I could choose to be myself.
07/28/2010

    My journey started when I figured out why I was so unhappy.

     I did not care about myself, all I cared about was pleasure. Food was pleasure, television was pleasure, I did not care about my mind body or soul. Everything revolved around my next high, my next hit, in some ways I think it was a kind of addiction.

     I do not know why I felt this way, maybe it was because I'd been picked on most of my life. Maybe it was because I've always been the most intelligent girl in my class, and I was very lonely.

    I'm the youngest of two, my sister is twelve years older than me. I never had anyone to speak to about my feelings, I always felt that there was something wrong with me, and so I did not choose to care about my own well being.

    This all changed when I want to the doctor, and I was informed that I have the same condition as my mother. A major heart condition that has made it hard for me to exercise most of my life. Though supposedly the doctors had checked me every year, no one noticed it. When I would get picked on and could collapse from my heart rate going up to high in middle school, the teachers would refuse to let me get water. (I hated that school, and we moved when I turned thirteen)

    I did not let this stop me. A little bit at a time I found a passion, yoga. I started doing it every morning, and every night. It was so hard at first I could barely breath, my limbs were weak and my heart was worse. But over months it changed, and became easier. I started eating healthy as I learned about what was good for my body. I taught myself what was good for me, and what was bad. No one had ever told me what a calorie was, no one ever informed me that I could choose to be different. I could choose to be myself.

      I come from a family that loves food and has always used it as a method to show love, as well my family is filled with strong willed woman. My mother is an inspiration, she\'s intelligent, strong, stubborn and has raised both my sister and I to reflect values based on the reality of who we are. Though I love them both I disagree in one area, and that is health. They put everyone else first at all times, ignoring their own bodies and in some ways I wish I could find my voice. How do I tell them that I'm worried about their lives? How do I explain that using food to cope with life will just make them more and more unhappy? Every time I think to try, I remember everything they have done for me, and how when I was larger the last thing in the world I would have wanted was to see a thin person telling me how fat I was. But that is not what I mean at all, I do not care about fatness or thinness, their just words. Some people think I am fat now, I can run faster than them, I can lift more and that's what proves my strength.

     Both of them are overweight, and we each have serious heart congenital disease, my mother through no fault of her own has had a valve replaced and she now must take medication for the rest of her life. Scarily enough I have the same condition she does, and when I am older I will very likely have to go through the same insanely painful surgery she has had, and I will have to take the medication.

     All of these things scare me, so I have worked to go from 250 pounds, down to about 160-165. I did not do this for anyone else, I did it because I wanted to be strong physically as I was mentally. I wanted to feel beautiful on the outside as well as my inside, and I wanted to live as long and well as I can. Sometimes I wish my mother, and dearly beloved sister could understand how I feel. I wish they'd accept that their bodies are not who they are, but just one part of who they are.

    Our bodies are our friends, whom we must care for as best we can through life, without them only comes death. But though this is true the beauty and strength of a woman is not her size, nor her face, it is not in her shape or her color. The beauty of a woman is who she is, and what she does, what a difference she makes and who she loves.

    What I seek in life is balance, to live as well, and as beautifully as I can. To do as much good as I can, and to fear nothing and no one. I hope that every woman can one day understand that she is perfect just as she is, and that once you look fear in the eye it dissipates like a cloud of smoke.

    I have had to deal with the fear of death at a young age, I am only twenty years old. While many girls my age inhale smoke and drink, do drugs and have lots of sex, I choose to protect myself. Not out of fear, but knowledge, that I am at my happiest when I know I have done the right thing. I never want to do anything I'd hate myself for.

    Being whole is about knowing yourself, and understanding your good parts and your bad.

Height 5 8" weight: 161 pants size: 10 shirt size: small and your perceived body type: pear