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Reinvention and Life
So. Things have happened to me and with me in the past few weeks.
Jess is dating for one. So that's... a thing. About with I have feels which I am basically trying to be over. It's working better than you'd think.
Secondly, I cut my hair. I donated about 18 inches of length to Locks of Love. And the haircut I got is very cute and manageable and was free from an honest-to-goodness salon. My hair is the shortest it's been since 6th grade, and I didn't even cry or anything. I love it, the stylist was excellent, and it makes me happy in ways that I hadn't anticipated. It also feels like a really positive change.
Thirdly, I joined the brand new gym down the block, and have been five times in seven days since I started going. They close early on Saturdays and Sundays, so I missed those with work. I already feel great. It hurts and I have to push myself, but I'm already seeing improved flexibility and reduced joint pain (this latter makes little to no sense, but I'm ok with it).
I'm usually there pretty late and so am mostly alone, which is cool. There's also these delightful tv things on all the cardio machines which can play music videos or - as I discovered tonight - can pull the video from an iPod and play /that/ on the screen. I legit spent 30 minutes on the elliptical tonight and kept my HR above 150 for 20 minutes of that because I had the Time concert going and there is no better workout music. (Yes that's very low, but I am a /big/ girl at this point, and the system suggests going for an HR of 127. 150 is where I end up when I'm breaking a sweat. Which beats the hell out of the 175 I was trying to survive back in CO. Thank heaven for sea level.)
Anyway, I had a very serious moment with myself in the mirror on day 3. I had seen my muscles working while I was using the fee weights over by the wall and realized just how bad my weight has gotten. You can /see/ the muscles in my arms or abdomen trying to work, flexing, but you can also see how badly contorted my body is by the extra fat. It scared me a little and I am serious about keeping up with this. Pretty hardcore actually. There is a 180 lb woman inside me who is healthy and happy and fits into her Olivie costume and is going to cosplay Aya someday, and look better in Saku, and it's high time I put some effort into letting her out. So anyway.
I've also been dealing with the slow-moving emotional fallout of the Jess breakup which... is weird. I think I knew a long time ago that she wasn't for me, not really, and maybe she's not for anyone who needs physical contact and emotional support. I'm realizing slowly that maybe I don't want to date at all, it's not something that I really feel a desire to do, and I'm such a mess mentally and physically that I don't know if I qualify as ready to date by Savage Love standards.
Which leads me to tonight's revelation. In the summer between 8th and 9th grade (age 13, I think), I decided who I was going to be. We were moving to Colorado, and in a very straightforward conversation with myself I laid out a play. I chose to leave behind the friends that I'd had in California, and the drama and teen-girly stuff that I had been doing with them. I chose not to linger on them, and to focus on academics and myself. I wrote a lot, I got into new music, I got into the internet, and it was early in the next year that i started actually getting into Anime and through that finding fandom and fic. That night, walking the block outside Ethan's house alone after a particularly powerful episode of B5, changed who I was. Now it's 13 years later and I feel like I am in the beginning of another such change, and I really hope that it is for the better.
I am not talking about work, which is still all kinds of bat shit, but that's a different problem.
Jess is dating for one. So that's... a thing. About with I have feels which I am basically trying to be over. It's working better than you'd think.
Secondly, I cut my hair. I donated about 18 inches of length to Locks of Love. And the haircut I got is very cute and manageable and was free from an honest-to-goodness salon. My hair is the shortest it's been since 6th grade, and I didn't even cry or anything. I love it, the stylist was excellent, and it makes me happy in ways that I hadn't anticipated. It also feels like a really positive change.
Thirdly, I joined the brand new gym down the block, and have been five times in seven days since I started going. They close early on Saturdays and Sundays, so I missed those with work. I already feel great. It hurts and I have to push myself, but I'm already seeing improved flexibility and reduced joint pain (this latter makes little to no sense, but I'm ok with it).
I'm usually there pretty late and so am mostly alone, which is cool. There's also these delightful tv things on all the cardio machines which can play music videos or - as I discovered tonight - can pull the video from an iPod and play /that/ on the screen. I legit spent 30 minutes on the elliptical tonight and kept my HR above 150 for 20 minutes of that because I had the Time concert going and there is no better workout music. (Yes that's very low, but I am a /big/ girl at this point, and the system suggests going for an HR of 127. 150 is where I end up when I'm breaking a sweat. Which beats the hell out of the 175 I was trying to survive back in CO. Thank heaven for sea level.)
Anyway, I had a very serious moment with myself in the mirror on day 3. I had seen my muscles working while I was using the fee weights over by the wall and realized just how bad my weight has gotten. You can /see/ the muscles in my arms or abdomen trying to work, flexing, but you can also see how badly contorted my body is by the extra fat. It scared me a little and I am serious about keeping up with this. Pretty hardcore actually. There is a 180 lb woman inside me who is healthy and happy and fits into her Olivie costume and is going to cosplay Aya someday, and look better in Saku, and it's high time I put some effort into letting her out. So anyway.
I've also been dealing with the slow-moving emotional fallout of the Jess breakup which... is weird. I think I knew a long time ago that she wasn't for me, not really, and maybe she's not for anyone who needs physical contact and emotional support. I'm realizing slowly that maybe I don't want to date at all, it's not something that I really feel a desire to do, and I'm such a mess mentally and physically that I don't know if I qualify as ready to date by Savage Love standards.
Which leads me to tonight's revelation. In the summer between 8th and 9th grade (age 13, I think), I decided who I was going to be. We were moving to Colorado, and in a very straightforward conversation with myself I laid out a play. I chose to leave behind the friends that I'd had in California, and the drama and teen-girly stuff that I had been doing with them. I chose not to linger on them, and to focus on academics and myself. I wrote a lot, I got into new music, I got into the internet, and it was early in the next year that i started actually getting into Anime and through that finding fandom and fic. That night, walking the block outside Ethan's house alone after a particularly powerful episode of B5, changed who I was. Now it's 13 years later and I feel like I am in the beginning of another such change, and I really hope that it is for the better.
I am not talking about work, which is still all kinds of bat shit, but that's a different problem.