Getting "It" Done

Today marks 64 days that I have been back in Modesto, which is the total amount of time that I lived in South Dakota. It's the amount of time that changed the course of my personal history; the amount of time that I learned more about myself than ever before. I’m still at peace, but the impact of everything that happened in SD makes me sad. I’ve had some very lovely and flattering suitors make their presence known since arriving home, but it doesn’t make sense of the emotion that come with the question: How could you want me when he so clearly didn’t?

Something hit me on the way to the gym Monday night. In my early 20's I KNEW that I needed to get my degree and I let myself be distracted with anything else other than getting my degree. It was like there was a locked safe that was full of my self-confidence that would not be unlocked until I finished school. *Note: this is not the case for everyone. I know some very wonderful and confident people who didn’t finish college and they have knowledge and reasoning that can’t be found in a classroom.* But for me, I had been lingering in a world of my own making, learning only through my personal experiences (read: the hard way) and needed a great deal of perspective. When my goal was accomplished, I felt like I was finally a valid member of society, crossing over an invisible threshold into adulthood. I remember that I even wrote an ex-boyfriend after graduation and said, "I'm ready now." Obviously I had past regret and I felt like the accomplishment of this huge goal in my life grew me up to feel ready for someone to accept me because for the first time I accepted me. It's now taken me 3 years after graduation to realize that my B.A. is not the only goal that I have needed to pursue.

In my college years, I was the thinnest of my 20’s, mostly due to stress and sickness, cutting out all gluten and running solely on coffee for those 2 years. My lightest weight was due to a very emotional breakup. Here’s the honest truth: I have told myself multiple times since then that I need to recreate the emotional stress in order to be that thin again. Let’s review how sick and twisted this is-- I wanted my heart broken so that I would stop eating. If I really want to therapy this out, I was hoping to transfer the power to take action out of my hands and give it to someone else who would be very careless with it and cause me pain for a benefit that could only be seen on the outside. I tell you this because that is what hit me on the way to the gym this week: I'm finally going to hit my fitness/weight goals and I will do so by doing it the hard way... with all the strength God gives me, and all the willpower that I can muster. When I see my clothes fit and know the sweat and tears that went into it. Speaking of clothes fitting, I haven’t wanted to or bought an article of clothing (that wasn't workout related) since arriving home now that I’m discovering how much of my closet I can fit in to. Turns out I was buying clothes to cover up or mask what I didn’t want people to see instead of changing what was underneath.

There's more: it dawned on me that I thought once I did one thing the hard way (school) then everything else would come easy. It’s just not true. The most fulfilling things in life are not just handed to you, they have to be fought for and protected and defended and earned.

I’m finding similar revelations regarding my relationship with the Lord, and learning about the need for the consistent pursual on my part and am trying to figure out how to incorporate that into my other goals. This one has to trump all of the others or I will fail. “Seek ye first…” those words hang in the air around me and whisper quietly in my ears even in the busiest of times. There is a lot of time for prayer during certain workouts (cardio machines are my least favorite), but focused study has to happen at other times. Free time—what’s that? The old adage goes that if you make time for the Lord then you have more time and energy then you ever thought you could to get everything done throughout the day. I’m putting this to the test. I HAVE to make sure that both of these areas of my life thrive symbiotically or I just know that anything I attempt to do ahead of seeking the Lord first will fail… and it will be breaking a commandment. Ewww.

The next big goal is to do a focused writing article and send it off for possible publication, but I am terrified of so many things. Rejection. Backlash. Disclosing too much. I can hardly sleep at night when I think about where to begin. So I continue to add to the list of potential topics until I can develop one of those topics fully. Not sure why, but  for the longest time, I thought that I had one shot so I better make it good. I'm learning to relax and write a lot of little articles to have as a portfolio. There's a plan! In less than a month Tawny LaBarbera will be more than my name— it will also be my business. Think the world is ready?