100th Post

Hey, lucky number 100! As I love nice round milestones and markers, I thought I’d take a minute to pause at this entry and reflect a little. I’ve written 100 posts over the last seven months. There have been so many ups and downs! It seems the further along I go the more swings my thoughts and emotions can take. I think it's because I'm starting to really explore things and consequently to get more in touch with how I feel about things. Take this weekend for example. After feeling like a big fat girl I spent the weekend doing nothing but eating fast food and avoiding exercise and generally feeling bad about myself. Not good, but just for the moment I let myself kind of really explore all those negative emotions instead of trying to distract myself from them. I really let myself sit in it and stew for a while. I let my mind run over all my supposed weaknesses and flaws. I even let myself do the “I can’t do this. I’ll never be able to keep this up.” thoughts. Then after getting that out of my system I stopped and then rationally asked myself, “If you can’t do this and it’s impossible, why go on?” And it’s funny because I have such a reaction to a thought like that. I can’t imagine not going on. When you get down to it, I really do believe in myself, my abilities, and I care enough about myself to do this. In the end, I’m a tough cookie who means business. This kind of self-indulgence isn’t something that I would let myself do often but it was something that kind of helped me move past this little emotional slump that’s been creeping in over the past few weeks. To paraphrase Patl, long-term wallowing is not good but sometimes acknowledging feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction can help you to really understand what it is that you need or are striving for in life. I figure that these negative self-doubts I have aren’t bad if I’m channeling them into more constructive path ways. I believe growth and change are painful by nature. Being outside of your comfort zone or forcing yourself to examine just who you really are as a person is going to feel uncomfortable but I’m trying to find a welcome place for it along this crazy journey. So yes I'm feeling better and just like that, I was down in the dumps and then bouncing right back up into the "I can do this!" mode. Thanks to everyone who commented that it’s normal to worry about what other people think about you. It’s nice to know that others do it too. I just for some reason felt well, I guess the best word for it would be vulnerable at that party. Too often I forget that mine is a struggle that so many others quietly experience too and I’m not really alone. So I figure I should end this 100th post with some kind of “What I’ve learned while blogging” statement. But really, there’s so much I’ve learned that it’s difficult to condense into a few nice, neat little sentences (but hey, I’ll try): It doesn’t matter how many times you trip, stumble or fall down flat on your face. What matters is that each time it happens you pick yourself up and keep going again. When it comes down to it, that’s what you do because that’s what it takes. Also, the great thing is that in Fatblogland a hand stretched out to help you back up is never far away!