This is.... Something I'm surprised I like

I haven't come across Earl and Cookie before now, but they've chosen a good challenge for the week! Click 'This is' button at the right for more....


The thing that surprises me is that I like getting up and about. No, please don't laugh! I've never been the sporty type: I was the one whose glasses were knocked off in soccer, whose glasses were smashed away in volleyball, whose glasses.... you get it. And who eventually took to enacting wildly silly parodies of gym sports with my best friend in class, thankfully with a teacher who encouraged us to laugh and jump around, even if we were playing badminton with no birdie and claiming scores of 72-zillion to 58-billion. "Who cares," I can see she was thinking "As long as they are moving".

For much of my life I've been overweight, and I know the creeping shame and embarrassment, self-loathing and malaise that comes with feeling that there must be something wrong with you, that losing weight is a mountain you can't climb. I still haven't climbed all of that mountain, and I honestly don't know if I have it in me to climb the rest of the way. It really does take an incredible amount of mental energy and anguish. It's not just a case of deciding or not deciding, or being strong or not. It's harder than that.

Last year, I shed 10 kilos with the help of an extraordinary, kind, warm bunch of women at my gym. I'm not a gym kind of gal. I didn't think I would like it. I never - never never ever - thought I would sign up. But I was lucky enough to walk into a supportive environment that told me I should respect myself FIRST, whatever size I am, and dance my heart out, because music is what I love, and the rest - that is, the capacity to make the effort to really work hard to lose those kilos, tiny bit by teensy tiny bit - will follow. I'm only halfway there, but I get up, put these shoes on every single day, and I am continually surprised at how much I love it.

Gosh.

Well, there you go! I'm going to file this one under "Rants"! (big laugh)

B.

EDITED:
PS - I really wasn't sure whether or not to post this, so I scheduled it for an hour later, to think about it. It's a bit scary to say these things, you think you'll be judged. I'm going to go ahead though, not because I want compassion or reassurance, but because I'm trying to say that all the pain about weight is all sort of.... irrelevant now. It's over. But for so many people I know it's not, and I think it's important to say that it is possible to start to move on from that place, to put on those shoes and dance on out of there into a spot where it's just good to be up, and about and alive and moving. That's all.

I guess that makes this a double rant! (This gal got something to say, stand way back!)