When I say bad depression, I mean bad.

It was an hour and twenty minute drive to work.  It was the same back.  I cried the entirety of both trips.  Several times I had thoughts about how if I just turned my steering wheel slightly I could go off the road and wouldn’t have to go in.  I spent more than 12 hours away from home a day and all I could do at home was sleep.

I cried then, too.  I cried myself to sleep.  There are some horrible and awful things I thought that I never imagined I would.  I lost interest in anything I originally liked.  I even thought about breaking up with Greg because I felt like I was burdening him.

It was just a mess.  A big emotional mess.

Now, part of this was attributed to my birth control pills changing a bit, but it is fully and completely attributed to that job.  The only time I wasn’t crying, was at work, because I wanted to be happy and a good employee.

I quit the day before Thanksgiving and haven’t really looked back.  Yes, I miss having an income of any sort, but I was spending $100 a week on gas and was not getting the hours I was promised.  I barely made enough to pay to get to and from work.

In the end, it just wasn’t worth it.  I’ve spent my life working for my education so I can maybe do something I love.  I didn’t spend all that time in school to start off in a job that I hate.  Nobody should be forced to work in a job they hate. I’d rather work in fast food than have to go through that sort of torture.

That’s what really drove me to quitting:  I’m too young to hate my job.

So right now, for the most part, I am happy and unemployed.  I’m also looking into more schooling and hopefully more specialization.

This has been a post.

The conclusion I’ve made, is that I haven’t been making any conclusions about things in my life anymore.

Genius, right?

Honestly, though, I’m still in a very transitional stage in my life.  I am still in this weird limbo stage where I have not progressed forward.  In general, my life has been focused on school, career, and socializing. What have I been doing for the last 9 months since I graduated college?  None of that.  Yes, I’m trying to get a job and improve my career, but it’s just not happening for me right now.

This change from 17+ years of schooling and focusing on “what I want to be when I get older” to just not caring about a job or seeing ANY of my friends is throwing me off.  Really, it is!

Instead, I’ve decided to focus on something new; health.

My health and how I feel about myself are pretty much the only thing that I have full control over.  The excuse has always been school getting in the way, or whatever else I could come up with.

I have no excuse now.

I started half-marathon training yesterday.  I am signed up for the Detroit Free Press Marathon in October.  I’m going to run a marathon.  I’m utilizing the fact that I have no other commitments in my life right now to finally do something good for me.

Yes, in the process I’m trying to find a job.  Yes, I’m going to do other things.  Right now, though, my only goal is that marathon, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to accomplish my goal.

In this blog I do a lot of thinking about events and things in my life.  Right now, there isn’t a whole lot going on that I feel I need to talk about or explain.  Maybe that means I’m maturing, and I’m not worrying about things nearly as much.  Maybe that means my brain isn’t functioning the same.  Whatever it means, I’m just going with it.  I’ve tried to fight it for too long now, and I’m tired.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what I’ve been thinking about.

The last three months have been a whirlwind of emotion.  Seriously.  I contemplated getting looked at for possibly having manic depression.  I’ve had some very high highs and very low lows.  Life changing things are hard to manage and deal with.  If I thought the transition from high school to college was rough (which I didn’t) then obviously I was not nearly prepared for transitioning between college and real life.

The problem with adjusting to real life is that I’ve never had to experience it.  College wasn’t hard to get used to because I had been going to school for the vast majority of my life.  I don’t know anything other than class schedules, homework, reading assignments, and horrible grading systems.  Well, let me phrase that more properly… I didn’t know anything.  The thing that happens with time is that you start learning more as time continues pushing you into adulthood.  Therefore; I learned.

This isn’t really catching up, is it?  I’m getting all whimsical and failing to tell the real life details of what has happened lately.  Let’s get to that.

I know I posted in July… however, I forgot to mention the fact that I’m now in a serious, committed relationship with a pretty amazing guy.  It’s been almost 4 months and just keeps getting better.  Insert sappy emotional jargon and let’s move on.

