So last week I had a writing splurge. I wrote about those days that we never facebook. I wrote about my hermit habits and my secret eating. I thought a handful of people would read it and they did. Then a few more did, then some people shared it and before I knew it…348 views, 12 countries, 5 continents…brilliant (I thought) then it struck me that my secret eating was out.
A new friend asked me if I had an “emotional hangover”, I sometimes feel like my life is one enormous emotional hangover, but from initial feelings of euphoria I did lunge rather erratically towards fear, shame and a nice healthy dose of paranoia. Something you should know about me is that I was that teenager who saw ‘The Truman show’ and thought that it was my life. I also used to think that my parents paid my friends to be my friends and that I had a strange disorder that I knew nothing about but everybody else did. A giant elephant in the room that was never mentioned.
By and large I am a relentlessly positive person. I sing in public, I smile at strangers in the rain, rap at the gym and recently found myself befriending a widow in Asda car park. But..I am also introverted, insecure, paranoid and fearful. This last week I have been fluctuating between the positive, sunshine and flowers side and the fearful ‘I am so rubbish’ side.
This Sunday I am doing my first triathlon. I am not now and have never been a ‘sporty girl’. I did drama, I love reading, I hate it when people throw balls at me, I do love beach cricket and I did play on our school hockey team but other than that I had assigned exercise (apart from walking and swimming) to an area of life labelled NOT FOR ME. After having two children and a largely sedentary decade I was ready to change, I peeled off that label and started eating better, cycling and went to my first Zumba class. One class became two, I purchased a variety of exercise DVD’S we got an XBOX kinnect and I discovered ‘Just Dance’. Then I got into weights and circuits and interval training. I lost four and a half stone in 18 months and have more or less kept it off.
My lifestyle has changed. More importantly, I have achieved something I thought I never would. 2011 me would say ‘That is not possible’, January 2015 me said ‘I need a new challenge, life is too short too wonder what you can do. I’m going to do a triathlon’. One week before triathlon me is saying ‘Yes. I can do this. I have put in the training, taught myself to run without injuring myself, can swim on my front..pah easy!’ But inside I am thinking, ‘Triathlon? What, now!? Me?! ‘ .
So, I can embrace the risk or I can hide from the risk. My post baby, cake filled stomach will be on display for all too see. I will be slow, I will probably cry but the risk of looking fat or slow or ridiculous is nothing compared to the joy of proving 2011 me wrong. My kids think I am amazing, they will look at me crossing that finish line and dream about what they will do.
So fear can push off. I will not be running alone.
Uncertainty can be out swum.
And after this? Another risk will have to be taken.
Here’s to a life full of risk and the joy that will accompany it.
internalkindness 