I woke up today feeling tired, busy, and weirdly okay.
Not amazing. Not transformed. Not standing in front of a mirror giving myself some inspirational speech before sunrise. Just okay. And lately, honestly, okay has started to feel pretty damn good.
My life still feels like it has too many moving parts. Work. The house. My daughter. Dating. My health. The tree company. My brain doing that fun thing where it tries to process seventeen emotions at once while I am just attempting to answer an email. But today felt a little steadier. Like maybe I was not constantly bracing for the next thing.
I spent most of the day working, fixing things, organizing things, moving between projects, and having at least one personal argument with technology. Basically, a normal day in my current life. But underneath all of that, I felt something I have not always felt lately.
Proud of myself.
Not in some huge dramatic way.
In a quiet way.
Because I have spent most of my life really overweight. It started around puberty, and as I got older, I realized nobody had ever really taught me how to eat. I was not taught portions. I was not taught that water was something my body actually needed instead of something you occasionally remembered existed. Regular exercise was definitely not presented as a normal part of taking care of yourself.
Growing up, boxed foods, fast food, soda, and sweet tea were just normal. That was food. That was life. Eventually, as an adult, I started learning what my body actually needed and how differently I felt when I treated it better.
The gym, however?
Absolutely not.
For years, the gym remained the demon sitting quietly in the corner while I pretended we had never met. 😂
Then somewhere in my mid-forties, I finally decided to grab this whole health thing by the proverbial horns. I started changing how I ate, paying attention to portions, drinking actual water like some kind of hydrated adult, and making myself exercise even when every molecule in my body would rather have remained horizontal.
Now I am down 70 pounds, with at least another 50 I would like to lose. I have cut sugar, dairy, and bread. I am eating cleaner, learning what portions actually look like, drinking my water, and getting to the gym or working out two or three days a week.
And today I grabbed a belt I bought in my early thirties.
I could barely wear this belt back then.
Today, I wrapped it around my waist, and it kept going.
And going.
And apparently trying to begin a second lap. 🙃😂
I just stood there staring at it for a second because sometimes you do all this work and your brain somehow still sees the old version of you. The scale can move. Clothes can get looser. People can notice. And somehow your brain is still standing there like, “Are we sure?”
Apparently, the belt was sure.
It was such a stupid little thing, but it made me ridiculously happy. Not because I am finished. I am not. Not because I suddenly have everything figured out. Definitely not. I am still learning my body, learning food, learning consistency, and learning that exercise does not actually kill me despite years of very convincing internal propaganda.
Emotionally, things were quieter today too. Not perfect. Not magically healed. Just quieter. I was still thinking about dating, people, effort, conversations, and all the weird little things my brain likes to investigate without a warrant, but I was not drowning in any of it.
I worked. I handled things. I laughed. I overthought a few things that probably did not deserve the committee meeting I gave them. I discovered that an old belt has absolutely no problem calling you out in the best possible way.
And now we are officially caught up.
No more trying to cram months of chaos into one giant explanation. From here on out, this can finally become what I wanted it to be in the first place.
Real life while it is actually happening.
Seventy pounds down.
Still going.
Still learning.
Still choosing myself.
And apparently needing a new belt.
My life. My voice. Whatever comes next.
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