Hitting Bottom

Have you ever wished away the days in favor of an uncertain future only to find yourself realizing that you missed out on the present?

Pined for a simpler time in the midst of difficult circumstances to discover that the worst of times were actually the best for you?

Life is complicated and complex and ridiculously hard at times.  It is tragic and ugly and hair-raising in spades.  But, it is also beautiful and elegant in all its messiness.

Lately, it has been my secret wish to find all the answers to the why questions that have built up in my mind over the years.  So many of those answers would unlock doubts in my mind and release fears and anger and frustration.  Some answers need to come from other people.  Some need to come from God.  Some need to come from within myself.  Yet, I've found myself too tired, uninspired and emotionally unprepared to dig deep.  I would rather skim the surface than peer below and find the answers. 

I have been feeling an incredible sense of loneliness for the last several weeks.  Though surrounded by people, I am not connecting;  I find myself consciously dis-connecting.  I just want to be and be left alone.  This is selfishness:  a build-up of relying too much on me, of wanting to isolate, to keep people at bay because I don't want to be hurt.  It is unhealthy and I know that.  Breaking free of it is another story altogether, though.

With my isolation came my nemesis:  food.  The old, familiar, comfortable cravings reared their ugly head and I was more than happy to oblige.  The sneaking around, the hypocrisy, and the hiding came right back into my life.  And with it, the weight.  The pounds I shed over Lent are back, like an unwelcome guest that wasn't invited to the party but you don't know how to kick to the door.  They seem to have chosen my upper arms as their breeding ground and are having way too much fun giggling around there.  Now that I am clearer-headed, I see the irony of isolating and eating:  though no one sees what you are doing in the "dark", they see the effects of what is happening and "see" what you are doing.

Gym?  Exercise?  What are those?  They have been dropped from my vocabulary for an entire school year.  I'm pretty sure leaving them behind was the first step toward isolation.  

I had a come-to-Jesus with myself in the shower over all this today and am heading back to Weight Watchers online in the near future.  And, praise God, my neighbor wanted a follow-up to the summer kids' triathlon training I did last year.  So, over the next nine weeks, I will be training and working alongside at least four kids who are a quarter my age (minus a few years) for a 5K in August.  I'm jumping out of the fire into the proverbial frying pan.  Maybe my arms will succumb to the heat? 

So, here I am on the mend.  Baring my scars for you to see.  Wishing I had had the sense to turn to my friends and family to pray me through this.  I'm heading upward.  Funny thing is that I hadn't realized, until I hit a softish bottom this morning, that there was anything really wrong.  Deception is funny like that, isn't it?

I keep hearing "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" in my mind.  Those are the Devil's playground.  And, finally, I feel like I've got his number again.  So I'm kicking him to the curb.

I'm ready to face life again.  Ready to put myself out there.  Ready to feel healthy and able to do this thing called life with no regrets and no pining and no looking back and chiding myself.

This is a good day to be alive.  This is a good day to start again.  This is a good day, period.

Thanks for taking this journey with me.

(I went to search for a particular verse to end this post and looky what I found...brought tears to my eyes...
The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17)