Onward

Self care has never been my forte. Even when I was the most fit I’ve ever been, I was still drinking a bottle of wine and smoking half a pack of cigarettes every night for dinner. I sure did look good though. 

I look at myself now and wish I could go back to 35 year old me and slap some sense into her. I wish I had taken better care of myself. All of myself—the mental, emotional and spiritual as well as the physical. Especially the physical. Everything hurts now. 

I don’t know what I expected, growing older. But I didn’t expect to still be struggling with my weight or my mental health. Small, ordinary things that most people do on autopilot, like showering for instance, is such a fucking Herculean task for me. I spend half the day psyching myself up for it, and it’s not like I don’t want to be clean, it’s just…hard now. 

Lots of things are harder now: sleeping, eating, laundry, cleaning, cooking, caring…existing, some days. Gratitude is the lifeline that I cling to because despite how I look, or how I feel, I’ve made it this far. I’ve survived every single thing that should have killed me. I think parts of me have died along the way, maybe they needed to die—dead weight gone, so I could continue on. 

And so, gratefully, I continue.