The Returning of Me

I was raised to think and do for myself.  When girls were mean to me growing up, which was OFTEN, my mom would tell me that even though it was crappy to deal with, I should not change in order to please anyone.  I am worthy and smart and beautiful and fun and all the other great things and, if I can hold on to those great things, other people will see them eventually.  That's what she said.  She held me accountable RELENTLESSLY, but she also believed in me to an absolutely shocking level.  Because she did, I guess I thought maybe she was onto something, so I tentatively believed in her believing in me.  Teenagers, really, don't believe in much about themselves.  Teenagers are tossed about between opinions their friends share, opinions the media shares, opinions their love interests share, and they are very rarely given the gift of figuring out for themselves what they think of themselves.  When my mom's opinion of me was so high, and she is SUCH a significant person in my life, I fortunately chose her musings about me to buy into the MOST.

So I've always had a pretty strong sense of self- even when I was young and it was basically intertwined with my mother's sense of who I was and who she hoped I'd become.   In the last 20 years, I have become that woman.  And, dare I say, I've been mighty proud of her.

Never has that sense of self been tested as much as it has in the last year.  Getting the news that your child has Autism (or any other disorder or disease, I'm sure) unravels you.  It transports you to a whole different planet, and you have to figure out how to live again on this new planet that you don't want to belong on but do.  Learning a whole different way to live is hard, and I haven't been the best at it.  And, in all honesty, I haven't been happy.  In a very serious, dark, lonely, pit-of-despair way, I was soul-crushingly sad.

I believed deeply that I had been given a thing that I couldn't handle.  I don't believe in religion, and don't believe that everything happens for a reason, and don't believe that Mini was predetermined to be mine for any particular reason.  I believe shit happens to good people all the time, and that the shit I was given was out of hand and unfair and life-long and I just felt trapped and at-the-end and sorry.  And sad.  I put one foot in front of the other every day, because what the hell else are you going to do, right?  I pretended to exist.  But I was a shell of my former self, and had decided the old me was gone for good.  I missed her.  I so, so desperately missed her.

My motto since February of 2013 has been "Just do the next best thing with the information you have today."  I have made a TON of decisions that I wish I could change.  But in the end, I console myself with "I did the next best thing I could, with the information I had at the time."  One decision, however, has been life altering....  And although it sounds vane and petty at first, just sit and hear me out on this.

I started working out.  25 minutes every day.  5 times a week for the last 16 weeks.

I tried because a very important person convinced me, slowly and compassionately, that I could be successful at it.  And although I have lost pounds and inches, and have gained muscle and reduced my body fat, the results I'm most grateful for have nothing at all to do with my physical being.

Working out consistently has made me happy, friends.  Not happy with the way I look (though I am).  It has actually made me spiritually and emotionally happy.  It's returned to me a part of my identity that I thought I'd lost when I became a mother of a child with special needs.  Last year, I lost my identity as working professional, I lost my identity as runner, and I gained an identity I never saw myself having- stay at home mother of a child with special needs.  Because of the all-consuming nature of my sadness, that was all I was these past 10 months.  I was Mini's mom.  And friends, one identity doesn't fill me up.  It's big, yes, but it doesn't complete me.

Working out has reopened all the pieces of me- the wife, the friend, the cheerleader, the athlete.  It's allowed me to take care of myself from the inside out, explore topics that I'm passionate about like eating more healthfully and filling my body with better nutrition.  I am in a facebook group of women who are all on a similar journey.  I don't know if many of them have husbands or children, and I don't know where they live.  But I know they workout, and I know we are trying together to live healthy lives and that connects me to them.  I know I'm good at encouraging them.  I know I'm good at soaking up positive energy when they share it with me, and internalizing it, and passing it on to the Ones I Love.  I know I'm good at not giving up.  I know I'm good at commitment.  And I know that I can be happier than I am when I'm happy by myself.  I am happiest when I am in a space full of people that are working with me to be even happier.

I am proud of what I've done.  I am proud that I wake up every day and give myself the gift of a strong and able body.  I'm proud that I know there is no replacement for my good health, and I am proud that I honor that.  I am centered because I wake up and sweat and breathe and try, try, try in silence and peace.  I know that no other piece of my identity can intervene during my workout, and I love that I can rely on that.  I know that I am relentlessly dedicated to improving the quality of life for my son, and now I know I can be just as dedicated to improving my own quality of life.  If there is something more amazing and empowering than that realization, I'm not sure I've experienced it.

I have cried so hard during some mornings in the dark that I have to push pause so I can start breathing again and so that my contacts will stop stinging from sweat mingled with my tears.  I have laughed at the ridiculous endeavor of asking my body to do something that it's not capable of doing.  I have yelled and fist pumped the air in exultant accomplishment.  At the end, whether I'm in a heap on the floor or jumping up and down from happiness, my body is buzzing with health.  I am grateful for having created the space for myself to Get Better.  Yes, that's with a capital G and a capital B.

Five months ago, I told a number of my close friends that I needed anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication, or both.  I felt I needed help to figure out how to get through the muck I'd been given, just until I could make my way back to the sunlight.  Little did I know that my daily, 25 minute workout would replace my daily dose of prozac.  Little did I know that while I was sweating, crying and cursing my way through every morning, I was rediscovering a laugh I thought I'd lost for good.

I didn't need to find the new me.  I needed to find the OLD me.  It turns out, I think she's pretty great.  I'm so glad she's back.