A month after we were “officially” in a relationship/dating/seeing one another/whatever the kids call it these days, I got on a few planes and settled myself in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, England with my sister and brother-in-law.  My flight left the day before his birthday.  I felt super awful about that, but really there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

In England I had an enjoyable time.  Other than getting an ear infection and pinkeye (who gets pinkeye, really?!).  However, I got very lonesome.  It’s one thing to be alone.  I can handle being alone.  I LOVE being alone, but I wasn’t alone, I was lonesome.  I’ll spare the details, but pretty much I ended up going home a month into the vacation instead of staying the full two months.

I just wanted “real life” to start.  It was bad enough when I was home for the summer and waiting for the trip to England.  It was even worse when I was in England looking forward to going home so my life could start again.  I was on hold for far too long.

I came home.  I joined a gym.  I applied to jobs.  I saw my friends.  I saw my boyfriend.

Life has been really good.  But I’m me, and what am I good at?  Worrying.  Dreading. Over-thinking everything.

I’m my own worst critic.  I am incredibly harsh on myself for things I shouldn’t even care about and things I have no control over.  If I didn’t know that before (I did, just not to the extent I’ve experience recently) I sure know that now.

About a week and a half ago I had kind of a personal break down.  It started with not having anything to wear to this interview I had last week (more on that later).  It cascaded into saying really mean and horrendous things to myself about myself.  I cried for a really long time.  I was 13 and self-loathing again.

That was incredibly hard to deal with.

I was an emotional wreck.  I have absolutely no idea why he puts up with me, but thank the sweet higher powers of the universe that may or may not exist for me having a really supportive boyfriend.  If it weren’t for him, I’d have been even more of an emotional wreck… if that is even possible.

Things are fantastic now.  I had a job interview last week and was pretty much hired on the spot.  Long story, but I had a bit of an in at the company, which made it so the manager already knew everything about me and there wasn’t really anything for me to be asked.  I filled out some papers, had to take a drug test last week, and learned ALL about Health Care Fraud, Waste, and Abuse today.

It’s not the best situation.  The job is in Detroit, which means I get to drive 64 miles to work every morning and 64 miles home every evening.  In my car that is falling apart and has almost 250,000 miles on it.  It’s going to cost me about $100 in gas a week just to get to work and back, and I get to drive 3 hours a day.

The perk is that my boyfriend lives about 20 minutes from where I’m working.  I’ll get to see him everyday if I wish.  Before this, I’ve been lucky if I get to see him every weekend.  This job has good timing, though, because he’s just about to close on his house and I get to start paying my student loans back in December.

I’m probably not going to make any money/profit.  I’m going to run my car into the ground.  But I’m going to get job experience (which I really lack).  I’ll get benefits after 90 days.  I might be able to swing car payments for a new car if I can save some money first.  I’ll get to see my boyfriend everyday.  I’ll have a steady/regular work schedule.  I don’t have to work weekends.

The positive outweighs the negative.  And when those times come where I don’t think it will, I’m going to make the positive come first.  I don’t know what this is going to be like.  It’s uncertain.  For the last week I’ve done a lot to be mad at the uncertainty, to look at all of the negative, and depress myself.  BUT.  I’m going to stick to my resolutions for 2011 and embrace the uncertainty.  I knew it was going to happen and that it would be hard, which is why I challenged myself to change for the better.

Anyway, that is why my life has been such an array of emotions and feelings.  I still feel like I’m just on summer vacation.  Real life hasn’t kicked in my mind yet.  Hopefully this job will steer me in a new positive direction.

Also, as a side note.  I was genius in creating this blog and having it be “Thinking about something”, because in all reality, that’s all I ever do:  think.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about.  Thanks for reading if you did!

I graduated college recently and have no idea where to go from here.  At first, when I was still in Mt. Pleasant after graduation, this notion did not hit me.  My friends were still there, I was still there, and the only thing missing were the classes.  It was truly fantastic.  Then my friends moved.  Then I moved.  Suddenly I felt completely alone.  The only people I see on a regular basis are my parents.  I don’t have a job, any hobbies outside of the house, and I don’t have any money.

I want to.

The only problem is that I scheduled this incredibly long trip to England back in February that has put a halt on my movement forward.  Because of this trip, I can’t get a job, I can’t join a gym, I can’t do anything.  Yet.

