Time to Get Real

*Disclaimer*  This is a sincere & honest post about where I am (not that previous posts were insincere...) currently.  I appreciate your sensitivity with what I'm sharing....I don't typically verbalize these thoughts to anyone, let alone the blog world.  These are the words & thoughts I battle with and against every day.

My entire life I have always had a very keen sense of myself and my body.  I've always been aware of how I felt about my body & the clothes I chose to wear because of that awareness.  While I love fashion and appreciate it so - I've always kept myself, for some reason, from wearing those clothes I loved and/or appreciated.  Hear me when I say that a long time ago I came to terms with the fact that I am not your drop dead gorgeous, super model type of girl - I'm Anna, suburban, American girl.  I like my eyes and my freckles most of all.  But I would never, and have never, characterized myself as one of those girls that every one notices right off the bat.  And that's ok.

But even with that recognition of my appearance - I have held on to a the small, yet powerful, voice within me that criticizes my body, how I look in clothes, how I look out of clothes.  It speaks to me in the mornings when I'm trying to decide what I want to wear today (and more often than not, I find myself in my good ol' standard stand by comfort pieces).  It speaks to me when I'm putting on my work out clothes - "You don't even make work out clothes look good...why even bother?"  It speaks to me in the evening when all I want to do is snuggle up to my husband and feel comfortable, yet I "hear" that small voice picking away...."you're too squishy, better get to that gym. Don't forget you're going to Hawaii...you don't want to be the white squishy one who stands out now do you?!"  It's an awfully annoying voice that seems to get thru every other thought in my brain.

There are really only a few people who know the full extent how that voice fully impacts me & my day to day life/choices.  And really only one person who knows the depths that it takes me.  Isaac has seen it rear its ugly head, when we're trying to get out the door and I can not for the life of me find one single thing that I feel comfortable in, let alone confident/secure.  Monique is probably the only person I have fully let in to my body image world.  I'm glad I did.  It's such an isolating feeling of beating yourself up so often...You feel like no one quite understands or ever will.  I'm short, and round...that's often how I describe myself.  Now at face value, that doesn't seem quite so bad.  But dig a little deeper, ask some more questions of me...and you'll find a whole plethora of fears buried within.  Fears of not being good enough.  Fears of forever being heavier than I want to be.  Fears of not being comparable to those around me. Fears that I'll always be the short girl with big boobs.  Fears of never being able to wear something I want to - of always being "relegated" to certain types of clothes. Fear...such an ugly word.

Even writing this - putting a name to this - is giving me knots in my stomach.  For the last year and a half, Monique and I have been on a Weight Watchers journey (some times are better than others).  But we are committed to it and committed to being honest with one another through the process.  No matter how hard it hurts, no matter how embarrassing, no matter who has a minor break down or when.  That in itself is powerful for me.  I don't think I've ever really allowed myself to talk about these fears and insecurities so directly.  And I'm not going to stop.  I may not be a crazy person when it comes to working out (I find it so pointless to spend 4-5 hours at the gym...I'd much rather be spending that time with my friends, family, and of course Isaac), and will not sacrifice a balanced life for the sake of this desire.  Now I'm not saying that I'm not going to make any changes -- of course not.  Then I'll always have the same situation.   But I am deciding to take this thing in to my own hands, with a friend/partner by my side, and beat these fears and take back my body image & learn to love myself from the inside out.  You'd be surprised how those fears impact so many other areas of life.

Here's to being real...Here's to being honest...Here's to being brave...and Here's to being vulnerable (not normally a strong suit of mine!)
<3