You are here: Home / Archives for reflections

Wake Me Up When September Ends.

September 30, 2011 by 13 Comments
IMG_4301.jpg

September is over.

September has brought some really fun stuff in its four short weeks.

I had an awesome Labor Day weekend.

IMG_4301

I spent a week in Utah.

IMG_4393

I made a whole bunch of jam.

IMG_4239

I hung out with other bloggers.

Fitbloggin

I cheered friends at a marathon.

IMG_4812

There were a lot of other highlights that didn’t make the blog.

IMG_4640

IMG_4662

IMG_4861

IMG_4867

IMG_4671    IMG_4685

IMG_4751    IMG_4905

But, I’m going to be totally honest here. September was a REALLY, really rough month for me.

I have my moments of musing and ramblings but I try to keep my blog generally positive and happy. Which is fine, so long as it’s honest. But pretending like things have been great lately would not be honest. Because they haven’t been great.

I have been really, really stressed. I wake almost every night drenched in sweat and hyperventilating from some nightmare. I’ve been emotional in ways I am normally not. Some days at the office I’ve had to bite my tongue to keep from crying OR from screaming. I’ve bawled to friends or family on the phone multiple times. None of these are normal.

My personal life has been a bit hard to keep tabs on. Work/life balance remains a struggle, and behind exhausted all the time lends itself to being a hermit and there’s nothing worse than having a long, stressful day only to go home and sit in your tiny apartment by yourself. I am someone who thinks too much. I need distractions and happy and positive people in my life. Some of my friendships have faltered this month, some things were my fault, and some things I fail to understand. And I haven’t had the emotional energy to deal with it the right way.

Running has been hard because I’ve been tired and sleeping through my alarms. And running is an escape of sorts, but when my brain isn’t able to turn off and zone out, a six mile jog becomes a mental marathon to get through.

And body image and stuff remains a challenge. I have toyed with going back to eating meat but haven’t been able to yet. I make healthy choices but then I snack out of boredom or stress constantly. I can’t fit in clothes I’ve been wearing for nine years.

This month has just kind of been a black pit.

But it’s over.

October brings new chances, new changes. A time to start over. A time to reprioritize. When I wake up tomorrow nothing will have changed, nothing real or tangible.

But I hope I remember that each day I wake up I have a choice. A choice to love my body and thus give it the respect and care it deserves. A choice to let things stress me out and affect my life that shouldn’t. a choice to live each day fully and joyfully.

image

I’ve got big goals and plans for October but I’ll let that stand as another post. Until then, good riddance, September. May your happy memories stay with me and your darker moments serve as a reminder when things get rough. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and I’m putting this month behind me and, like my mom says, choosing hope.

How was your september?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , , ,

    Reflections: The Great Weight Debate

    July 21, 2011 by 27 Comments
    scales-lie.jpg

    I need to talk about a heavy issue here.

    A few weeks back, I started a “reflections” series. There were a few posts back then…

      And when I started that I had intended to include two more posts: one about turning 25 and kind of where I’m at in life, and this post. I guess they kind of slipped away from me, but now here I am.

    I’ve debated writing this post for the last couple of weeks. Part of me thought it would be really cathartic and helpful to just write it, like a weight off my shoulders; another part of me assumed I’d regret it—what you put in the blogosphere, you can never take back. (Good thing I no longer aspire to any sort of political career!) I also worry about what people think—friends who have no connection to this “healthy living” blog world, coworkers, potential dates Googling me… But I’ve decided to write it anyways. I am an open book and when I get something off my chest it loses some of its power. So here goes.

    I’m going through something that many of us have gone through in our lives: I’m struggling with my weight. I’m at a healthy BMI, but I’m about eight pounds over my happy weight (which is already a bit higher than other women my height, 5’3”-5’4”, due to my curvy/muscular build).

