Breakthrough!

Here's another long one.  I have no clue why but these past few weeks a lot has been happening and well I just need to get it out!

Physically

I finally have officially lost 50 pounds!  Whoo hoo!  *happy dance!*  The first (and hardest) stage of my new lifestyle and change is over, now I just need to keep pushing on.  When I lose 10 more pounds I'll be half way done! :D

I hadn't realized just how much work it would take to get to this point.  Granted I knew that there would be some work involved, but I hadn't realized it would take this amount of me!  However I am super grateful to have accomplished this and to have a band.  I know that I wouldn't be able to do this on my own without the help I needed.  For me it's all about a timeline.. I've lost 50 pounds in 3 months, does this mean I'll be able to lose another 50 in 3 months?  I do hope so but I don't want to set myself up for a failure if I don't..

I started weight training and personal training over a month ago, and ever since then I've been so fearful that the all the training I was doing would interfere with the number on the scale.. and in some sense it has but the number has finally moved!  I know that if I were to not incorporate weight training that just through cardio alone I do lose a lot of weight but I have to gain strength, muscle, and most of all I need to shrink all that extra skin (gross I know, I'm sorry!).  After training with a friend last week I hadn't realized just how much.. what's the word... fit I am compared to 3 + months ago.  3+ months ago I couldn't climb the stairs to the tank (not that I would have wanted to, and I still don't because I hate stairs.. we have a hate/hate relationship lol), nor could I have endured the workout that was set before me.

During the entire workout my friend kept mentioning that I wasn't breathing hard, and normally I would be but I hadn't even noticed it.. and frankly I don't know if I know how to push myself that hard.  Beforehand I would just try and do a workout and I would be quickly breathing hard, but now I have to push myself, and I soon realized that I need to find some motivation to do just that.

I've never really had to find some kind of motivation and while lying on the floor doing sit ups and crunches I really just wanted to cry because all I could think about were the horrible memories of my past that affected not only my health, my self-esteem, but also how people viewed me.  During middle school, life was hell.  I went to school to escape the drama at home, and by the time school was over I wanted to be home to escape the drama at school.  I had a teacher who was a complete jerk, especially to me.  He was fit, into working out and I was.. well.. fat and the complete opposite.  Unfortunately this teacher was my p.e. coach and a science teacher.  He was a good teacher, made learning fun but unfortunately he didn't know how to appreciate differences in others, and he valued looks very highly.

If you know me, you know that I am incredibly clumsy, quiet, and uncomfortable in my own skin.  Middle school was no different, I think it was the worst time that I was all three of those!  That plus the added combination of a teacher who ridiculed me behind my back to fellow classmates it just wasn't the greatest time.  And all though those years are behind me.. when I work out, or lift weights, or whatever I'm doing exercise wise I can't help but think that deep down I'm not good enough, and that I'm doing it all completely wrong (which I really could be..).  I've got to push through and push myself to new limits even though I have no clue where the starting line is or the finish for that matter..  but most of all I have to accept that this part of my life is a part of me, and that I do belong regardless of how much I know, look, or feel comfortable doing because no one is looking anyways (or really cares! lol)

So I went to the gym today, and I tried to push myself to a new limit.. but I think to do that I might just have to get back on the elliptical.. which is super scary since I tore both my meniscus' on the elliptical last time. I don't know what I'm going to do but I gotta break myself, I just got to find out where and how...

Emotionally

You know I would be super grateful Jesus if you could just hold me together!  I about fell apart at the tank last week and that was after I had already fallen apart and since Thursday (today is now Monday) I've fallen apart again...  I have no clue what is wrong with me but I'm glad these issues and pain are coming out of me so I can be made whole!  

Last week I sent a message to an old friend apologizing because I felt that I had wronged her.  And in a sense I had because if someone had treated me the way I had her I would have wanted an apology.  However she didn't feel that I needed to apologize and that she wasn't the only to have noticed that I had left and that she enjoyed seeing me and.. "I think that sometimes you feel on the outside, when that is not what others around you think. I am not the only "young" person who noticed your absence, but that may not matter at this point."  

However from the outside it feels just like this (this is what I wrote back):

To be honest, I thought going to friend breakfast was one of the worst mistakes I had made in awhile. I do feel like an outsider, but that day I had finally realized that I was an outsider. I don't believe that it's intentional but there is a reason that I have no friends at the Chapel after attending there for 15 plus years (and going to school there).. and a reason that I can't find my niche (whatever that really might be!). It's just a bit frustrating, when I vocalize my pain and hurt about how I feel like an outsider to others and they tell me it's because they just don't think about me, or that they never see me and then on the other hand to be told I'm faithful at what I've committed to in service and coming to everything. The two just don't add up in my head, it's a double message and it feels like a double bind.

I left the Chapel not only because I felt like an outsider but I couldn't stand the way people looked at me (there were other issues like not being challenged and stuff...). The condescending glances were getting old, and frankly I was hurt and tired of being "looked down upon". Not to mention the way my family is looked upon. Unfortunately I have no control over my family and their actions and I also can't control how people associate my family with me. You know how different they are than I, but not everyone else does, and not everyone wants to. And those few people who did know just weren't enough to keep me, not that they were super helpful either...

I can't help but feel walls between you and I, and the others at youth and in the church. I try to move forward but there is just something that stops me, and I just get the message that I'm not good enough (or rich enough) and not wanted, which not only hurts, but it annoying and frustrating and a lie. But I can't equate the knowledge of knowing it's a lie with how I'm looked at and how I'm treated.. the two just don't add up...

What else can I really say about how I feel about this situation.. I'm still hurt and am becoming bitter.  No one wonder I can't move forward.  I haven't heard from this person but I had already figured that, that bridge was burned and I was making the last few attempts of salvaging it.  I did however see this person and several others yesterday and didn't speak to any of them.. just because I didn't want to..  it wasn't a "you hurt me so I'm going to just sit here and wait for you to do something..."  but a genuine I really don't care if you talk to me.  Relationships are a two way street and well if you aren't going to work at it, then don't expect me to do all the work myself!  

I also had a conversation with a friend on change yesterday... her daughter and I went to school together and apparently she is hanging out with old friends who have never changed throughout the years.  Her mom mentioned how I had to leave friends who were the same way.. I thought about one of those persons today as I was driving and then I happened to some information on their FB and I realized after almost 9 months that they hadn't changed, and God only knew when they were going to..  it makes me and my therapist side a little sad.. 

Spiritually

I would just like to tear down these walls that are hindering me. I need a lot of direction and well I feel like I'm not getting any!  I'm in a hurry but God isn't..  if I could just figure out the pace He's at so I wouldn't be so frustrated!!