Second Wind

Change has always been a hard concept for me, I have always feared change. I have spent the better majority of my life trying to be come the person that I thought I should be: someone who is carefree and is able to go with the flow. 

Let me drop some knowledge on you, I am not that person. 

Not even a little bit, or at least I wasn't.

So when I moved home, the normal fears of change started to flood my mind and I felt the looming worry of drowning in those fears set off red bells and lights in my mind, causing me to resist the idea that the decision to move was right; because I immediately didn't feel better. Maybe its jut me, or my generation, but I have an obsession with immediacy. I want to feel and see things immediately to feel validation in my choices. So when I didn't see/feel it when I made this big move, I felt a sense of worry engulf me because I thought, What if I made a mistake? Back to my worrying, I even went as far to say this to my Momma as we had dinner on the first fracking night of my moving there (I know, I'm ridiculous) and she proceeded to say, "Give it time MF, this was the right choice."

So I did, I gave it time. 

6 Weeks to be exact.

You know what happened? My whole life completely changed. Like straight up, I don't feel like the same person that I was when I sat my butt in that airplane seat and tried to relax because the hard part was over. And you know the crazy thing? I wasn't doing anything that didn't feel normal or right to me when it came to making a life change. I focused on all the things I didn't do when I lived on Oahu. I was sleeping for 9 hours a night, I was on a routine that allowed my body to heal mentally and physically, I was in a new job that made me feel like I was living the dream I had always had to teach and be around kids, I was loving on my animals, but most of all, I was being present. It became my mantra, "Come on MF, be present." Being present seems like an odd thing to use as a mantra, but my Momma and I have been saying it consistently throughout these past weeks, Just be present, take a breath and be present. I think that it was most impactful because I had spent the past 5 years filled with anger, sadness, fear and worry because I was living in the land of What-If. And boy, had I built myself a big ole mansion to live in that world, I could claim residency and send my kids to the college of dysfunction I spent so much time there. As women, I think we have been hardwired to live in the What-If land because we are so caught up in preparing. Preparing for the worst, preparing to be prepared, preparing to protect, preparing to move on, and so on. I don't know about you, but I find it absolutely exhausting. My body was so burnt out from running off fear fumes, that I forgot that the present was what I needed to see. The happiness, joy and love that surrounded me everyday was blurring past me, because I had blinders on that kept my eye on the What-If prize. 

These past 6 weeks I have felt an emotional and physical shift. Like so much so that I feel more like myself now that I ever think I've felt. Emotionally, for the past 10 years, I have been broken. Different demons would occupy my mind and a slew of reactions would then manifest in how I treat myself and those around me. From depression to anxiety to eating disorders to suicide, I have had a seat on the roller coaster of emotional doom for the past 10 years. Since the changes I have made with putting my mental health first, I have felt this overwhelming Clarity that holds me tight, and it know won't let go no matter how much I resist and fall back into my pessimism. Clarity pushes me to see the demons for what they are: Limits. Limits to my happiness, dreams and relationships, and now I have a white knight to fight those demons. Physically, I think I have felt the change the most. It's no secret that I am a plus-sized woman, and I am not ashamed of my curves. However, because I was emotionally feeling so defeated, I took it out on my body. I ate wrong, lived in a dark and dirty place, and lost site of the signs that my body was rejecting these actions in a physical form. I was always tired, my stomach was chronically upset and my skin was a hot mess. This brings in my fear of change because I had always feared that if I changed my diet or weighed myself, that I would be missing out on something or would have to give up the stuff that I thought made me happy. I had always eaten food that made my stomach hurt because I didn't want to miss out, a stupid concept now that I am writing this and I sound like a 2 year old. Now I look back on it, and I'm like helloooooooo your stomach was literally telling you quit it, and all you did was continue to punish yourself. It sounds so ridiculous when I say that, I know, but that has been my thing for the past 10 years. I feared change because of what it would take away from me. I think an element of control also went into it because for so long I have felt out of control when it comes to my body and emotions, so I not only punished myself, but I tried to control something that was controllable. It went so far that my doctor in Waimea said that I needed to go Gluten Free and stay away from dairy products, so I did it for a while, not completely because I was still self-harming, and then didn't like not being able to eat what I wanted as well as a heaping pile of excuses about the "inconvenience" (which it wasn't now that I live in the middle of nowhere and we don't have those resources), so I stopped my diet and my body rejected it even more by making me sick all the time. So when I moved home, I was thrust into a different eating style (super clean, gluten-free, dairy-free) and my body reacted almost instantly. I lost about 25 lbs (I don't weigh myself so I don't really know exactly because of my recovery from my eating disorder, but I am working on doing it once a month), my clothes all fit me now and I can wear things that I bought from Anthro that haven't fit me in years, my skin has been clear and my rosacea hasn't been as inflamed. Now, my body is quite literally expelling all the toxins and crap that I have put in my system for years out of my pores (gross I know, and it really sucks) which has caused me to get all types of rashes and things, but it is showing that my body really needed to be detoxified from the life I was living. Plain and simple, I was punishing myself for not being perfect, normal and skinny, all things that are relative and not accomplished by any normal human. This all came to a head when I went to Oahu last weekend. I had already been in my new lifestyle for 6 weeks and I wanted to do my best to eat right and keep on my track because I was so tried of always being sick. My mom, sister and I went to Oahu to Black Friday shop because Sal had to work and my mom and I wanted to get all of our shopping for Christmas done. So not only did every single person that I knew and saw while I was there before I moved point out the difference in my body and the way I held myself (they all said I looked so refreshed and rested), but I saw what I lived, and how much hurt I had, and that Oahu didn't have the same feeling anymore; it didn't protect me from the clarity I feared, it blinded me from it. So while we were on Oahu, my mom and I had to get my car cleaned and washed so that my amazing calabash (chosen family) family could ship the car in two weeks. When we opened the doors to my car and I saw what I had been driving for the better part of 6 years, I had a full-blown meltdown. It was unorganized, dirty and just a pit of doom and I saw what my life was. I had a physical representation of the horrible, dirty and emotionally dark life that I lived and I saw how horrible I had been to myself. I had literally allowed myself to live like I meant nothing to the world because that was how I felt: that I wanted to be swallowed by the misery and this was how to do it. So my Momma and Auntie Sarah talked me through it and reminded me of the change that I have implemented and I can't look back because that's not being present, that's living on time that we don't need. That I deserve to continue to put my body and mind first because that's what I have always wanted to do, but held the hand of fear for too long, and its time to find a new friend. So my Momma and I spent the weekend going nonstop (I think we walked a good half marathon with all the shopping we did!) and we ate at places we knew that wouldn't make us sick and were present. We laughed at how uncomfortable the air mattresses were we slept on, and we spent time with my sister because I really do miss her a lot. Her humor, and willingness to always listen to my stories even though she already has heard them a million times. And now I am home, where when I stepped foot in the house and put my bags down, I felt home. I felt like I was in the right place because I missed the quiet and the calm that being in Waimea brought. 

So I have tasked myself with being present. Learning to let go of what I fear and worry about, and just looking around me and seeing that I am safe, loved and able to accomplish my dreams because I deserve it. I want to start blogging about what makes me happy and what has allowed me to find the happy I thought I had lost forever with you, the people who I want to know will always have a friend in me because Fear shouldn't be your friend, and leaning on those that surround you with sunshine will scare that bully right out of your inner circle. I don't feel I deserve it everyday, but there are days where I feel that sunshine peaking out from behind my heart, and I will one day welcome the moment when that sunshine embodies me and I feel its constant presence. So here's to my second wind of life and learning to live in the little moments.