Remember me?

It’s been 7 years, 2 months and 1 day since my last blog post. I’m surprised I even remembered my password to log in. Sitting down to write this was a bit terrifying. Facing cold hard truths and putting yourself out there usually is. I’ve gone through a lot since the last time I wrote here. Hell, I know we all have! For me the biggies have been the nuclear after-math of my divorce, 3 moves, surgeries, being diagnosed with an auto-immune disease, severe bouts of dark depressions, an unimaginable betrayal by someone I considered one of my absolute best friends, family feuds and a global pandemic which thrust me into working from home the last two years and has forever changed the term "normal". I’ve lost friends, lost loves, lost grandparents. And somewhere in the thick of it all, I lost myself.

And yet, I’ve found a new me. A better me is blooming. In the last 9 months I’ve made some big changes and for the first time, in a long time, I can say I’m happy. I’m at peace. I’ve removed a lot of toxicity from my life. I’m working on self-love and forgiveness. I’ve been doing some brutally honest and painful self-reflection. And I love it. I’m healing. I’m working on growing and being better every day. And while I know I’ve grown a lot from the person I was last year, there’s days I still feel weak. For me, weak is an umbrella for many emotions but there is literally no feeling in the world I hate more than feeling weak. If I’m being completely honest, there are tears in my eyes right now, threatening to spill over as I write this. But that’s not the kind of weak I’m talking about. We all need a good cry occasionally. I just didn’t plan on one today.

This weekend I started thinking about times I felt the strongest in my life. There were many to chose from. But it was easy for me to pinpoint a certain time where I felt invincible. And that time got me through so many hard times after that. I drew on that strength for years and I had to stop and ask myself a few days ago, why did I stop?

It will be 10 years next week since I spent the month of April as a “year of you winner” at the Biggest Loser Resort in Malibu, CA. Those four weeks would change my life forever. I knew that every minute I was there. But the last two years, I forgot. Or chose to block it out. For those that have been with me since the beginning, I lost 112 pounds. Since 2018, I have gained back 56. Freakishly, exactly half of what I lost. I wasn’t oblivious to it. I watched it happen. A pound here. Two there. Waving it off as the holidays or vacation or whatever the excuse of the week was. Telling myself, next week I’d get back on track. But I didn’t. It shouldn’t be that hard to find the map again, right? But it is. I think part of me didn’t want to. Why? Because doing nothing is easy. Floating along on the lazy river of life is easy. But here’s the thing. It doesn’t get you where you want to go. You just float in circles, over and over again until the ride is over. And I’m sick of the same ol’ view.

I am enough. I am strong. I deserve every happiness. I am the only one who’s been standing in my way.