    Eight pounds doesn’t have a lot of places to go when you’re 5’4”.

    scales-lie(source)

    This didn’t happen overnight, of course. It’s been four months, maybe. It was the result of taking a job that pretty much guarantees I sit all day except for maybe less than an hour of walking (all day… combined) and maybe an hour workout or run. That’s a lot of sitting. And metabolism slowing down. And equally if not more importantly—I’ve been eating too much. I don’t buy much unhealthy food, but it’s been around me at the office and I’ve been eating non-nutritious food like pita chips and wheat things and teddy grahams whenever I get a chance. Work stress = stress eating. It’s dangerous territory. Especially when there are so many yummy things that you can just grab!

    IMG_3219IMG_3220

    So I can’t be alarmed about this and everyone gains weight at some points in our lives. Big freaking deal! I tend to stop reading blogs when people are talking about their weight. It’s not something that defines me and not something I talk about on the blog much, so please know this is the exception rather than the norm. I want to be honest with readers/blog friends—while normally, like most, I’m a happy blogger, life is more complicated sometimes. And body image is important, and maintaining a healthy one is not always easy. When I read blogs where people are weighing in all the time or complaining, I unsubscribe because it just makes me feel bad about myself and like I should be obsessing, too. And Lord knows I’ve been there!

    When I moved to Mozambique, I gained 20 pounds in a matter of months. A SHORT period. A combination of factors (radical change in diet + stress + radical change in lifestyle + medication) caused it. I lost about 15 of the 20. But I was obsessed. I would cry about food sometimes, I would over-exercise. Living in a hut in Africa meant I had lost control over almost everything in my life, and then I lost my body, too, so I felt. Eating and exercise were the one thing I could control. And I abused them.

    I didn’t talk about it on the blog so much, but then again I was living in Africa so I wasn’t blogging very frequently. But it cast a dark cloud over my life—I was this very together person, I’d always had decent body image, and now I was binge eating and then crying and abusing my body? Who was this person? I didn’t recognize myself.

    Things got better. They did. I regained some of my perspective although my body image still is not what it used to be. But that was okay. I started training for a marathon in January and sure, I gained a little weight, but I felt strong, fit, and powerful!

    The last months have been opposite. I tried to eat better, lost three pounds and gained four back. Last night I was walking around at my company happy hour and ALL I wanted to do was go change into sweats… because my pants aren’t fitting me anymore. And these weren’t ever even “skinny” jeans before.

    I refuse to buy “big girl pants.” I refuse. But I’m almost to that point.

    Why am I blogging about this? Sure, I gained weight at a desk job because I’m sedentary and overeating, well just move more and eat less! It seems so easy and simple.

    It’s not.

    I need to make changes in my life that will require discipline. I’ve been “trying to eat healthier” for the last month and have gained more weight. My willpower around food has been nonexistent.

    It will require discipline—but I’m scared to death of getting back to the place I used to be in order to make any changes. So lost to my true self that seeing an M&M could make my heart beat faster with fear, or longing, or some weird combo. I would rather be a little thicker than EVER be that girl again. Life is too darn short.

    To be honest, I feel overwhelmed. I know I need to drop some pounds because it’s affecting other areas of my life. I get angry at myself constantly. I feel like I am a failure. I don’t want to go on dates because I feel unattractive. I feel it when I run, I do.

    So something NEEDS to change with my body, absolutely. But more importantly, something needs to change IN ME.

    I feel like I’ve just been in a little bit of a rut and lots of things are affecting me more than they normally would. Yes, I need to lose a few pounds. It’s okay, everyone’s done it, I am very fit and healthy so this is the least of my troubles. But much more importantly, I have got to change my perspective. I KNOW what’s important and I know that THIS IS NOT. Sure, an eight-pound weight gain may need to be dealt with. But that’s so secondary to dealing with the way that I have been viewing myself, my worth, my beauty, and my ability because of this. Only when I accept the fact that I’m beautiful and strong at any number am I ever going to be able to just let things go and get back to normal.

