Honesty

When I'm deep inside of me, don't be too concerned
I won't ask for nothin' while I'm gone.
But when I want sincerity, tell me where else can I turn?
Cause you're the one that I depend upon.

Tonight's one of those nights when I'm just ready to ramble a bit.  I'm sipping my water, wearing cozy pajama pants, with plenty of time before bed.  It's a good time to think and write, so here we go.

I've been thinking a lot about support lately, and honesty... and how those two things don't necessarily go together.

When I'm struggling, it almost feels like a temporary bout of insanity comes over me.  I'm not ducking responsibility by actually claiming it does, but I feel so differently.  It's really strange to try and tell myself the same things that usually work, and have them just not mean anything or matter at all.  It's like flipping a light switch over and over; hoping for the light but staying in the dark.

I usually start by telling myself the truth- that I will feel so much worse if I give up for a while, that eating won't solve anything, etc.  But it seems so quiet in comparison to the lies I want to believe- that I deserve it, that it won't really hurt me long-term, etc. 

The people in my life that know I'm on this journey are really supportive.  But the thing is, people are different and thus supportive in different ways.  I know who will tell me, "It's okay, it's no big deal" when I say, "I want to go off for "one meal", for one day, for one week..."  Just like I know who will look at me askance.  Guess who I go to when I'm struggling?  I don't want the truth, you see, I just want support.

I want someone to tell me it's okay to do what I know is wrong, as if their well-meaning support makes left into right, out into in, or wrong into right.

I'm a pretty private person in "real life".  I'm an excellent listener though, and kind of the "go to" person for my friends and family to come and talk to when they have problems.  Lately... maybe it's the season, I don't know, it seems like everyone's struggling with something.

I don't like to tell people what I think they should do.  I try to listen.  I let them talk.  I outline their options, as I see them.  But in the end, I believe we all have to choose for ourselves, and then live with that choice as best as we can.  Sometimes, people do what I personally think is "right", but sometimes they don't.  And if they ask me... usually I say that no one can judge anyone else, we're all doing the best we can.

I believe that... and yet, I also know that sometimes the truth hurts but it helps, too.  Recently one of my friends made what I think is a a really bad decision.  When it got to that point, I felt like I had to say something; that it was the "right" thing to do.  Like we wouldn't stand by and let someone hurt themselves.

So I spoke up.  This was the "crappy situation leading to a crappy conversation leading to a hang-up" that inspired me to go for a run last Tuesday, actually.  Needless to say, it didn't go well.  Maybe he didn't want the truth, he only wanted support from me.  Maybe I should have given it... but I guess I don't truly believe that.  I tried not because I disapproved, but because I cared.

No one's ever brought up my weight.  Not at my very heaviest, when... well, not to get too cute, but the elephant in the room, etc.  I've found that it's only since I've been seriously trying to lose weight that I can talk at all about how I got there in the first place, and then only to a very, very few people. 

What if they had?  If someone had said, "I love you, but I'm worried about you.  I love you, but I want you to be healthy"?  It would have hurt, a lot.  Maybe I wasn't ready to hear it until I was, even though I knew it to be true.  Even though we all knew it to be true.  

I know one thing.  This is hard.  In a way, all my workouts and healthy meals blur together... but in a way they don't and part of me feels like I can feel and remember all of them.  I have tried to "diet" so many times before.  I have given up for years at a time.  This time, I'm trying not to.  I'm trying to think differently, to be different, and to get different results.

When I started C25K, I was raving about it so much that a friend of mine decided to try it.  I supported him all that I could.  I asked how it went, went sneaker shopping with him, shared whatever tips I'd picked up, etc.  I haven't seen him for a while and recently asked how it was going.  He sheepishly "admitted" he'd stopped a while ago.

The thing is, as someone who recently slacked herself for a couple weeks, I felt like I couldn't exactly get up in his grill.  Because we all mess up, right?  With that said, when he said, "I guess I just lack your commitment, motivation, whatever", I wasn't too pleased by the self-defeating implication that I'm somehow just "stronger" than he is.

I corrected him that I need to push myself every day to do the things I do to get healthy.  The only difference, I said, between people that are healthy and people that aren't isn't a sprinkling of magic fairy willpower dust; it's doing it.  It's doing it... or not.

I told him that, but really it was telling myself.  Support helps, we all know that.  It helps so much, and... see, I "expect" it from the people I know, because that's what friends/family are for.  But when I started writing here, I was surprised by how kind people are here in Bloggyland.  By how much I care how everyone else is doing and how much your support has helped me, too.

All that said, I do believe that in the end... we have to be honest with and support ourselves most of all, because no one else can "make" us do it.  No one else knows if we can push ourselves or if we legitimately only have enough gas in the tank to take it really, really easy.  No one else knows if eating that <thing that isn't on our plan> really is OK, or not.  Just us.

I have struggled, in so many ways.  Because of the past, because of the present, because of the future even.  Talking/writing helps me get through so much, but sometimes it overcomplicates things, too.  In a way, all solutions are simple and can be distilled down to "Yes" or "No".

Are we listening to what we really need?  Are we giving ourselves that?  Are we trying our best?  Yes, or no.

Don't stop, don't give up.  Support others, and get support for yourself.  Be honest.  And keep trying, yes?

Yes.