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You know it's a pretty sad state of affairs when you have that realisation that despite having nowhere to go, noone to see, nowhere to be... you actually realise just how truly lost you are underneath the daily grinds of jobs, schedules, deadlines, expectations... etc etc.
Having set out on yet another sweaty-adventure recently - my City 2 Sea 14kms in Melbourne - with my sister and "Super Twin" Lynda in tow, I was in a little denial about what this 'get out of town' card truly was.
For a few months I've been harbouring the start of "doubt" - filtering through the thought system like a cancer - threatening to undo my focus and unleash havoc - but I've held strong and stayed on track. My City 2 Sea challenge always my beacon ahead keeping me in check.
For weeks I'd been training up for the day - my fitness is at an all time high. I've been a regular gym-junkie; paraded myself multiple times over Mount Panorama, even brutalised the feet with two stints of a 10-12kgs backpack on my shoulders to make it harder / up the intensity and endurance. I even hit a double-lap of the Mountain before I left on my Melbourne trip a few days before, just to push it into my head how ready I really was.
By the time I made it to Melbourne, I WAS running on pure excitement. I left Bathurst in a hurry. Finalised a few jobs, put the others 'on hold' and ran out the door.
As addicted to these fun-runs as I am, it wasn't the only driving force behind fleeing my life...
I needed a break. From everything. A change of scenery, a change of pace, new sights, challenges, faces... the works.
And running off to do a 14kms fun-run was ample excuse enough! The City 2 Sea itself was FABULOUS!! ... and I was super happy with my "1hr 57mins" time. I walked (albeit shuffled) away with my medal, a very happy girl.
... until a couple days later. After both my sister and Lynda left, I was left to my own devices.
... and it was then that I realised just how lost I truly was. Having finished the goal that had been my driving force for the past couple months, left me a little abandoned, quite winded.
No pressing client deadlines, no full-time internet access (which takes up SO much of my time usually - responding to emails and questions; looking after my FB page; keeping in contact with everyone)... I had no commitments and my 'reason' for the trip was already complete!
I felt completely lost.
It rattled me. It's a really horrible feeling not knowing where you want to be - what you want to do. Feeling completely obsolete - it hurt to the core!!
I was given the keys to my Auntie's car and told I could basically come and go as I pleased. What a weird feeling to have - there with all the freedom in the world and I had no idea what to do with it! (Ironic really, I'm self-employed, live on my own, no ties... I already DO have all the freedom in the world, and still feel 'obligated' elsewhere)...
I've never had that confidence or curiosity enough to jump in the car and "just go somewhere" - I'm a planner and things like that I've actually avoided from sheer lack of confidence in myself.
Butterflies in my tummy told me that I was questioning my ability to drive anywhere - yet the possibility of actually doing something new "just for me" was almost overwhelming!!
"Have GPS - will travel?!!"
Jumped in the car today and managed to find my way to my grandpa's house on my own (... a necessity! After all, I had the dessert for lunch, haha!)
Jumping back in the car later, a trip around the Geelong CBD and beyond, and I was almost "cocky" driving around like I knew where I was going and had some reason to do it!!!
A walk around the local area on my own, and I was pretty chuffed! Not bad for the girl with no sense of direction, no confidence to do these things in 'unknown locations'....
Hitting the beach in swimmers and boardies... wearing a singlet to the supermarket... walking into the plaza and going clothes shopping, "just like a normal person".... oh my god... I can't even begin to explain how liberated I felt! It was empowering! My first ever holiday that I actually felt like I existed!!! (... and how ironic that I was struggling with feeling so irrelevant...!!)
I came on my adventure knowing I'd left behind a wad of nagging questions about my future... I knew "I wasn't quite right" but really hadn't taken the time to acknowledge it in its entirity.
Wasn't until I felt "completely lost" from my lack of pressing commitmets that I realised the lack of substance that all these commitments actually were hiding...
THIS was my universe telling me it's time to sort myself out. Get some structure and goals into place. Put into practice new adventures and challenges so I DO have "somewhere to go and a reason to get there" - my future. The one I've been trying to believe in since I started my life transformation...
Without that, you're stagnant. Going nowhere, and having nothing to keep you moving ahead.
Big decisions on the horizon - do I uproot myself from the "comfortable security" of my everyday current life? - go in search of the things I'm still missing?? Or do I step it up with what I already love in the place I feel most comfortable in and keep building on what I've done so far...
Time to ask the big questions. There's so much more to this huge life transition than just my weightloss... It just feels so empty now.
I've opened the floodgates... must be time to get out there and make waves?!
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SO as it turned out, a couple days later I did a SECOND fun-run - Run Geelong, for 12kms - on my own... and absolutely loved every kilometre of it! I completed this run in about 1hr 35mins and smashed out so many running intervals, I was absolutely STOKED! It wasn't pre-planned, just heard about it while we were in town visiting the relatives, and had to do it - because that's now what I do!
The week off between events - and the break it gave my body - paid off. I came home feeling reenergised and raring to go. Taking a 'break' from reality was a strategic move - I needed OUT from my world for a while....Coming home after, I felt like I'd actually achieved that!
I'd "calmed" the soul and soothed the lingering questions - was all set to get myself back into my business, and put the weightloss "job" aside for a while. Give my body and head a break - and really teach myself how to LIKE the body I am in, appreciate it "as it is" and the person I've become...
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A little note to self I typed on my phone on the drive home...
Learning to be 'normal'... I just want to be normal. I don't plan on being a SLAVE to this weightloss thing for the rest of my life... I see it in other people, the things they say and how they talk about themselves and their weight - and it verges on obsession. I don't want to be the person that's always fluffing on about the food I eat, what exercise I do - there's much more to AMY than what the scales say, what I weigh, how many calories I've eaten today, what size clothing label is sewn into my collar....My little trip away has been great for me - made me realise how much I DON'T want to obsess like that for the rest of my life... how much more "alive" I feel just being me! So much wasted time and nonsensical whinging about something that will ALWAYS come and go. My body and I will be working on this for life - so be it - but I don't want to be a slave to it forever... Driving me insane with the constant anxiety of what a set of scales says!!I want balance and flexibility. I want to be healthy and fit. I want to be STRONG. I want to feel beautiful in my skin. I want to be loved and to love myself. I want to be ME - not an invalidated statistic...
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I thought I'd found my sense of reasoning again... but the Universe had other plans....
Am currently in an "emotional limbo" right about now... my heart is broken. Not yet ready to go into specifics on the public platform here - but I'm shattered with what's happened since I came home...
Just when you think you're 'ok' (and you've spent the better part of the entire week trying to learn how to do that...) - it doesn't take much to derail you again.
.. fighting the 'lost' feeling... I know I'm far too stubborn to let it win, but by god it drains you....