    I can do it. I’ve tried starting out with a rigid MO, posting a calendar, weighing in daily, giving myself a Lisa Frank sticker for days that I work out. My motivation corner, if you will.

    IMG_3246

    But I don’t think that’s the key for me. I think finding inner peace, as cheesy as it sounds, is the only way that I can beat my demons. The scale motivates many people. But not me. I see it more as a weapon or something I am fine with never stepping on again.

    I don’t care about the number. I could care less. I care about how I feel. I want to feel like I’m in a good place, both physically AND emotionally. And that’s going to require work from the inside out.

    I don’t know how, but I know that now that it’s out there to the world, maybe, just maybe, I’ll find my spark. And remember that I am beautiful and blessed no matter what small inconveniences threaten to make me question that.

    n2508613_37039451_1017

    Thanks for reading. Now I can move on and spend my time thinking about something that truly matters.

    Courtney

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

    Reflections: On Injury

    July 3, 2011 by 8 Comments
    photo-4

    Thank you all for your comments on my Reflections: vegetarianism post. I felt a little weird talking about how being a vegetarian didn’t make me feel healthier, but I’m learning that every diet is different for everybody. I also realized from reading comments that perhaps a big part of the reason I don’t feel very different is because I didn’t eat much meat over the last 2+ years overseas, and when I did, the vast majority of it was unprocessed. Eating chicken patties every day is a lot different than having chicken once a week that’s killed practically in front of you and never saw a chemical or additive in its life! I think that while meat eating may be different for everyone, switching to a more natural diet is a healthier choice across the board—whether or not you include meat.

    ***

    One of my blog commandments is not ever saying “sorry for being MIA,” because I find it very silly that anyone’s life is possibly disrupted when a “healthy-living” blogger doesn’t post. We all have lives, people, and I’m not sorry for that. But yet I still feel the need to explain that the reason I haven’t posted in a week is because I had several wordpress disasters which resulted in not being able to update my blog in several days… and then my genius web-savvy friend Jeremy fixed it. The man is amazing. If you need any web work done, hire him : )

    Anyways.

    I’ve dealt with my fair share of running injuries in the past. Whenever I pounded out a few miles in college I’d get runner’s knee and call it quits. The nadir was august/September 2008, right before leaving for Africa, when I’d signed up for Nike’s The Human Race 10K with a couple of friends. I didn’t train at all, and then the week of, ran a 5-, a 6-, and a 7-miler three days in a row after not really running for… months. Needless to say, during the 7 I jacked my knee up so bad that I had to hobble home. But not being well-versed in running injuries, I assumed I was just sore and ran the 10K on the knee two days later. And by “ran” I mean “hobbled with a brace and left barely walking.” The next few weeks were miserable. Walking hurt like crazy. I experimented with crutches. I bought several different braces. I got on a plane to Africa still having extreme pain in my knee. It was six months before I tried to run again. And run again I did. I remember how happy I was when I ran one hour without stopping… a full year after the 10K. I was so proud of myself.


    (the fateful race that almost ruined running for me… with my friend katie, who’s one of my marathoning inspirations)

    Time passed in Africa and my runs got longer. At one point I ran 30 kilometers on dirt African roads and I realized I could maybe someday do the marathon thing. About a week later, my IT band had had enough. Once again, I hung up my running shoes.

    It’s understandable, then, that I went into training for the Big Sur marathon pretty terrified of getting hurt and not being able to cross the finish line (or even show up at the start). And over the 16 weeks before the race, when I really started running again after a couple of very easy months, I went through a ton of “growing pains.” One week, my runner’s knee would flare up like crazy. Another, my feet would be falling asleep. The next week, my IT band would be screaming at me. The worst was my MCL giving me problems in long runs that left me feeling like my left leg would detach from my body below the knee and run pell-mell the other way. A couple weeks before the marathon, I started experiencing nerve pains down the outside of my right leg that would almost make me tear up. (I still have that, especially when sitting in a car for a while).

