“War Paint”

I hate exercising.  This is me when exercising:

I hate it.  I hate it a lot.

Exercise and I don’t have a good history.  I think it started back in elementary school was I was more than a little pudgy and my lack of perceived athleticism created a lack of self-confidence.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve always thought of myself as not athletic.

Anyway, tomorrow I begin my latest attempt to try and get into some sort of exercise routine.  Nearly every morning for the last year I’ve looked in the mirror and berated myself for how my waist size has increased.  I’ve taken to calling it my ‘depression weight.’  It seems to happen every time.

It was last year around this time that I could feel myself turning inward and I could sense the fog beginning to descend again.  I now realize that it wasn’t so much that it came back, but that it had never really gone away.  And now that I have felt ‘normal’ again for a few months, it’s time to figure out what that new ‘normal’ looks like and how I can protect myself from going down that deep hole again.

I get angry when I think about the fall of 2011.  I started running that fall, and for some reason I actually kept up the habit for about three months. I’d never slept so well or had so much energy as I did during those months – despite my hectic schedule.  I was amazed at how well I handled the stress of exams and law school.  But then Christmas came, I went home for the break and I never went back to running.  And nine months later I could not stop crying and I could barely get out of bed.  I can’t help but think that I might have avoided that hellish period had I just kept on running.

So this time, as I begin a new exercise journey, that experience is in the back of my mind.  This time I’m not just exercising because I want to fit into my cute sundresses again – although I really do want that, too.  This time I’m exercising so that I can be me and live my life the way I want.  In a way, I’m exercising in order to keep my own freedom.  If that isn’t motivating enough, I don’t know what is.