You Said Tomorrow Yesterday

This has been my life for the last while ... I believe I first saw this image on Pinterest. It was powerful and relevant to my life. There are few things I have started in the last while that I have finished, because I messed up, or my desire for something else was greater than my end goal, etc. I tell myself I can start again tomorrow. Sometimes I do, lately I have not ... Tomorrow has not existed for me because I am either busy beating myself up, or I am indulging in what I set out to give up and change.

I have been asking myself why I suck at life; seeking an answer as to my weakness; wondering why I cannot have the patience to endure and realize my end goal. The past two years of my life have been rough. In my life I have endured tragedy of personal proportions. But I have never done anything like what I did while figuring out my marriage and if it would last or not.

A year ago, I began running. Those who knew me growing up understood that running and I were NOT besties. I would swim across any body of water you challenged me to; bike any trail/road you plotted; you want  me to throw something? OK. Oh, running? NO. But, thank you for the offer ;)

I watched my sister train for half marathons and marathons. Each time she ran, I cried with awe and amazement at her accomplishment. She is incredible. Then I thought of all the excuses as to why that couldn't be me one day.

- I'm overweight
- My knees are not in good shape
- I have never run farther than a 10k
- I have asthma
- There is no way I can do something consistently for 4.5 hrs!
- Etc, etc, etc.

Then a message came ... I need one more person for our Ogden Marathon lottery. Sure! I never get picked for anything. I'll say yes because my friend needed help, and help is my middle name. After I signed up, I didn't think anything of it until the e-mail came ... "Congratulations! Your team has been selected."

*face palm*

Now I have to get training ... half marathon ... 13.1 miles ... ugh ... this will be twice as far as I have EVER run in my life!

So, I signed up for the Strider's Winter Racing Circuit. I got involved in a group called #tmfit. My personal life was falling apart, so all of this fit in perfectly. I needed a reason to focus somewhere else. Basically I needed an out for my hurt, anger, pain, fear, feeling of inadequacy, etc.

So, I began to run. I collaborated with my group. Someone held me accountable. Success. I accomplished my goals.

Summer came and went. My house was finally sold. With the help of my family, I moved out and shoved everything into 1.5 storage sheds, then moved into a bedroom in my mom's house. My body collapsed. I slept until sometimes 9/10 a.m. for weeks. This was particularly odd for me since 7 a.m. is sleeping in for me.

I couldn't bring myself to move back in with my now ex-husband. It was the strangest feeling. He was my husband. What was wrong with me?!? I should have wanted to be back with him. But I couldn't.

The last year has been one of the most heart wrenching years of my life, with the year before that coming in a close second. Never have I cried so much before (also something that is abnormal for me). With my emotions comes something else. It is an addiction I have battled all my life: food.

Yes, I have an addiction to food. It is my emotional comfort blanket. Ever since I was a little girl, I have eaten junk to soothe my pain/loneliness. On top of that, it was also social for me. That was how my mother's ex-husband communicated: through food. I am not sure if he ever knew how else to get people to hang out with him. So, for 16 years of my life eating out was our family communication/hang-out. Food was how Steve expressed his love/friendship.

When I finally turned in my divorce papers, I felt it would all be over. WRONG! The pain of learning how to heal was only beginning. After, I began to not feel liberated, but like an uber crappy human being ... again. My marriage was supposed to be forever. F-O-R-V-E-V-E-R! But ... I am now divorced.

So ... to soothe the pain of feeling like a failure at marriage and life, I began to eat. I didn't just eat, I ATE. And then I became angry, and ate some more ... I gained in the neighborhood of 20lbs eating junk and drinking crap. I slacked off going to CrossFit, so I was making a charitable donation to my gym for about 3-4 months.

My gym started Whole30. I thought that would be awesome. Nope. There was no accountability for me but a calendar that hung on a wall. Whoever was in charge wasn't aware I was participating because I received no information. I didn't finish.

The new year started, I planned to start in February to make my goal by my birthday. Nope. Didn't finish Whole30 ... again ... Fail.

Are you noticing a pattern here? I suck at life. At least that is how I feel right now and have for a few years now. I don't finish things. At least not when I am not accountable to anyone.

My CrossFit Box started 'Spring Cleaning'. I signed up. But again, I didn't hear anything back. I asked myself If I was going to make it. I started ... N-O-P-E!

It was a matter of five weeks before I would run my first FULL marathon. My training was crappy. Not even that was enough to motivate me into eating/training better. The only thing I have going for me right now is mental stubbornness.

So, the last six months or so I have been asking myself, when will I be ready to make the change? When will I commit and complete?? When will it be important to me?

The heartbreaking answer: I don't know. But right now, I am working on little things. When I am ready, I will attack it like a CrossFit workout.

