things i'm afraid to tell you.

i found this and was inspired to make my own. (because i need an excuse to make any list.)

maybe some of these are also things i'm afraid to tell myself.*

*they are.

1. i bought size 14 pants yesterday.

this is okay.

however, just typing those words makes me physically uncomfortable. most things i wear are a size large. it's a mental thing. i couldn't bring myself to buy a shirt in XL from old navy the other day. i wouldn't do it. i don't want anything with an X hanging up in my closet. but last night, i bought beautiful emerald green khaki capris from gap. i wear a size 10 in gap jeans. i wear a 10 in old navy jeans. maybe after a few months of more running i'll fit into a size 8. or maybe i'll need a size 12 because my thigh muscles will get bigger. maybe i'll stay a size 10 until i'm 65 years old.

maybe, maybe, maybe. sometimes all the maybes in the world really piss me off.

i can't control how stores design their clothing and i can't control how things fit on my body. i can control the shape of my body to an extent. i can control how toned my legs are and how much i exercise. i can control how much effort i put into changing my body and toning my stomach. but when you lose and gain 100 pounds your body develops other plans. when you do this to yourself twice, sometimes it's hard to even look at yourself in the mirror.

i haven't gained weight. in fact, i'm continuing to lose, slowly, very slowly. i'm six pounds away from my next goal weight. the point is i'm healthy and i'm getting healthier. running is working. running always, always makes me feel good. and this starts with feeling exhausted. but it's an exhausted i'm earning. earn your tired. 

2. i haven't gone to yoga in over a month. 

i don't miss it. 

a part of me does, but running has replaced the meditating i was trying to do on my navy blue mat. i will come back to it at some point, but during that 75-minute class, i was spending too much time in my head, beating myself up, questioning myself, doubting myself, holding back tears because i felt that i could not do what seemed to come so easily to everyone around me. i would look at molly who was always so relaxed and think, "why can't i be like that?" these things don't happen when i run. none of them. running is the only time when i do not think about two dozen things at once. 

so i'm going to continue to run.

3. these words give me hope. and make me feel light:

God is always seeking you. Every sunset. Every clear blue sky. Each ocean wave. The starry hosts of night. He blankets each new day with the invitation, "I am here."

Louie Giglio

i miss going to mass. i'm going to change this. but i don't need to go to mass to pray. prayer is a wonderful thing.

4. i hate that i bought size 14 pants yesterday. even with everything i just wrote. i still hate it. 

5. i don't like to keep a lot of food in my apartment. it makes me nervous. grocery shopping is tricky sometimes. sitting down to meals where a lot of food is on the table can be tricky. i never crave an entire table's worth of food, but just being around that much makes me nervous sometimes. and other times i'm completely fine. i sometimes wonder, was i always like this? did i ever pause to look at the weight of what was on that table and what it would come to symbolize to me? 

the answer is no. i never paused. i didn't learn to pause until i was twenty-five years old.

i have to remind myself to pause. i can't expect to undo 25 years of behavior overnight. i often forget to remember this.