Amazing what a year can bring!

It has been a while since I made it on here to do one of these.  Life got a little hectic there for a while.  It can get a little hard to get back into the swing of things once you have taken time off of something.  I had the time to do one of these for the last week or two, but couldn’t get motivated.  It isn’t like I didn’t have enough material to write about – I just had no desire to do it.

. . . so what if it messes up one of my goals for this year.

But now I am back and I have to decide which topic, of the many topics I could write on, do I choose?  I could talk about the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday.  But whose mind am I really going to change? And I fear all it will do is serve to further divide – that is the last thing this country needs. I’ve spent the last month or two entrenched in HOBY, I could write more than a couple blogs on that.  But I fear that I already talk way too much about HOBY to my non-HOBY friends and readers.  I believe I have lost at least 30 pounds since December/January by eating more often, but healthier, and exercising more.  And I feel better than I have in a long time, now that I have healed from all of my injuries.

Maybe I will write a little about all of them since they all kind of tie in together . . . except for the Supreme Court’s decision because, let’s face it, I am just plane tired of both sides bashing each other – aren’t you?

Almost a year ago I took my first trip to Chicago to volunteer, for the first time, at the World Leadership Congress (WLC).  It is the culminating event each year for HOBY, which I have been heavily involved with on and off since 1994, when I was a sophomore in high school and had the honor of participating in the local Arizona seminar.  It was an incredible experience and I am pretty sure I got more out of the WLC than the sophomores did.

But there was at least one issue that made me slightly uncomfortable (to say the least). I was the heaviest I have ever been in my life . . .

Let’s back up a little.  In January of 2011, I had an unfortunate kickball accident (Yes, the same sport we all played in second grade – get your laughs out now) where I broke my knee and sprained my ankle really bad.  Two months later I had another unfortunate accident dancing a jig at a Flogging Molly’s concert (again, get your laughs out now) and broke my hand.

Needless to say, I was a little more sedentary than I am used to and, let’s face it, feeling a little sorry for myself about my situation.  Several months passed and I was still unable to do much on my knee; I was beginning to think that my knee would never fully recover . . . and frustration added to my depression.  Well, all the lack of exercise combined with all of the same bad eating habits I learned when I was a young adult added up to the fattest me I have ever been. 

My shorts and pants, which I purposely buy a little loose around the waist, barely fit anymore.  I had to put away many of the smaller large shirts I had because I didn’t like the way they fit on me anymore and replace them with some XL shirts.  This did not make me feel better about my situation.

Now back to WLC, each volunteer and ambassador received three shirts to be worn throughout the eight days (don’t worry they were washed before they had to be worn again).  My application still had me down for a large shirt from previous years and I had not thought to change it (the LSC of the AZ seminar went by what we told her rather than the application so I got an XL there).

Two of the three shirts ran on the small side of large and I did not like wearing them at all!  Each morning, when I put those two shirts on, I would pull on them and stretch them out as best I could (without ripping them) in an effort to keep them from being form fitting and exposing my lack of form . . . it led to more than a few uncomfortable moments.

Fast-forward to a few days after WLC and my facebook account was blowing up with activity from excited and inspired sophomores ready to take on the world and already talking about how much they miss everyone . . . and that is when I saw it. Amidst all the likes, and comments, and tags – I was tagged in a photo with one of the ambassadors from my group.  Tagged for all of the facebook world to see was me . . . and my man-boob.  I was horrified!  I desperately wanted to untag myself.  But she was very happy about the photo and her experience and I didn’t want to send a message that I did not want people to see me with her by untagging myself after she had tagged me.

It is really hard to even post this here.

Alright, let’s make use of the sandalmarks time machine again and head back to 6^th grade.  I was visiting my friends and my uncle at a school I used to go to during my current school’s spring break (yes, I spent my spring break at another school – commence the nerd comments).  I was talking with an old friend of mine and a couple other guys. We were discussing a girl or a female teacher (funny, how now I can’t remember which) and the topic of her small breast size came up.  My friend told me that I should run over there, flash her, and ask if she was jealous . . . everyone laughed at the idea.  And I did too. But inside I became insecure about my chest.

Now I had been insecure about my weight before this, but I cannot think of an earlier time when I was insecure about my chest.  It has since probably become my biggest insecurity (definitely about my body).  It is funny how one small off-handed comment can be so detrimental to a person’s psyche. I am almost positive that he didn’t even mean to insinuate that I had man-boobs.

I bring this up so that you all can get an idea of just how mortified I was to see that photo on the internet with me tagged in it. But I am glad it happened.  That was my catalyst.

Since then I have started to eat healthier and exercise and I have lost around 30 pounds.  In fact, I am less than 5 pounds shy of when I was running marathons 4 years ago, which coincidentally is my high school weight. I feel better than I have in a long time!  And I owe a lot of that to the photo of me on facebook.

I feel a lot better now!

 I am still tagged in that photo. I won’t untag it either. 

On more than one occasion, people have said that I am brave for my willingness to air personal details of my life on such a public forum. I have a feeling people might say so again after reading this entry.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a huge part of me that is telling me to scrap this entire entry right now while there is still time (maybe that is the real reason it has taken me three weeks to sit down and write this entry).  

‘You are just giving people ammunition to hurt you!  What are you thinking?! Protect yourself.’

And yes, there is a chance that some people will see this and use it to hurt me in an effort to bring me down.  But I refuse to dwell on the negatives in people.  I will always believe that we have the capacity to be better.

I mean, shame on me for taking part in a conversation that poked fun of a woman or young lady about the size of her breasts in a moment of weakness; struggling with my own insecurities.  I am better than that. I refuse to let my insecurities keep me from becoming the great person I was created to become anymore.  Instead, I will put them out there, in black and white, for the whole world to see. 

Who knows, maybe I will help just one person struggling with their insecurities move past them toward the person they are meant to become too!  That possibility alone is worth facing all the negative possibilities that the world can throw at me.

Until next we meet.