    Despite all the pains, I never had to stop running. I had aches and stiffness and soreness and pins and needles and everything else but I could always still run. It always felt temporary. My hip hurt a little during the marathon, but not so bad. I was really happy I had apparently gotten through the phase of being injury-prone.

    A few weeks ago, in mid-June, I ran 16 miles and was a little sore, but nothing of consequence, really. All was good. I was starting to build back up for 26.2 on 7.31.11 at San Francisco. I talked to my mom at the bus stop about how I felt really lucky because the first time around, SOMETHING always hurt, but now I felt like my body was used to distance running and I wasn’t getting hurt.

    Two days later, I ran an easy, fun 6 miles in Golden Gate Park before work. All was fine. Then when I stepped off the bus, I could barely walk. I talked about it on the blog soon after it happened and here’s the update.

    The last 2.5 weeks has been an exercise in frustration. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I figured I just tweaked something. The next day I hobbled to work again, and two days after I set out on my planned 18-miler expecting to maybe run through it and I’d loosen up. I was wrong. I set out on a long run all but one weekend since New Years and here in mid-June I’d met my match. After one mile, I called it quits.

    Things were getting worse. The pain had started in my upper thigh and then spread down to my knee, which was throbbing, and then to my foot, which stung with every step. Walking was painful. I made it to the gym Monday through Friday, devotedly, to jump on the stationary bike or the elliptical. I’d jog a few steps to make it through a traffic light and almost collapse from the pain.

    Yup. I was officially sidelined.

    The last two weeks were extremely challenging in many ways. I didn’t want to give up the race. I was angry at my body for giving up on me. I was frustrated because I didn’t know what was wrong. I felt pathetic when I tried to make up for my 20-miler the next weekend by sitting on the elliptical and the stationary bike for three entire hours, which did nothing but make me depressed.

    I went to a chiropractor, thinking it could be a nerve thing, but he said he didn’t know what was wrong and it was probably muscular. I had pulled my quad—as far as I know. It started in the upper quad, and spread most likely due to the overcompensation that happened as I was walking, causing the pain to spread down the leg. I was walking with a noticeable limp for days, so it makes sense.

    This injury was also a great thing to happen to me.

    While I felt bad for myself at times, it was also a big wake-up call for me. I was getting to the point where I was kind of resenting running a little bit. I wasn’t heading out for fun, for a rush of adrenaline, because I knew I’d feel more energetic and happier all day. I was headed out because I felt like I HAD to. My running shoes were becoming more like a ball and chain rather than a gateway to happiness.

    I had become complacent.

    Getting sidelined was the jolt I needed to remember that RUNNING IS A PRIVILEGE. I continued to see hundreds of runners all around this active city, San Francisco, and I resented them. I was jealous. I wanted more than anything to be sweating and panting and generally miserable for just a few little miles. It’s all I wanted.

    It took getting injured to make me crave the feeling of running again.

    Over the last week or two, I’ve been icing my quad at work (sexy, let me tell you), stretching a little, popping ibuprofen (which I normally am loath to do, but here, it really did help). On Tuesday of this week, I ran a mile on the treadmill. I was sore and in pain, but it felt more like a muscle protesting, relearning, rather than something that was damaging my body.

    Thursday, in Colorado on business, I ran three miles on the treadmill.

    I HATE the treadmill. I hate it more than many things out there in this world. And on that treadmill, two weeks to the day since I got hurt, I was never happier to be on that thing. I even tried to take a picture to commemorate the moment, the moment being “the only time I’d ever be raving excited to be on a treadmill.” This was not a good idea.

    I came home this weekend for the fourth and decided to try a run with my mom. We ended up going out yesterday and today. Both times my quad hurt for the first 5-10 minutes, protesting, aching. Then, it smoothed over.

    Yesterday I ran 5.5 miles and today I ran 6.5. after both runs I felt fine, but I’ve been sore at night. Though that could have to do not only with the quad, but also the fact that I haven’t run in 2.5 weeks, and that it’s 90 degrees out instead of 60, and that I’m dying of dehydration, and I’m running on trails on hills of death.

