D is for Draftsack

draftsack 

 a bag of garbage; figuratively meaning a big paunch or belly

Sometimes, watching numbers rise is fun, like if it's your IQ, or the number of Benjamin's in your wallet.  Heck, even Jackson's or Hamilton's.  (Who am I kidding, I even get excited about the Washington's).

If that number is instead, inches around your middle, and everywhere else, well that's just less fun.  And not in a less is more kind of way.

We all have a breaking point; a number we reach where we say, that's it.  This line, I will not cross.  I've reached that line, and I'm too embarrassed to even tell you what it is.  Maybe when I get to the AFTER, I'll have the courage to show you the BEFORE & AFTER pictures.  Vanity restricts me for now. 

Vanity is cruelty.  

It whispers ugly things to me.  

Things that all say this one thing: 

You are not good enough. 

I finished reading Life of Pi and I loved it.  I agree with one of the reviewers who said, "it's difficult to stop reading when the pages run out".  I found several word gems in those pages (which is why I enjoy reading so much anyway).  One, in particular, speaks to this issue and this draftsack I've been schlepping around.  

"To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away."

Translation in Jodie's world: Idle hope... Sitting here and hoping things will change... There is no ship coming to rescue me.  To hope to someday be thinner because I watch The Biggest Loser but then later eat myself into misery is tantamount to dreaming my life away and also digging a deeper hole that I'll have to climb out of later.  

Every week I share things that I love with y'all.  Mostly it's "stuff" that I want, but what I really want is freedom.  This is not God's best.  This is not what I was designed for.  I am not living the abundant life.  Bondage in abundance is not what he meant, but it's what I have. 

I've reached that point where I'm taking myself out of life, hiding myself away; saying "no" more than I want to because I'm embarrassed and ashamed. I don't want people looking at me.  I don't want to put on clothes that fit too closely and spend hours comparing myself to you and trying to cover my "trouble spots", all while trying to put off the vibe that "I'm okay".  I don't want new accessories or new shoes, or a new pair of jeans.  All of those things that I customarily love all just feel like putting lipstick on a pig.  Shopping isn't fun anymore, and that is a dismal thing unto my soul.  I'm a shopper, y'all.   When people say "women be shoppin'", they're talking about me.  But I don't want to shop.  I want my life back.  I want confidence.  They don't sell that at Target.

There is nothing idle about getting free, is there?  I signed a contract and for the next 6 months (at least), I'll be pummeled and pounding the fat out of my draftsack and other regions at a Monday-Friday 5am class, very reminiscent of a B.L. Last Chance Workout.  

I have never been so sore in all my life.  I have to slide and shimmy my way out of bed because it's not yet possible to sit up with ease and I think it goes without saying that lowering myself into a sitting position and then trying to stand up out of it are exceedingly painful and difficult.  It's as hard as it was after my first C-section.  Yeah.  That hard.   I'm hurtin' y'all.

But I'm hurting in a different way than I've been hurting.

It feels like hope. It feels like coming alive.  And it feels good.