize the moment, I love spontaneity, I try not to turn down fun - I live. And that makes me happy.
By the way, here's what a healthier, happier Kate looks like. (It's from the all new LITE 104.1 site.)
Yours in (mental) health, Kate
Have you ever thought about short hair? In this picture, you remind me of this girl I went to high school with who had this fabulous curly bob.
ReplyDeleteYep, you just reminded me of a high school girl.
In a good way of course.