I had a very... interesting thought today. There is rather a lot of back story, but bear with me. Last week I found a library. It was magical. See my main blog (http://thumbs-thumbs-away.blogspot.com) for more details. Anyway, I checked out this book called "The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance" by Elna Baker (you MUST look this book up! Sooooo amazing!) which proceeded to make me rethink quite a lot of things:
1. How have I lived my life without ever having read this book?
2. Why don't I feel entitled to make this experience on the opposite of the country something purely and entirely for me!?
3. Why can't I take control of my life and lose the weight I want to?
4: How the heck am I ever going to change?
Now. These may seem like rather depressing thoughts, but I really started to think about it. And then just now I was watching a really great clip from a Take That concert in London
and I found myself thinking:
"Self! We used to do that! Do you remember? Trouveres (the HHS Show Choir) was our world! Dancing and singing was what we lived for! Granted, getting up at 5 am wasn't so fabulous, but the dancing was soooo fun! Even if we WERE super uncoordinated, and horribly ungraceful! Why did we stop?"
And then it occurred to me. There was no real reason I did stop. Other than the fact that my math grade was slipping horribly, but a lot of that was my fault too. I mean, all I did was limit myself. Over and over and over and over and over again! Who was to say I couldn't learn AP Calc!? Only me! And guess who passed the test with a 3!? ME! Now, it would have been a struggle, but had I truly committed to it, I could have done both Trouveres and AP Calc.
After thinking those things in like 3 milliseconds, I thought about how much fun that concert looked like it would have been to be at. And then I remembered my first concert, and wondered if it was going to be my last. And the next thing that popped into my head was this:
"Why does it have to be your last concert!? Why can't you be a rock concert buff!? This is your life! Do what you want to with it! No one else has control over you! Isn't that what you keep trying to teach the kids you nanny? How are you going to teach them, if you can't even show them you have learned it!?"
I guess this is a sign that something is working. This is really great self talking! I'm pretty impressed with myself! Now, the trick is to make this self talk turn into self do. And that's the bit I'm not so great at. But here's what I'm aiming to do:
I'm still sticking to the weight loss stuff. Of course. But I don't want to just change the way I look. I want to change the way I am. I mean, I like me for a lot reasons. The things I can't stand are the things that have to go. These include, but are not limited to:
1. Demotivating myself
2. Limiting myself
3. Comparing my worst to other's best
4. Down talking my decisions
5. Not being assertive
6. Not being happy alone.
That's the biggest one. I''m finding that almost all of the excuses I make to myself when I think about going out and exploring or taking the dogs out, or doing a daily work out have something to do with not having someone else with me. I'm not happy being alone.
If I'm ever going to be able to change all of the things about me that I want to, I'm going to have to learn how to be happy with having 'me time.' Especially since I have so much of it now. I also need to learn how to do anything in my 'me time.' Even if it is something I love doing with another person, like going for drives with my siblings, or watching a movie with friends.
I'm limited to myself, and it's time for me to learn how to take joy in that.
♪♫♪♫ "It's time to kick off your shoes,
let out all your sadness."