This is what I had to realize and remember.  Sure, right now, I’m not job searching or doing anything with my time, but I’m going to soon.  I want my life to move forward.  I want to get a job, make money, save up, buy a house, grow up.  I just need to stop concerning myself with it at this moment and stop obsessing over it because it can’t happen yet.

Everything hit me at once, though.  It was hard to process.  Life is hard to process.

I’m entirely under the assumption that when I get back from England I can go forward.  I’ll look for jobs (Doing what?  No idea!).  I’m going to get a gym membership.  I’ll probably take a class at the community college because I want to add graphic design to my art abilities and hopefully expand from there.  I’m going to be absolutely fine; it’s just going to take a little time.

As a side note:  If anybody is hiring or knows somewhere that is, I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Biomedical Sciences with a 3D Art minor.  I’m good with computers, very trainable, and have a lot of lab experience.  That is all!

1.  I could never do a proper sit-up.
NBD, I know, but still.  This was something that I really struggled at.  I remember only being able to come up half-way-ish (hence remembering while doing crunches) and my teacher would like try to get me to do an entire sit-up and I just couldn’t.  Now?  Yes, I could do plenty of them, but I have no idea what was wrong with 7-year old me.

2.  Other random exercises I couldn’t do:  Pull-ups, backwards somersaults, and probably a lot more.
I have always wanted to do a backwards somersault.  Pull-ups really were that big of a deal to me, because only like 2 kids in the class could do any, ever.  I always remember having to do them and my teacher counting me as “a half”.   The Backwards Somersault, on the other hand, looked like so much fun!  I’m pretty sure I managed to pull off a normal somersault, but that fateful day when we learned backwards ones, I just couldn’t do it.  I remember being petrified that my neck would break.

3.  Things I was super good at in gym class:  Sit-and-reach, headstands, and making up crap during the mile run.
Sit-and-reach was my forte.  I got first place on that “event” every year.  I rocked it.  Now, as an adult, I realize it is all thanks to my abnormally long arms and connective tissue disorder.  Yay collagen!  Headstands.  I remember when I could do those.  I even remember the process of completing one.  Can I do it now?  Heckssss no.  I stopped doing them when it started giving me awful head pain.  I was still super proud of them though, because I never really could do a cartwheel properly.  Oh, the mile run.  That needs it’s own number and section.

4.  The Mile Run
At my elementary school we did the mile run in two ways.  The first way was laps around the gym, week by week, gradually getting from 1 to 12.  We had to run/jog each week straight.  If we stopped to walk, we were very much encouraged to keep running, or we wouldn’t get a star sticker on our badge thing.  If you didn’t complete all 12 weeks, you didn’t get all your stars, and you pretty much didn’t pass that part of the class.  Anyway, if you don’t make it one week, you have to redo that week the next time.  This was particularly good if you were on Week 10, but someone was on Week 8, who you knew was faster than you, to get your count done early.  I was also an avid fan of stopping to “tie my shoelace”.

The second way that we had for the mile run was in groups of two, and we’d run outside.  Our partner was to count our laps for us so we’d know when we were done.  Well, me, being a very pudgy child in my youth, was last pretty much always.  I don’t know how, or why, but somehow I was done like two laps early.  I ended up getting the 3rd place honor for completing the mile run in the 3rd highest time.  I think it was like 8 minutes and something.  I knew that wasn’t possible, but I just went with it.  I really did not want to run anymore laps.

5.  I really miss gym class games.
You all know what I’m talking about:  Fruit Basket, that tree game, dodge ball, that game with the giant circle fabric where we all held on to a section and we had to run under if our color was called, and everything else that made gym class tolerable.

You see, my only experience with gym class is from elementary school.  Once I got into middle school, we were split up based on whether we were in band or not.  You were either in band, or were in gym.  Then there were other classes we switched to like art and maybe something else that I don’t actually remember.  I was in band all of middle school and only had to go to gym class the occasional Friday, which they eventually stopped, because the gym kids hated going to the band room to watch old, weird movies.

