Recently Facebook added a feature to their site where users can see their post from years ago on the current day. I do like the feature because I'm given the memories I've shared with family and friends with my old posts and pictures, I can see how my life has changed along the way. But there's one thing too that it does...It reminds me of the painful past I've come from. I only started using Facebook religiously 6 years ago. And 6 years ago, my life was at a turning point.
On this day 6 years ago, I was experiencing the most painful break up with my first love. He and I had one roller coaster of a relationship, we had been together for 4 years, and experienced our fair share of highs and lows. We had so many good memories together, but at the end of our relationship, we both lost something, and made really bad decisions, hurt each other terribly, and really just fell apart. Sometimes I think back, and can pinpoint the second it all fell apart. In 2008, my ex witnessed one of his best friends commit suicide. They say suicide affects more than just the person who committed the act, and boy was it true. I didn't know his friend too well, but boy oh boy did it change my life forever. From that moment on, there was this anger, hurt, and pain in him, that I guess he didn't know how to handle. He took it out at the bar every single night, and then me when his drunken stupor took over. And then when the bar wasn't enough, drugs took over, then drunk motorcycle rides, then the verbal, mental, and physical abuse came.
I was so lost in his love, and trying to figure out how to fix everything, that I just let him do whatever he needed to cope. I still remember the nights I was filled with pure terror. Not knowing if I would make it to see the next morning, I too would go to bed every night drunk, because I didn't feel the pain. That was also around the time my weight ballooned to just under 300lbs. I really didn't love myself because I put all my love into him and our relationship. I took each blow to the head, the painful hits, his hurtful words, in stride, and prayed to myself that it would get better one day. But in the process I lost friends who saw the bad changes in me, and I lost the trust of my family who couldn't believe that I let a guy control every waking moment of my day.
And then in January of 2009, he left. He joined the military, and when he left, we were both a mess, but we needed to be away from each other, because together we were a cocktail of destruction. While he was away I found the strength to start cleaning up my life, and began my weight loss journey. But when I first started it was for him, because I had these high hopes that while he was out improving his life, and I started to make mine better, that he would come home and we would both see that we could be better together. He wrote me letters from boot camp, that would make my days bright and cheerful, he sent me pictures, and he even called me on Sundays whenever they allowed him to. I was so hopeful that things were going to look up for us.
But then on this day 6 years ago, he came home from boot camp, and I had taken the week off, because we had made plans to see each other and catch up of course. I remember the day vividly, because I called him the second I knew his plane had landed, it was also the first time in months his cell phone actually rang, I was so excited to hear his voice knowing he wasn't thousands of miles away anymore. When he answered, my world fell apart in seconds. He said, "Leave me alone, don't ever call me again, I never want to see you again." And like that my world flipped upside down. I was so confused because for the past few months our conversations never hinted that he would do this. To say I was heartbroken is an understatement. The fact that I was also on vacation was worse, because I had a whole week to myself to dwell on all my emotions. I was so depressed, I didn't want to see the light of day. I cried from the moment I woke up, until I fell asleep. I hardly got out of bed, and if I did it was by the forceful tone of my mother telling me to get over it. I became a hermit, I didn't wake up til the middle of the day, and I worked out for hours to occupy my mind, so that I would be exhausted an pass out at night. The most vivid memory of them all is that I didn't eat a thing that entire week, When I tried, I spit it right back up, and I had no appetite, what so ever. I was already on Weight Watchers for awhile, and I remember the following week when I had gone to my meeting that I had lost 8lbs that one week. And the funny part is that I never gained a single one of those 8lbs back ever! So metaphorically I think of the 8lbs as the dead weight of that relationship that weighed down on my life so negatively. It weighed down on my heart and soul, and took such a long time to recover from it.
That relationship is the reason I started my weight loss journey, but its also the reason I learned to love myself. After that devastating week of my life, I found my fire, my strength to move on and explore all the opportunities the world offered. And the first thing that helped me get through it was running. I would run through the woods, and cry it out, and feel amazing afterwards. Running at that time was therapy, but it also made me so much more stronger to stand on my own.
So when I look back on this day and history, and I think of that painful past, I'm reminded that I made it! I'm not the person I was 6 years ago, I'm a newer, stronger, confident version of myself. And I learned to love myself and all the things I'm capable of. While it was a hard experience to live through, I wouldn't change it for the world, I'm so much better because of it!
xoxo
