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I spent two years working towards being a healthier me. I realized my goal weight, then slowly gained half of it back. But that is not the whole picture.

The whole picture is that I am a little bit smarter and a little bit wiser than I was eight years ago. I left a broken marriage after 25 years, became a parent to my parents, said goodbye to my mom, experienced the loss of trust and love of my brothers, moved twice, found a job, and for the first time in my life I am independent. And some days I’m also scared as hell.

In the six years since hitting my weight goal I have gone from one crisis to another. As I managed them all I forgot about me, the physical me anyway. I turned my focus away from diet and exercise and instead to more pressing matters. Using food as a natural coping mechanism for emotional turmoil was no surprise.

I am now in the ‘after time’. The time after the chaos. The dust has settled, the phone is not ringing, urgent and nasty emails have stopped coming in. It is just me. I stop and chuckle to myself as I write this, because we are in the middle of a pandemic, we do not know what the new normal will be, and I am calm and consider this ordinary. Time for me to get back on track. Time to work towards a whole, healthier self while I reflect on things that have been said and done.  To learn and figure out my next steps. 

First, get out of the La-Z-Boy chair. Start walking, take yoga and tai chi classes. I am starting to feel pretty good. The aches and pains are starting to ease a bit. I can feel the large lady shuffle (you know the one, where we shift our weight from one leg to the other as we walk down the street, rocking our form side to side) starting to ease. My hips are a little bit looser, my energy is increasing. I am encouraged, there is progress being made. I know what I need to do and I know I can succeed because I have done it before.

Then I stop. Not all at once because I can’t fool myself if I just up and quit. It’s a slow process. I skip a day. Then it’s raining so I skip another day, ignoring that yoga and tai chi are indoor activities, until I am right back in that La-Z-Boy chair watching tv all night filled with aches and pains. The crazy thing is, I am happy.

Why do I do that? Why do any of us do that? Why do we go back to our old patterns, handling situations in the same way knowing the result is never going to change?

Because we know the dance steps.

This is my normal, it feels familiar and safe, even though I know it’s not good for me. It’s the same reason I stayed in an abusive marriage for so long.  It’s the same reason I continue to trust people when all the warning signs are there urging me not to. It’s the same reason I turn to my chair and to food for comfort. Knowing the outcome of a situation gives a sense of control. I know exactly what I am expected to do or say.

It’s like arguments we have with a spouse, child, or maybe a parent. The argument starts and you know how it is going to end, or you say something that you know will spark an argument. It’s the same argument you have been having your entire relationship. Maybe it’s a different subject, but the scenario, the outcome is the same. You have danced this dance before.

We are creatures of habit, and our ordinary, normal lives, whether they are healthy for us or not, are what we know, recognize, and understand. The people in our lives don’t want us to change. If we change then they have to adjust the way they respond to us and they will fight against it. The easy thing is to avoid change, stay in that La-Z-Boy chair, and keep our lives running smoothly rather than trying something new.

Or maybe, rather than trying to change our entire world, we could start with one minor adjustment, one small thing that will help us towards that healthier place we all crave to be. I may not have won the war against my weight yet, but when I started this journey of a better me, I made a change. I learned a new dance step. I haven’t mastered an entire new dance, but boy am I embracing the lessons.

Love,