In high school, since we had block scheduling, it was offered that if you played a sport for two semester (or two sports for one semester) you could be exempt from the one required gym class.  Therefore, I was in Track and Field.  I threw shot put and discus, and braved my way through the 50m dash.  (Which, by the by, I generally skipped because I had drama club practice.)

Anyway, this somehow spurted into a blog about gym class.  I suppose that’s what I intended, though, because that’s what I’ve been thinking about.

OH!  What does this have to do with secret keeping?  Well, you see, I never told anybody that I didn’t actually run the mile in 3rd place standing, or that I couldn’t do a few of the exercises.  Most of the time I just went with the flow and just gave myself a number on the lower side if asked.

OH.2!  I ended up being really good at sit ups and almost got a record number of them in later years (4th grade).

I haven’t had a job since I was a senior in high school.  That job was a crew member at my home town’s McDonald’s.  It was for nearly a year, where I ended my service because I was going to college.  I didn’t continue working there over the next summers because my parents moved over 40 minutes away from it.  The commute would have been tough.

Here I am, a fresh, brand new college graduate and guess what!  I have a job.  Well, for now.  It’s for a cleaning service.  I clean the newly vacant apartments around town.  This is work.  In the last four days I have only worked about 17 hours in total (ranging from 3-5 hours a day).  I have taken a nap the last two days.  The physical labor is crazy.  I look at all surfaces differently, imagining how I’d clean it.

Though, I’m getting paid $8.50 an hour, and my biceps are going to look fabulous come August, it’s just so tiring and all I want to do is sleep and complain.

Whatever.  It’s work.  Hopefully when I’m done in August, I can get a reference out of it, and maybe come October, when I come back from England, I can find a job.  One that won’t include scraping soap scum off of shower tiles one at a time.

On a side note, where are all these views coming from?  Uhhhh, I mean, I had 18 today.  Whaaattt?!  Sweet!  So hello all of you reading my blog, sorry I’m so boring.

There are so many people that I have shared memories with throughout college. I tried making a list of everyone that I wanted to say something specific to, but realized I had typed out the entire chapter. I know that people say this all the time, and that it just seems like a cop-out, but there is no way that I can take the time to say something to each of you individually. Also, I always find that the seniors take anything I might have to say to them and say it in their 3D speech. This way, you all have no excuse for tomorrow. My goal is to sum up my experience in Phi Mu, with a few anecdotes thrown in, in hopes that you can all understand the impact Rho Delta has had on my life.

As most of you know, though some don’t, Central was the last place I ever wanted to go to school. I was intending on going to a private art school in Boston and had planned on that until I recieved my financial aid breakdown. Though I was awarded the second highest scholarship the school offered, I still needed to be able to pay for about half of ever semester, which came to about $20,000 a year. Long story short, it was mid-August and I had nowhere to go except Northern, which was the only place I applied. One thing lead to another, (UofM, MSU, etc having closed admissions) and I ended up at CMU the weekend before classes to talk to admissions to get accepted and schedule classes.

I hated it. I hated the teachers and the classes and the campus. Everything but the moving bookshelves in the library. Nobody in Calkins was social, at all, and I made one friend outside of my roommates in the fall semester. However, during that semester I watched as my roommates, Meghan and Miranda, went through the Phi program. I saw their anticipation of when they were waiting to find out who there bigs were. I saw lion after lion, clue after clue.

Spring semester came around and brought with it a hope. I was touring other in-state colleges and wanted to transfer. The tables turned, however, when Brittany said she wanted to look at sororities (mainly from very persistent roommates of mine). I told her that she should look at all of them, and at least go to Meet the Greeks and I’d go with her to make sure that happened. After that, we only ended up going to Phi Mu, mainly because there was someone to give us a ride. I never wanted to leave, and I think it had a little something to do with singing High School Musical karaoke with Jenny Jones.

It’s because of Phi Mu that I’m still at Central. It’s because of Phi Mu that I have some of the best friends I could ever hope for. It’s because of Phi Mu that I’m probably even remotely sane.

It was in my Phi semester when I experienced a lot of new things. I got my big and a family tree, I got a Phi class, I experienced my first Greek Week, and along with that my first party at a fraternity house. (Where, by the way, I somehow got gum inside of my shoe and ended up ruining Meghan’s black socks that she let me borrow. The shoes never left my feet.) I suddenly had friends in classes and strong women to look to for guidance. Phi Mu made college not only bearable, but pretty darn fun.

