Wednesday Wonderings

Sometimes I catch myself stuck in thought. Today's thought came while sitting at Rivercrest Country Club watching the kids I'm babysitting. The kids I'm watching today are sweet. Not spoiled, not snobby. However, I look around at the kids surrounding us, and find myself being a bit judgemental. Designer everything, pulling up in the Mercedes, BMW, Audi, or what have you. Even those that can't drive are dropped off by parents driving such vehicles and the kids walk in like they own the place. I live with people that can afford the same lifestyle and yet they, nor their kids, act in such a self entitled way as the people I saw today. 

The woman taking our lunch orders at the pool was so grateful just because the kids and I said thank you. She then went on to say how surprised I would be at how many people act as if she is not there (that is until an order is wrong, or service isn't as prompt as desired). To some extent, I wonder what my life would be like if I had the type of money that the people around me had. Making good grades probably wouldn't be such a big deal to me because I wouldn't need the scholarships I have now for academics so that I can make it through school. Having multiples jobs would be obselete because I wouldn't need to help pull my weight in my household nor would I need money to make a monthly car payment. When I think about how hard I have to work, I begin to envy these people's wealth. What I wouldn't give just to go to college, hassle free, only worrying about school. How nice it would be to have mom and dad pay for me to live in an apartment and pay for all my food. 

But, then I think about the life I have. It is perfect for me and has made me the person I am today. The person with good, down to earth friends. The person that thinks about the future and wants to better myself because I don't want to work multiple jobs all my life. The person who loves her family and is best friends with my mom, without a doubt in my mind that they would do anything for me. I am the person I am because of the upbringing I was given. I feel that the kids that surrounded me today are also a result of their upbringing. Like the kids I am watching today, parents are responsible for teaching their kids to be polite, respect authority, and grateful of all they have been blessed with. I am around plenty of people every day that could be snobs by the amount of money they possess, but they aren't because they know that money does not make you better than anyone else.

So, when I see people that are unaware of how grateful they should be because of their comfort due to wealth, I get angry. When I was born, my dad had a job that would allow me to live the life of the people I saw today. But, he lost that job and then spent the next several years bouncing from company to company (not because he is not talented but because he has always been in the maintenance area of companies, which is the first to get cut when profits dwindle). Do I wish things would have turned out differently for me? Actually, no. It would be nice to buy anything I wanted when I walked in a store, but when I reflect on the person I am today because of the way my life is, I could not be more grateful. 

I am on this rant today, not to be annoying, but to remind parents to raise their children to live with dignity, and to respect authority so that others will want to be around them and not be viewed as I viewed the kids today.

Throwing Away the Past

I have spent most of this week cleaning out my closet, dresser, and pantry. The decision to do this was not from my own motivation, but from my mother's constant nagging about how she couldn't take it anymore. While I understand that my mom's desire for cleanliness and orderliness is much more defined than most people, I did not think my closet was that bad. My thinking, "I know where everything is, the floor is clearly visible, all my dresser drawers shut... why must she constantly nag me about cleaning things out." After listening to her for a month, at least, I decided Monday was the day. I was just going to buckle down and get it over with. As I mentioned in my last post, I am one that likes challenges, and thankfully that causes me to do things well, anything done half hearted is not acceptable for me. So, clean I did.

Clearly I greatly under estimated how much stuff I had. First, I went through and took out all the clothes I haven't worn in months (some that haven't been worn in years). Two 40 gallon trashbags full of clothes later, I had succeeded in getting rid of everything I can't or don't wear, not to mention ridding my closet of at least 200 unnecessary hangers. At this point, I realized something. Keeping all of that stuff in my closet for so long had caused me to feel stuck, but I didn't even realize it until it was all gone. As I also mentioned in my last post, I have something that I struggle with daily, and that is my weight.

