Feelings

Some days it seems like I feel too much.

Feeling noun 

     An emotional state or reaction

I feel like I am riding an emotional wave and I want off. I am feeling overwhelmed.  Up and down and maybe slightly round and round.

I am happy but scared. I am enjoying loving in the moment but I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I worry that I am doing this whole thing called life right or if I am failing miserably. 

I am pretty sure that I am just having one of those days where I just can't tell. I can't see clearly and I just wish there was someone to tell me that I am not crazy, what I am feeling is normally and that everything is okay. I wish there was someone who knew everything that I know and could tell me that I am just overreacting.

I also can help but overthink things. I am hoping that I am reading more into things than are actually there as if I am not there is a wave of emotions heading my way. If not today, soon.

So today I am feeling too much. Tomorrow who knows, I may feel to little.

I am Beautiful

2017 - The new me...... well not the NEW, new me..... but the same me I have always been.

Since my last post (for those who haven't read it, you will find it here), I have done a lot of soul searching. It started with joining some of my Konga buddies and going and watching the documentary Embrace. For those who don't know know what this is, I would recommend that you check it out here. It is about how it is time that we all start embracing ourselves no matter how we look. It is about accepting that beauty isn't some kind of perfection and that we are all beautiful no matter how we look.

Once I started to get my head around this, I would like to say that it was easy to move in the right direction, but it wasn't. It took a lot of work, and continues to take a lot of work. It is a case of constantly reminding myself that I am beautiful.

With every time that I look in the mirror with my glasses on I still see what I class as my flaws, but I also am starting to see my external beauty as well as my inner beauty. I see my eyes, which I have always loved and the colour that I could best describe as Blue/Grey. I see my lips which despite my crooked teeth form a cute little smile. I see my giving personality that will go out of the way to help anyone in need. I see my shoulders, strong enough to hold another person if they need a shoulder to lean on. I am not to be defined by how I look, or the number on the scales.

So I am walking in the right direction. One step at a time, one day at a time.

I am not a small size, nor to I ever expect to be, but I am still beautiful. Inside and out!
I am still perfectly imperfect and I don't think that I would want it any other way.

Fat

Fat.... It is a word I personally hate and have spent a lot of time trying not to think of myself using that word. For the first 30 something years I tended not to care enough about it to care if I was fat. I did what anyone does when they are living in denial, they ignore the issue. I accepted that I was fat, I accepted that I would always be that way and I accepted that people around me probably saw me as fat. I just didn't care for the most part, and when I did care I used to tell myself that who cared that I was fat, those around me knew that I was beautiful inside and if a stranger couldn't get past my looks well fuck 'em. That was THEIR problem, not mine.

Then it started to get to me, I started to hate myself more and more with each passing day. I avoided shopping as I hated seeing myself in the massive mirrors and I hated the struggle of finding clothes that fit. What I hated most was seeing that size on the tag and thinking how huge it was.

I promised myself that I would do something about it. I started attending a fitness class where everyone was different sizes and different fitness levels. I gave it my all and slowly I started to change my thinking. I started not caring if I was fat and believing that I was beautiful again. I loved shopping while I am still not a fan of the mirrors I cared less and less about the size on the tags. Now I would love to say that the tag size changed or that I lost a bunch of kilos, but I didn't. It was all in my mind. I felt better inside. Numbers didn't matter. I was happy and knew that no matter how I looked, I was getting fit and fitness comes in all sizes. I gained confidence in not only myself, but my ability. I gained confidence in my happiness.

Now I know by now you are sensing the but...... I promise it is coming, right now in fact.

I did a silly thing this week, I weighed myself for the first time in ages and I had gained a few kilos. It was just enough to put me outside of my "normal" weight range. In fact it was only 2 kgs over my weight range, but all of a sudden things changed. I started hating myself, I started hating my body and while I knew that it could be muscle, it could be water retention, hormones or the fact that I have missed a few classes being sick with a chest infection, my mind skipped all those plausible reasons and jumped straight to FAT. That 3 letter word that systematically stripped away 18 mths of work in changing the way that I felt about me.