Then I started getting sick, all the time. I was in and out of the ER about 6 times in the first few months of 2009. At one point I thought I was going to have to get brain surgery, other times I just thought I wasn’t even going to make it to Junior year. Even through all of this, I decided to take a little in Spring 2009. I am so glad that I did, because when I was fighting depression through those summer months, it was Anna who text messaged me nearly every day, who came to visit to see Up! when it came out, and who overall just supported me in a way that I really needed, so I wasn’t just sitting in my thoughts. And I made it to Junior year.

Once again, some of you may or may not know this, but I have a really hard time expressing my emotions. This was definitely the case junior year. I spent a lot of nights sitting on the living room couch in the Phi Mu house watching reruns of Toddlers & Tiaras while everyone else was doing something fun. At this point I was in my peak time of illness. I was taking like 14 different medications and trying all these new ones and nothing ever worked. I pretty much removed myself from everyone and everything and didn’t really feel like a person.

But Phi Mu was there. I knew I could count on seeing everyone at events, and knew that I didn’t have to feel so alone. The support of my Phi Mu sisters got me through one of the hardest times in my life.

Senior year has probably been the best I’ve experienced in college. The Renaissance Festival, homecoming, winning the Golden Goblet, Halloween, getting my second little and GG, birthdays, St. Patrick’s Day, Greek Week, winning Greek Week, and everything in between.

When I decided to accept my bid to Phi Mu I had no idea what I was getting into. I’ve had so many leadership opportunities, personal growth, and made some of my best friends. Every once in awhile I look back to my notebook from my Phi capsule and see the things actives had written. Everyone pretty much wrote different variations of how I should make my time in Phi Mu count, because it’ll go by fast. As a Freshmen I thought it was just a bunch of bull they were making up just so they could write something. Two years ago, I would have said it was taking forever, but standing here now, it’s been the quickest 4 years of my life. So please, enjoy and embrace your Phi Mu experience, so you can leave without regret.

Speaking of Phi Capsules, I wanted to read my letter that I wrote to myself on initiation day.

Dear Self;

Way to make an awesome decision to join Phi Mu.  Let’s hope that it’ll be worth it in the long run.  Not the sorority part, but the staying at Central part.  I hope it was a good choice!

Are we accepted to med-school yet?  I hope so, because I’m not looking forward to the fall semester.  You know:  CHM, BIO, PHY, and possibly Calc?  Yeah, that one!  Hopefully it’ll be a little fun.  Keep working hard, but don’t let it consume your life.

Do you have a boyfriend yet?  I know it’s totally not that important ATM, but if you haven’t.. get working on that!  JK.  Enjoy life, have fun!

Love,
Your amazing 18-year-old, Freshman self!

Now, I may not be accepted or have any desire to go to Medical School. Nor am I particularly close to having a boyfriend. I have no doubt in my mind that staying at Central and becoming a Phi Mu were the best decisions I could have made. I also can’t believe I was worried about sophomore year classes. Obviously 18 year old me was not even thinking about 400 and 500 level classes.

Thank you all for the memories, the nights that I had to have retold to me in the morning, and overall the most amazing sisterhood any sorority girl could ask for. I love you all.  

That’s all.  In 4-ish hours I will officially be a graduate.  Hooray!

Graduating doesn’t scare me.  It actually hasn’t even hit me yet that tomorrow I walk on a stage in front of thousands of families to obtain a fake diploma while secretly hoping the real one will get to me by August.  Alright, not secretly.

Classes this semester were tough.  Exam week actually sent me into a health decline that needed medical attention.  For the first time since I’ve been in college, I have cared about the results of my final exams.  Before, if I ended up failing (has yet to happen, so I’m crossing my fingers) it wasn’t the end of the world.  I could just retake the class in a following semester.  This time, there’s no option to fail.  No, it would not be the end of the world, but how awful would it be if I had to retake a class after walking tomorrow?  Horrendous.

