pity party

WARNING: psycho-babble blog entry ahead - PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Yesterday, Sunday, for no good reason I started getting that awful, tight, sore feeling in my right hip. It's an old vulnerable spot from a car accident when I was 19. For a lot of years I had chronic pain there. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that sometimes it flares up.

As I was winding out for the night having gone through my battery of stretches, and ice, and heat, and self-massage trying to loosen it up I got thinking about what that pain means to me.

It IS, quite literally, the embodiment of "not good enough" and "what will happen if...?"

Long story short, I am out of touch with my inner "sexy". I have let that die. I have covered it up with fat and aches and pains and busy-ness. And while I've said it before, I will say it again, this journey is NOT about some number on the scale. It is about FITNESS and being able to keep up with the life I want. It is about getting rid of all the stupid, weight-exacerbated prescriptions in my cabinet. It is about simply NOT being fat.

I am grateful that I know myself and my body well enough at this point to know that there are a myriad of "looks" I will never have. I just want to look in the mirror and be normal instead of fat.

And now, I need to give myself permission to let these next 9 months happen. Let them unfold slowly. So that when I'm standing at the starting line on September 18 I'm ready to let the marathon be the 26.2 mile gateway into the best years of my life with MY best body. And feeling good in that skin IS sexy.