It has been an on going battle for me since middle school. Though dance was a hobby that I loved and excelled at, it also called for being thin. Now, I'm being honest with y'all. I am not built like a ballerina. I never had the thin, toothpick legs, narrow hips, or flat chest. My mom always told me it was a blessing because she could always recognize who I was during performances, but I found it to be a curse. I shed countless tears about how I didn't understand why God built me the way that he did yet allowed me to have such a passion and talent in dance. "You're beautiful," my mom would say. "You're an incredible dancer," my teachers would say. But none of that mattered to me. All I could hear is what I told myself. "You're too big. You look different. You're legs are too big. You're fat and need to lose weight," was the constant loop of negativity I let roll through my mind. So, I did something about it. I stopped eating, not completely but I had limited myself to far too few calories to truly be sustainable. Granola bar for breakfast, yogurt for lunch, side salad for dinner... every day. I would beat myself up for diversifying my food intake at all. "You shouldn't have eaten that handful of nuts or piece of candy... look at your stomach now." I weighed myself every day, multiple times a day. When my weight went down I was happy, if it went up at all, you did not want to be around me. I am 5'5" and weighed 105 at my skinniest. That number doesn't seem that low, but on me it looked scary.  For over a year I lived this way. It was my sophomore year in high school and into my junior year. The only way I got better was a lot of love from my family and God humbling me by allowing my foot to break while dancing and keeping me out for 8 weeks.

Anyway, I tell you that not for sympathy, but to emphasize the relief I felt after finally cleaning out my closet. I finally threw out all the jeans and shorts that I will never fit back into because I will never be 105 pounds again. It was a relief to finally get rid of the stuff that I had during the time period when I was so depressed, and literally out of my mind. I still struggle with how I see myself and how much I weigh every day and if you were to talk to my sweet boyfriend he would probably still say that I'm out of my mind (because he gets to hear all about how I see myself and is affected by the mood swings I have based on my weight). But, I am not as bad as I used to be and I have family and close friends to thank for that.

So, if I have any encouragement for those of you struggling with whatever it is that burdens you, it is to get rid of all the stuff that was a part of your life when you were at your lowest. Without the constant reminder in your face every day, such as a pair of jeans I will never fit into and be healthy, the easier it is to heal and move on.

Rolling with the Changes

I don't know that I consider myself a writer, but I find that I have become addicted to reading my friends' blogs and have come to the conclusion that writing one myself would be a good way to detox.

I have changed a lot over the past couple of years, but I guess everyone does once college years envelope us. I was a dancer from age 2 through my freshman year in college. To say that turning my once beloved hobby into a college major left a bad taste in my mouth would be an understatement. That being said, I felt there needed to be a change in my life while I still was able to see the beauty in dance and still had passion for it. Needless to say, I changed my major from dance to early childhood education and colleges from SMU to TCU. I have no doubt in my mind that TCU is where I am supposed to be for college and have felt that way from the moment I transferred. However, though happy about changing majors, I was now unsure of my identity. Everyone had always known me as Katy the dancer. Now who was I? Katy the student? It was the first time in my life that I was not doing the one thing I knew that I was exceptionally talented at. All I had to claim now was that I was a student. All the new people I would meet at TCU would know me as nothing more than a classmate and could only classify me as such. I found that this indeed turned into a huge identity crisis for me. I was not ready to accept the fact that I was indistinguishable from anyone else around me. So what could I do to make myself feel like I was different and something important that made me unique? I knew I liked to excercise [for those of you who don't know, dance requires much athleticism and strength and results in much sweat and hard work in order to excel] so I now needed to find something else to do since I no longer had the time to devote 16 hours a week to ballet classes.

I decided to give running a try, it couldn't be that hard right? Wrong. I went out for my first run with the goal of a mile. Knowing nothing about running, I started off way too fast and might have made it a quarter of a mile before sucking wind caused me to stop. Whether a good or bad trait, I like challenges, so I was not about to give up on running. I could tell you that I just kept at it until I was running mile after mile, no problem. This in a sense is true, but the picture painted by such phrases make it seem that it was an easy task. It wasn't. It was a long, hard process that totally sucked. But, when it comes to my ego and my fitness, I am not a quitter so I eventually did make it to the point where running became something I enjoyed and craved on a daily basis. And yes, the mileage did build, though it took me a good two years before even considering running a half marathon. I've done two and there will probably be more but I am happy to say that I feel comfortable identifying myself as a runner and am no longer wallowing in self pity about not being unique.

I will not try to fool you and act like I have everything together. I am far from it. I struggle in a particular area daily. But that is for another time. However, I do hope that this encourages anyone that may be struggling to find themselves that it is possible. Change is possible, even for someone who did the same thing from 18 years.