Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Me: Only Better

I caught myself daydreaming while I did my hair yesterday. Again.

I have a lot of unruly hair, so it takes a long time to "do right," so it is kind of my daydream and/ or sing in the bathroom time.



But that is neither here nor there.

I was having a "good mirror day," where I could see a lot of differences in my self.

I'd posted a picture, recently, of some new hair color on facebook for the friends I knew would want to see it. The picture wasn't anything exciting. I was fresh from the shower and had no make up or supportive undergarments on, just a big, baggy sweatshirt (that I LOVE because it was too small to zip a year ago and is now voluminous), just me and a goofy smile and my new pink streaks. I intended to just take it down the next day after the required close (but far away distance-wise) friends got to see it. But then people said such nice things about it!!! My face was thinner, I looked like the me they remember from when I was a teenager, all kinds of nice things. So I kept it. I was chatting with my oldest brother about it on the internets the next day, doing the old "I'm not even wearing make-up" thing all of us do (though the specific words often change), when he said the very best compliment yet:
"Health Shines."

How cool is THAT?!?!
I didn't even have a good compliment-displacing maneuver type comeback for that one; it was too good!
It was like a self-conscious-armor-of-compliment-refusal piercing bullet of awesomeness good.



So I was still riding high on that as I sang along loudly to my radio and tried to tame my crazy hair (sporting pink streaks once again!) and thinking...
It's going to be so great when I'm even thinner.
Just imagine how in-shape and awesome I'm going to look.
People will look at me and see an athlete and know how hard I work.

Blah blah blah blah blah. I'm sure you all have your own script, no need running down mine.

And you know what?
Fuck that.
Things are pretty damn great NOW.
I'm in probably the best shape of my life, and I feel like I look pretty awesome, even if those kick-arss muscles still have a pretty thick insulative fat layer on top of all of them.
People who know me DO look at me and see an athlete, and frankly, to toot my own horn a little, so do people who don't know me when they see me kicking said arss in the gym.

I don't WANT to become a whole different person.
I don't want "thin" or "healthy" Lulu to be someone I don't recognize.
I don't think that being smaller is going to solve any of my problems (though I do think it will help a lot with persistent knee pain), I don't think it's going to make the people that matter to me look at me any differently, and, most importantly:

I KNOW it's not going to make me any happier.

So yes, I am improving myself on this lifestyle change journey, and a very motivating part of that is weight loss, but I'm not becoming a new person.
I don't want to.
After a lot of formative years of kind of hating it, I've grown pretty partial to getting to be me.
All this hard work to get healthy, be in great shape, live a life that loves my body and my soul better, that's a journey TOWARD being me.
Only better.

1 comment:

  1. I'm smiling from ear to ear as I read this! You are so real, so inspirational and so motivating. I'm so happy for you Lulu! Hard work and dedication sure do pay off. Embrace how amazing you look today, because you've worked for it :-)! See you tonight!

    P.S. maybe you can do that power slide at the end of Turbo?!

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