The Other Side of My Reality.

I remember one night last March or so, after getting the kids to bed, crawling into my sweethearts lap  and just crying.

"I guess I'm just fat and crazy...", I told him. That day my results from a thyroid check came back and were normal. Which was a good thing, because my thyroids were fine, but it was my last grasp of an explanation other than PPD/PPA to explain what I was going through. I was hoping my inability to lose weight, my hair thinning, my "crazy" thoughts, my elevated and entirely unnecessary fears/anxiety, etc. would be related to that. Because I'd read somewhere that thyroid levels being off can also cause some of those symptoms.

But alas, I was just "fat and crazy." 

I gave myself a few days to mourn my "loss" (of my marbles maybe?), and just let myself be ok with it. And then I decided the pitty party was over, and it was time to put on my big girl panties and deal with it. I had two kids that needed a mom (a REAL mom who was present), a husband that needed a wife (not just a roommate), and I had an inner potential that I knew I had but felt like was suffocating in my own self-loathing. It wasn't fair to anybody for me to do nothing. I wanted to enjoy and participate in not only my own life, but that of my children.

And so it was time for me to 'put up or shut up'. I was done complaining about it, and I was ready to stare the problem in the face and deal with it. It's not an abnormal thing, nor is it the result of anything I did wrong or could control. I wanted to own it, and share and learn from others. I wasn't going to feel broken, or ashamed. And so I made a plan of action, and I followed it.

And now here I am- To the "that'll NEVER happen!" number on the scale, which is a weight I haven't seen since high school, needing to size down my wedding ring a whole size, doing new things, being excited about upcoming things in life, wanting to create. Feeling strong. Not only physically but mentally. And for me, that was the priority and number one goal in ALL of this. It isn't about being "skinny", it was about being happy. Not just putting on a smile, but feeling internally happy in my quiet alone moments. Usually when looking in the mirror. It was about feeling my age, instead of 15-20 years older than I was. It was about knowing I'll be able to keep up with my kids. It was about showing other women around me that it is possible to beat all of this and come out on top, better than where I started.

And now I feel like this journey has made me feel relevant. Like I matter. Not just another pog in the game.

Not like a victim. Of life, of circumstance, of my body, of my past.

Because let's face it, it's easier to be a victim than to work and face things straight up. It's easier to sit on the couch with a carton of ice cream and complain about how hard things are, than it is to do something about it. And there are still a lot of very tender things I am afraid to face, but all of this is teaching me that I CAN address those things, and I CAN overcome- And it has taken me a long time to come to that realization and to understand that who I thought I was, wasn't permanent. I could change it, and I did change it. Because I had gotten to the point where I had just accepted that I was forever going to feel, and look, and think the way I did. Fat and crazy.

I have never been so glad to be wrong.

Life is hard, but happy.
Our home is happy.
I'm happy.
And it was worth it.

Dear World, I did this.