Shedding it All

I don't have a full length mirror in my apartment. And I don't even have a chair that I can pull up to the bathroom mirror to try and see most of me. It's been so freeing! I've been so preoccupied with being in a new state and city, trying to find a job, and feeling stressed, lonely, depressed that I haven't even worried too much about how I look. It's a far cry from the old me who used to obsess over every single flaw. Or the old me who drank so much that I just didn't care. I'm in between those two versions of me. It's not that I don't care, but I don't care to the point where I feel a need to pick myself apart. It serves no purpose. I want to live the rest of my life focusing on everything else. Believe it or not, I don't think I will buy a full length mirror anytime soon. I haven't owned a scale in years, and it has helped my psyche tremendously. It's also nice getting to know me, from the inside. All I've ever known is hating myself. And I've made life choices based on that hate. Life choices that supported that hate.
I was having a hard day emotionally yesterday, but physically I was feeling great. I've been working out and eating healthy, not smoking or drinking, so I'm feeling great. So, I'm at the store yesterday, and I walk by a mirror, and did not like what I saw. It sent me into a tailspin that took a lot of energy to talk myself out of. And I had enough going on. Loathing myself has gotten me nowhere in life.
My posts have somewhat of downers lately, and I'm sorry. I wanted to document all the positive changes, and I believe they're coming, I just think I have to slog through all this stuff in my emotional junk drawer first.
This blog is still going nowhere. I promise one day it will. I'm just struggling right now, and my thoughts are all over, and I guess I just need to vent.
I don't know why, but I feel like someday I'm going to look back on this time as a time of personal growth. I recently lost almost everything, and that has to mean something. Like, I lost stuff that I needed to lose. Maybe I'm just telling myself that to feel better. Only time will tell I guess.

Another Holiday

Over the years I've become quite the loner. I've learned to just enjoy my own company, and the company of my cats of course. I've never minded or felt embarrassed to go to a movie alone, or eat at a restaurant alone. And that includes holidays. While living in Seattle, I just got used to spending the holidays alone, and during my unfortunate time in Erie, I realized it was better to spend the holidays alone. I tried my first year back to take part in adoptive family festivities, and it just didn't work. So, after that I chose to spend the holidays with my cats. What I've learned over the years is that it feels less lonely to be alone, than to be in a room full of people and feel alone.
There is a particular sadness about not being part of things on the holidays. The quietness in the air, the lack of traffic. People are together, somewhere and you are just where you always are, doing what you always do. For some reason, today being Labor Day, which is like a whatever holiday, I'm feeling the sads. I've never even really celebrated Labor Day, the shitty jobs I have I always have to work. I guess it's just being in a new city. I already feel super isolated, and more alone than I have in a very long time.
It feels good to just type that, and admit it. Many years ago I started denying any feelings of loneliness around the holidays. It's easier to deny it than have people have that look of pity in their eyes and invite you to do stuff with their families, which is often worse than being alone. I've tried. But it's okay, it's just another day, right?

Saturday Musings

I was watching a video on YouTube the other day, and this person was venting about her weight, and how she had been trying to lose a few pounds, and it just wasn't happening. She was feeling like why am I depriving myself of certain things and making myself exercise when it's making no difference anyway? I have had that same thought at least five hundred times over the last couple of years. Why not eat all the junk (vegan of course) and stop exercising.
I've recently realized that even if I never drop a pound, I am still going to continue to eat healthy with the occasional treat, and I'm going to continue to exercise, and push myself when it comes to cardio workouts. I've recently realized that I do it because it makes me feel better, regardless of how I look.
I recently went through something extremely stressful and painful, and I stopped working out, and ping ponged between not eating, or eating total crap. I also was barely sleeping, and I even smoked some cigs, and drank some beer. I also was drinking coffee daily which is something I haven't done for years. I felt so unwell, so weak, and so not strong. My body put up a fight at first, wondering what I was doing to it. But after about a week or so, it just accepted the abuse, and the ill feeling became my new normal. I felt sluggish, slow, puffy, and weak. And all these unhealthy habits certainly weren't helping my emotional state. I felt like a toxic person in every way. And I felt ashamed because I had come so far, only to go back to all of my old patterns.
Now that I'm back on track, and off the cigs, the beer, and coffee, and back on green juice with lots of turmeric, yoga and other workouts, and eating healthily I feel like a new person. And even though I still do want to lose weight, I know now that choosing healthy habits is much more than just trying to look your best. I feel clean inside in a way that I didn't when I was being unhealthy. And  I like that feeling.
I know plenty of people who are naturally thin, and because of that they treat their bodies like a dump. Eating crap, not exercising, and not worrying about any of it because on the outside they appear to be healthy.
I feel like I am a nicer, more positive person when I'm taking care of myself. I take time to notice what I'm grateful for, even on bad days when it's hard.
So, I'm working on making that mind switch. My motivation for being healthy is no longer about losing weight, but more about continuing to strive to be the best me I can be. I want to be the kindest version of myself. I want to be the change and all of that, and lucky for me I can achieve all of that with or without an extra fifteen pounds!