Social Media Dishonesty

For a while I have been thinking about how I need to get back to writing. I love doing it and somehow putting my words down somewhere helps me feel better and work things out in my head. There may only be a handful of people who ever read this, and that is OK.

I miss writing. Plain and simple. I need to do it more. So, tonight, I start here.

First, I beg your forgiveness upfront as most of the time I am working from my iPad. My spelling and grammar may slip through corrections. But I ask you be kind, as we are all human and let's face it, somedays it is hard to be a human.

The reason for my post today stemmed from something I had a Facebook acquaintance post. She wrote the following:

I agree with her on so many levels. How often do we put our lives out to social media in an attempt to let others know "It's OK"? And I will raise my hand as an offender of "vague posts". 

About a month ago I was chatting with a dear friend who was sharing some concerns about another dear person in our lives. This person she was speaking of has a 'perfect' life on Facebook, but her reality is much different. My heart breaks for them both.

An article I read recently states, "Is our social media use turning us into psychopaths bent on dishonesty and poor behavior – among other problems? A new study by the team at WhoIsHostingThis suggests that social media might be bad for our overall attitude towards social behavior.

"According to the company’s research social media users lie more than non-social media users and have more vanity. 2,000 women were surveyed in one study used for the company’s findings and 30% of those women admitted to lying about doing something interesting when in reality they were at home alone. The study also found that 25% of Facebook users admitted to falsifying some of their social account data."

(Read more at http://socialnewsdaily.com/15070/social-media-is-making-us-less-honest/#IYz1JkMMYiOAyyUY.99)

WOW!

I thought about the 'dishonesty' this acquaintance wrote about. Though, is it dishonesty, or is it a method to cope for those who are sharing their lives on social media? Is there anything wrong with choosing to focus on, if not accentuate, the positive things going on in life rather than pointing out the negative? 

Now don't get me wrong. I am not justifying what a person shares, or does not share. I am not saying it's ok to be dishonest. I am only giving food for thought. We all deal with pain in such a different way. There is no rule book for social media in respect to what we share about our lives. However, I feel there is, like this acquaintance's post pointed out, a measure of expectation whether spoken or not that comes when we begin to feel inadequate. 

Do we have opportunities to improve ourselves and/or our online presence? That is for you to decide. I cannot answer that for you. 

Do we also have opportunities to be more charitable to one another? Again, that is for you personally to decide. We are all fighting battles. Some are more public than others. Each person at some time could use a hand up. 

Today my coach at Crossfit noted I was struggling. I had chosen to do a workout alone, even though I had the opportunity to do it with a partner. She asked me how many more Mountain Climbers I had. I told her I had 15. She got down on her hands and feet and did them with me while we counted. 

A hand up. Servant leadership.

I put the food for thought out there because, while my life is by no means perfect, I chose to look to the positive in my life. If I chose to speak/write about the negative, I would feel a whole lot worse about the happenings in my life. Just the same as if I were seriously being dishonest, like the things on the poster, about my life.

Example: Today, the #WOD was hard. It kicked my trash. But more than anything, I will not remember having done the HUGE workout on my own, I will remember this coach and how she gave me a 'hand up'. 

Honestly, I wish I could say everything is peachy-king in my world. It's not. I am flawed. I am human. My experiences with others are 100% genuinely human. 

Perhaps through my 'vague' posts I am more transparent than I believe. Or maybe because of your own personal experiences, you are 'reading into' what I am writing. You won't know if you don't ask.

Focusing on the positive is by no means meant to make you feel less about yourself, inadequate, etc. It is selfishness on my part. I need it. I need to share positivity, happiness, the Gospel, conquered mountains, etc. I need to share my experiences because maybe someone needs it that day, or maybe it will incite thought for change, or who knows. Maybe it won't do anything and my words will just hang out in cyber space stored into some cache until a phrase catches in someone's search net. But I cannot, and will not, judge my writing/experiences based off of 'likes', comments, etc.

A while ago I came to the realization of the power of social media and I decided I wanted to share positive things, no matter how hard life was, no matter how much it sucked, etc. I am working hard because I want to be a light, whether people acknowledge it or not. Light dispels the darkness of life. But it all backfires if I beat myself up for not having more than 30 likes on a quote, experience, or shared link.

Are we perfect? No. Are we expected to be? NO. Do we have to share everything? No. Is life hard? Yes. Are we human? You betcha! Are we different? Thankfully, yes. 

Know you are OK. Do NOT compare yourself against others. We are not the same and neither are our trials. Do NOT listen to the voices of dissenters. 

Dieter F. Uchtdorf said once, "Chose to focus on those things that fill your soul with hope." So, post the good things that are happening in your life. If you feel the need, post the bad and allow us to share/console you in your heartache. But by no means compare yourself and/or feel you are inadequate because YOU are more than enough. Remember: We are all human and that is what makes the journey interesting.

Keep the Light On.

B