I am that girl...

Over the past few weeks, I have spent a fair amount of time hiking. I also have committed to a re-alignment of how I eat. With my favorite foods having historically been heavy, starchy, fatty, and delicious, and having seen the rewards of my endevours with those foods, I determined if I am to be happy with my physical self, I was due for a change. And so it began.

I am not sure where my weight topped the scales when I started this venture, as I was too ashamed to see the number that popped up. I do know that clothes were grossly uncomfortable and unattractive on my body. A visit with the doc for an annual exam revealed I had come to a landing number of 192...three long and hyper-focused weeks after beginning my new way of being. I was both sad and happy at the same time. I was sad to see how far off track my life had taken me. I was sad to see that I had worked three weeks diligently to see the scale at a number that I had chased away long ago. But I was happy, because I thought the damage was to be much higher than what was reflected back on that scale. I settled into the knowing that regardless of where my body had been, it was on its way back to a healthy state.

As mentioned, I have taken hiking and walking as my primary form of exercise. They work well for me. In doing so, I don't always encounter many people. This also works well for me. While I believe that hikers are generally really pleasant, I appreciate the solitude with nature. The reacquired interest in health has brought about some significant self-realizations. The one that repeats most frequestly is, "I am that girl."

As an observer, I frequently find myself mentally lauding people who defy the limitations their weight may hold on them, and instead set out to exercise. The "big girl" biking, the man with the extended belly pumping his arms and shuffling his feet as he works to make it further today than yesterday, anyone who has exceeded a comfortable weight yet pushes themselves to get outside, breathe fresh air, and fight to be one step healthier. And then I realized..."I am that girl." I am the girl who, for reasons that mean nothing to an outside observer, let life get the best of me for awhile. I am the girl who, with little else to comfort myself, ate whatever crap I could put my hands on. I am that girl who made fast-food a way of life, because without a steady place to land, it was just easier. I am that girl who spent the past year wallowing in the pity of my choices, and not standing up to do what needed to be done for me. I am that girl who's weight got out of control, and I became the girl I was mentally applauding while I drove down the road eating my #16 from Steak and Shake. I really am that girl.

Initially, this realization was not particularly self-flattering. I felt disappointed that I had lost myself so deeply into patterns that I had tried to release from my being. I got fat. I got lost. I got sad. I got got. I was done in by my own choices. And then I got relieved. Recognizing that I am that girl became humbling. I had created a victimhood where I lived. It is a neighborhood that doesn't thrive on change or awareness. And now, I was aware. I was aware that my choices had spun me into the body of someone I didn't want to be, someone with whom the healthy me couldn't identify. I was hiding. I was self-sabatoging. I was self-deprecating. I was failing.

Knowing now that I am that girl...that I am every girl...who has been given more at times than is comfortable to handle, who copes in ways that are familiar, even when they are destructive, who wants more than she is able to reach on her own. I am every girl. I am not alone. I am not isolated. I am not the anamolie. I am what we all encounter at various times. And now, I am that girl who wakes up, takes control of that which I can change, and starts to move. I am that girl on the roadside putting one foot in front of the other, monitoring what kind of foods I allow into my body, feeding myself water and fluids that are beneficial. I am that girl who is healing, who is wanting happiness and peace, and who no longer strives for imbalance.

I am every girl.