Rejection is a Part of Life

I applied for a job last week. It is less than a ten minute walk from my apartment, which right now is super important. Since I am in a new city, it's very easy for me to get lost. The job is at a pancake house, and I applied to be a server. Although I am so over being a server, and I feel like I would rather die than serve and clean-up after another person, it's something I'm comfortable with, and have lots of experience doing. So, I went and had an interview with the owner, and he said he was going to "take a look at the schedule, and see where he could fit me in for training" And he said to expect a call on Tuesday. Tuesday came and went, and on Wednesday I tried to call the restaurant, and was told he was "in a meeting" Here it is Friday, and I still haven't heard from him. It's so frustrating, and this guy totally wasted my time.  I stopped handing out resumes because this guy was hiring me! Now I'm just so frustrated. The worst part is being lied to, and rejected by a crappy job you never even wanted.
If I could give one piece of advice to all the teenagers out there, it is to go to college if that is at all a possibility. Sure there are some instances where people without college degrees make it out of the minimum wage world, but that hasn't been my experience. Even if I find a job that isn't serving people, it will most likely be some other low paying, soul draining customer service job. It's just so frustrating to know that you're capable of more. It's been a long life of being very unfulfilled.
I did learn something from this debacle. Wasting people's time is not cool. I have definitely wasted people's time before, and I guess I didn't realize how shitty it feels. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own stuff, we forget that our actions affect others. I am guilty of that over and over.
I'm trying to take it all in stride, rejection is a part of life and all of that. But it's just that it's so easy for people to say that who aren't pounding the pavement, and getting rejected by jobs that they themselves would never want.
I'm kind of glad no one reads this blog right now. It's like a safe little place to come vent.

Where Am I Going With This?

I have been severely neglecting this blog. The last time I posted I was about to lose everything. Through a weird twist of events, I am now living in Salt Lake City, Utah. To make a really long story somewhat short, when I lost everything, I had some dark thoughts. Darker than usual. I really had no desire to live. I started a GoFundMe page to try to raise money to get another place, and get my cats back. Nothing was going for me in Seattle, and I was terrified to sign a lease for an apartment that I might not be able to afford. Seattle has gotten so incredibly expensive, you aren't getting an apartment for under one thousand a month. Someone donated to my page, and we started Emailing back and forth, and she mentioned at some point that SLC was cheaper, and it was relatively easy to find a job.
I started perusing Craigslist here. and I got the second apartment I liked! It was so easy. My new place is two bedrooms, with a big kitchen with lots of counter space, and a window. And it's half of what I would pay for a one bedroom in Seattle.
I'm hoping to truly heal myself here. When I moved to Erie PA, it was supposed to be a fresh start. A place to live where it wasn't so expensive, and I could breathe, and live without the strangling high cost of living. Because of family issues, and the general miserable disposition of that city, it wasn't the fresh start I would have liked. But I feel like I ave that here. It's much cheaper to live, and so far the people are very nice. I would say kind, there is a kindness I genuinely feel in this city.
I've been thinking a lot about this blog, and where I want it to go, and what I want to do with it. I have a lot of feelings I need to process, a lot happened in a month. I want to heal myself, and process my emotions in order to become the best version of myself. I feel like I'm actually ready for that.
So, for now I think I'm going to continue to pop on here and talk/vent about what I feel like I need to process. And I also want to talk about self love, and self care. I think we are conditioned to think of self love as selfish, when it actually is what makes you able to be the kindest you. I want to continue to talk about weight loss struggles. I believe that as I heal my insides, my outside will follow suit.