Still not wanting to let it deter me, I still managed to drag my fat ass (my brains current description of myself) to class where I attempted to punch out, kick out and squat out my bad mood. The same as what I always do to help with my mental health, only this time it was the last track that screwed me over. It was a plank track. Now at the best of times I struggle with planking. Have you ever tried to support your whole body on your toes and hands? Well I can't do that, heck I can't even do the version where you are on your knees and forearms. I couldn't hold my 110+ kilo body weight up. I kept falling and the more I tried the worse I felt. Think beached whale. I felt ugly, I felt fat and I hated myself, not only for feeling that way, but for letting myself feel that way. 

I cried through the cool down and couldn't escape fast enough. My mood turned toxic quicker than I could blink. I drove home hating myself and then proceeded to cry in the shower, while avoiding even looking at my own body.

This just goes to show that even when you think that you are fine, things change. I know that things will get better and this is just a hurdle. I know that in coming days/weeks/months I am going to look back on this and be like, "how silly was I?" but for now, it hurts. I hurt and there is nothing that anyone else can say or do to make me feel better. I know that only I can change the way I feel and only I can get past it. So this isn't a cry for help, or a cry for attention, it is an admission that everyone has their own personal demons and sometimes it just helps to talk about them or write them down.

So hug yourself, you are the only you that you get. Love yourself as that is the most important thing that you can do for your mental health.

Riding Solo

The first time that I travelled overseas 8yrs ago, I did it on my own. I boarded a plane, for a destination that I had previously only ever dreamed of on my own. I navigated foreign airports and managed to maintain my panic when I was delayed by over 5hrs. I got to London and spent my first few days alone wandering the city in awe. That was the hardest few days of my trip. From there I met up with fellow travellers and spent the next 2wks travelling Europe with a group. I had such a blast. It was AMAZING!

Some people said that it must have been scary travelling on my own, but it really wasn't. Most of the time I was too busy having fun to care. I met some wonderful people and I never really was alone. Even on the flight home it was easy. I had conquered any fear I had of travelling alone..... or at least I thought that I had.

It took me another 5yrs before I travelled overseas again. This time I went back to Europe and again I spent time on my own for the first few days before I met up with another tour group. This time it was for a reason, it was my 30th birthday. I spent it with a group of strangers having drinks in a bar and while I was slightly homesick, it was an amazing night and holiday. By time my birthday hit, I wasn't surrounded by strangers, I was surrounded by people that I had become friends with. I was sad to be going home.

Last year it was New Zealand and earlier this year it was Japan. Each time I travel, if I travel alone, I am never alone for often. I always pick up a tour and throw caution to the wind and have fun. People still think that it takes a certain amount of confidence to travel on your own and I guess in a way it does.

This year I can't get away for my birthday and I was thinking about travelling down to the South West of the state for a weekend away. Part of it was to celebrate my birthday and the other part of it was to take some photos and see a few new things, (the caves, the forest and different beaches). I picked a location, got the leave I needed and I was ready to go, but it was only once I started to look at things in the big picture that I started to worry and wonder if I was dreaming. 

First of all, I am realised that it is expense to travel in your own state and even more expensive to travel on your own. For example I could go away and it would cost me $500 for 2 nights just for me, or if I was travelling with friends I would pay the same plus just an extra $30 a night for them. When I travelled overseas I didn't notice how much I had to supplement my costs because I was riding solo. You notice it when you are planning your own weekend away. I am paying for two people even though it is only me. Why would I want to spend so much money to be on my own. I can do that at home.

Then I started thinking about visiting the caves on my own, bush walking or walking along the beach, going out for dinner on my own and all of a sudden travelling on my own in my own state didn't seem that attractive, in fact it seemed downright depressing. People are not kind when you are on your own. They look at you funny if you go to a restaurant by yourself. They may not say anything, but they judge you. Instead of feeling confident, you end up feeling desperate and dateless. 