That’s why I was completely engulfed by exam stress.  However, they are done now, and if I’m lucky, I’ll never have another final exam in my life.  I am so over this whole “school” thing.  I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Biomedical Sciences with a minor in 3-Dimensional Art.  What on this wonderful planet we call Earth am I going to be able to do with that?  A BS in BS.  That’s truly what it is, though:  a bunch of BS.

Going to college seems like such a waste to me.  I feel like I would have been better off taking off a year or two to figure out what I want out of life.  Instead, I’ve spent four years in classes, struggling in quite a few, to acquire a major that will probably get me nowhere in life.  Either I’m going to be “over qualified” for jobs because I have a degree, or I’m not going to have enough job experience, because I was a Biomedical Science major, in a sorority, and a few other clubs on campus and had no excess time for a job.

I’m not looking forward to the grueling responsibility of the real world, and I’m going to miss the carelessness I was blessed to feel at times.  But I’m honestly really looking forward to just focusing on a job and working.  No cramming for exams.  No all-nighters working on a paper.  Maybe I can finally learn some practical applications for my life.

Luckily for me, I don’t have to worry about any of that until October.  I have a temporary summer job starting in two days and going until I leave in August for England.  Then I’ll be in England for two months.  Then what?  I have no solid plans or ideas, and I’m kind of OK with that.

Look at me embracing uncertainty.  2010 me would be so proud.

As a side note:  Look forward to more frequent blog posts.  It’s summer, baby.

Nah, what goes around is probably some sort of virus and you’ll eventually get one at some point.

Annnddd side-tracked.

I want to take you back a bit, say 3 months or so to New Year’s eve or whenever the blog was made.  Remember how I said that my New Year’s resolution was to embrace the uncertainty in my life?  This is has since been put to the test, and I failed it temporarily.  However, at the time I made this resolution, I was not expecting the things to happen that have since happened.  I figured I’d just get worried about graduate school or finding a job, etc.

You see, somehow, I’ve miraculously gotten myself into the situation where I’m kind of talking to two different men.  It just sort of happened, you know?  Which is totally weird because I have a difficult enough time even finding one guy that is even remotely interested in me.

Anyway, you see, it got to the point where I was stressing over everything.  What does this text mean?  Does he even actually like me?  Were some of the things said just lies?  Blah, blah, blah.  Uncertainty, insecurity, blah.

I was consumed with uncertainty and totally unable to handle it.  I honestly cried for a good two hours, felt like crying even more, but held it in.  After a day of feeling pathetic, I decided that my reaction/actions were stupid.  I was happy before these boys came into my life, and yes, I’m sure it could make me happier if I got something substantial.  The truth is, that my happiness is not determined by whether or not one of these guys wants to be with me.

Everyone keeps asking me, “How is it going with so-and-so?” or “Where are things at with what’s-his-face?”

I always answer the same, “I don’t know,” give it a shrug, and don’t worry about it.

In all honesty, I don’t know.  It’s not like I haven’t tried to figure out, but since that got me nowhere, I am just going to stop stressing and obsessing over it.  It’s not even important in my life.  It could become important, but at the stage that I’m at, I can’t focus my energy on something so frail.  I’m going to focus on myself.

I feel like sometimes I’m being a bit selfish or arrogant when I say that, but what I’ve learned from all of this, plus episodes of Biggest Loser:  I need to serve myself first, and stop succumbing to the needs of others instead of my own.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.

I’m about to talk about myself, now, which is perfectly alright, because this is my blog.  I just want to give some information about how I’ve been personally affected by horrible body image.

For nearly my entire life I have been a victim of inaccurate self-perception.  I never felt like I looked good enough, was tall enough, was thin enough, was ever enough in the physical appearance of life.  The one moment that I can pick out specifically is when I was about 5-years old.  I was visiting a friend of mine, who I didn’t see very often, and I distinctly remember her saying, “Don’t worry, you’ll lose your baby fat someday.”

I waited and waited for that day to come.  You know how kids are pudgy through early childhood and then have growth spurts and it just evens out?  That never happened to me.  I never lost the baby fat. When I started going into puberty I started getting a little more top heavy.  However, for the longest time, my mom only get me sports bras.  I actually don’t even remember when I finally got a normal bra, which was probably because I stole one from one of my older sisters.