It is easy to put yourself out there and push yourself out of your comfort zone when you are already out of your normal surroundings, but it is a lot harder to force yourself out and about when you are just driving somewhere and need to plan your time away so that you don't waste it. Remember when I said that I had conquered my fear of travelling alone.....? Well I guess I was wrong. Maybe I have just conquered my fear of travelling overseas on my own. I still have a long way to go when it comes to riding solo in my own backyard. 

Not sure what I am going to do now. I have a weekend set aside and I am not sure what I should do with it. Can I handle spending that much money to be on my own or do I say bugger it and stay home?

When is a lump just a lump?

So first of all you need to know that this is a progressive post. I have been working on it for a few weeks now.

When is a lump, just a lump?

I am bad. I don’t do regular checks on my breasts, I don’t pay much attention to my health unless it is impacting me at that point in time and if I am honest, I try and avoid my doctor as much as possible. I like living in my fantasy land of ignorance as much as possible. So when I first felt a lump that I had never noticed before I didn't think much of it. I was hormonal and cranky and figured that like most things it would go away. It didn't hurt, so it wasn't on my priority list of things to worry about. To the point where I didn't even mention it to my GP the next time I saw them.

Or the time after that, or after that.

You get the picture.

Over the weekend I admit that I noticed the lump again and it hurt a little bit. This time it hurt when I felt it and it got me thinking. When is a lump just a lump and when is it time to go and see someone about it? Now don’t worry I can here you yelling through the computer screen that it is better to get it checked out than ignore it. I have an appointment with my GP to talk about it, but if I am being honest I can’t help but wonder if I am imagining it. Am I making a big deal out of nothing? I don’t know how long it has been there, I don’t know if it is bigger or smaller than normal and I certainly don’t know if it is normal for me or not. All that I know is that it is there today and in the last 3 days it hasn't gone away.

Doctors scare me. They always want to know everything, and I want to tell them nothing. I like my privacy and even though they are there to help me, I sometimes feel that I am making something out of nothing. It doesn't matter though, I still managed to go and see my GP and utter those words "I have a lump."

Remember how I said I didn't like my Dr? Well that was one appointment that I walked out hating him and maybe even myself a little for taking it so personally. He made me feel silly and while in my head I know that what he was saying was right my heart just wanted an answer. I walked out of his office with a re-education on my periods (like I haven't worked them out over the last 20yrs) and was told to come back and see him if it was still there in 2 weeks. Something about hormone levels,  blah blah blah, and how it will probably go once I get my period.

So now I wait.
.
And wait
.
.
.
And wait. 

The whole time checking myself to see if he was right, paranoid that I am wrong. The pain subsided, but the lump didn't.

Then I get sick and can't seem to shake this cold that has now given me a chest infection and I have to go back to the Dr. He goes to listen to my chest and pauses,  "is that lump gone?" He asks and while it hasn't been a full 2 weeks I tell him the truth "no." He listens to my chest and gives me time off work to rest and then tells me that now we will send you for testing on the lump too. In my mind I am too sick to even work up any worry and just take his request in my stride.

Now at this time I will point out that I haven't really told anyone what is happening as why worry about it when it is 'just a lump'. I do however let it slip to mum that I need to get this scan done and not even thinking about it she suddenly knows and is worrying. She doesn't say it directly, but I can tell she is. I know that even though I have told her not to worry, she still will. I guess it is a mum thing.

I get in quickly to have the scan done, and let me just say, if you thought ultrasound gel was cold when they scan your belly for pregnancy, let me tell you, it is colder when it is on your chest. It didn't take long and the guy doing the scan was really lovely and was quick to assure me that he couldn't see anything major, just a Lipoma (fatty deposit). Not that it is official until the Dr tells me it is all good, but it gave me a chance to breath again.

I finally made my way back to my Dr and he confirmed that everything was Ok. I admit that I breathed a sigh of relief. 

So I guess to answer my own question "When is a lump just a lump?" The answer is, when you have had it checked and the doctor says that it is.