I was always afraid to wear jeans, because I never fit into the cute ones they made for preteens.  I started off in the women’s section.  I never got to wear from the Junior’s section.  My mom always took me to the women’s section.  What’s there to wear for a kid there?  Not much.

I’ve been stuck in a t-shirt and jean wearing phase for over 8 years.  I’ve only recently stepped out of that comfort zone.  I’ve been trying so hard to get over these small, built up insecurities about myself that have been stewing since before I was even IN school.

Let me set the scene for my life in school:  the fat, smart girl, who everyone always forgot was smart.  I was better acquainted with my teachers than the vast majority of my peers.  I got made fun of a lot in middle school.  I quit sports because my teammates made fun of me.  In high school I didn’t even try, because I knew how the routine went.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression.  High school was OK.  I found other things to focus on, and friends who didn’t care what I looked like (I hope).  But I never had a lot of the experiences in high school that most people get.  There were no boys, there was no romance, there was just me trying to survive until I could get to college where it would finally get better.

When I got to college, though, it just turned out to be a larger version of high school, except I wasn’t the smart girl anymore.  At this point, I was at 236 pounds and just starting to get the acne most kids get in high school.  Height of insecurity and self-loathing right there.

I started dieting for the first time in high school.  Atkin’s, calorie restriction, etc.  At this point, I’ve tried a vast majority of it.  I never really stopped trying some sort of diet.  Sophomore year of college I somehow started doing something right, because I went from 236 to 180 in the year.  From a size 18/20 to a size 12.  I had never been a size 12 in my entire life.  Ever, ever, ever.  It felt amazing.

Since then, as this is senior year, I’ve stayed in the 190s.  I nearly got back to 200, and turned that around right quick.  I’m on the verge of fitting into 10s, which amazes me.  I try to workout 5 days a week, but it probably averages out to 3 days.  I’m looking for new ways to make food and to enjoy food instead of just eating it.  My problem, however, is that I don’t like food, I don’t like eating it, I just plain don’t.  I probably don’t eat enough.

All of these problems I’ve had with self: image, worth, and perception have caused me to really miss out on my youth.  I didn’t think I was good enough for anyone else to love me.  I was never open for relationships.  There were times when I would stand in front of my mirror and just yell at myself (internally, so no one would hear) for being worthless, ugly, and fat.

What I learned from this all, is that there is no way you can expect someone else to love you until you love yourself.  You can never escape yourself, and you need to love every bit of you, unconditionally.

This is the philosophy I’ve had, watching friends of mine date, a few of them never being single for more than a few days or weeks.  I believe that you have to be comfortable being single, before you can have a successful relationship.  Another person isn’t there to make you whole, they are there to compliment you.

Yes, I would love it if I had a boyfriend, and I know I complain from time to time about being alone forever.  You know what, though?  I would be OK with that.  I’d be sad over the fact that I never got to experience love with another person, but I do love myself.  I can live with myself, even if it’s alone.  I’ve been single for 21 years, I think I could handle it.

The problem I face now, is that I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle someone else in my life.  I don’t know how that sort of thing works first hand.  There are no rules that I’ve been able to establish for myself, and sometimes I think that I go into things completely naive.  I mean, come on, I didn’t get my first kiss until I was 20.

There are times when this makes me feel even worse about myself.  Why don’t guys like me?  It would bring me back to the thought that I’ve always had: I’m not good enough.  So am I going to just embrace any man that shows any interest, now?  Will I suddenly throw expectations and standards aside?  Yeah, probably.  Actually, pretty sure I already have.

I’m better than that.  I’m better than letting the opinions and comments of others control how I feel about myself.

I know that people say society is putting an unrealistic expectation on women (and men, mind you) about how to look.  The truth is, we’re doing it.  Not only are there outside pressures of peers, but there are the ones you put onto yourself.  The best way to get beyond that is to simply love yourself for who you are, and try to better your health, not your image.

I apologize for the length, but I really just wanted to get this all out.  It’s for me, really, and you don’t have to read it.  However, in my life now, it’s all about doing what I want, and what will make me happy.

And I am happy.