    Either way, these two runs have been awesome. Despite feeling a bit like crap and kind of wanting to die from the heat, they’ve taken me back to remembering that running is fun. I don’t need to fight for 8-minute something pace, 11 minute slow, fun miles while stopping to chat is fine for me. Going long isn’t needed, I want to work my way back up.

    I’m going to try to run 13-14 tomorrow, but I don’t know. I am going to listen to my body. I don’t know if I’ll be able to build the mileage back up quickly. I don’t know if I’ll make it to the starting line of the SF marathon. I don’t know if this will go away or get re-aggravated. I don’t know how long it’ll be before I run pain-free again.

    But here is what I do know: running is a privilege. And I’m extremely lucky. We all get sidelined sometimes. That’s not what matters. What matters is that my body has given me the ability to run. Not only run, but a body that works, that walks, that perseveres. I’m lucky. If I do make it to the starting line, it’ll be a fun run. I thought SF would be MY race. It’s my city, I know the route, I know the hills, I know the personality. I planned to take 15 minutes off my Big Sur time, to do the race in style. Now if I make it there it will be a fun run, and that’s okay. If I make it to the start line, I’ll be grateful. I’ll use the 5 hours, the 6 hours if need be, to revel in the anticipation and excitement of running, to just let it sink in, to enjoy the experience and the journey rather than fighting for the destination. I know there will be other chances. I know I only have one body and that I need to take care of it the best I can. And I know that above all, running is a gift, and when I start taking it for granted maybe it’s time to take a step back—whether I chose to myself or not.

    Have you ever been sidelined? What were the good and bad parts?

     

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: fitness Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

    Reflections: On Six Months Out of Africa

    June 23, 2011 by 17 Comments
    africa1

    We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast of food, running, and San Francisco adventure to spend some time reflecting. These two weeks hold a number of meaningful occasions for me, and since my passion is first and foremost to write, these posts may a little bit different than the normal fare. But if you choose to read them, I hope you enjoy.

    ***

    Today marks a pretty momentous day for me. It’s officially been six months since I got back to America after 27 months abroad. At this point, I’m officially supposed to be adjusted… right?

    This blog started in Africa and Africa is an inextricable part of both me and P&P. Being so far away, a “Stranger in a Strange Land,” as it worse, changed me forever and was a big part of me starting this blog—a last-ditch effort in re-establishing connection with the “outside world” that I so often felt had forgotten me. I’ve been back now for half a year, six whole months, and life has changed drastically.

    I’m living the life I dreamed about when I was in Africa. Not that the life I’m living is a dream or ideal life, but it has everything I missed so much when I was there. Friends. A social life. Things to do. Good food to eat. Things to buy. Cute clothes. Eligible men. Places I can go by myself at night. Personal space. Language I understand. Etc. We always what we can’t have, as so often in the last months I’ve found myself longing for the simplicity of Africa, the dirt and the sand and the sea and the sky, each stretching onward in a remarkable sense of infinity. Where life was simpler and worrying about what to cook for dinner was enough.

    My life has changed a lot in between then and now, and I’ve been spending a lot of time, mostly subconsciously, thinking about what I sometimes internally refer to as The Great Divide. Africa. America. Two different lives. But not two different people. Rationalizing that has been hard. A few examples:

    Africa: Too. Much. TIME.

    America: OMGNOTENOUGHTIMEEVER.

    Okay, I saw this one coming for sure. But it’s no less of a shock. In Africa, some nights I’d come home to my hut, made dinner, ate, watched a TV show on my laptop, and changed into jammies… all before 7:15. What now? Reading, journaling, more reading… sleeping… there were nights I went to bed at 7:45 because I just simply had nothing to do. Here, my to-do list grows every single day. Finding time for just the crucial things I find important—God, important relationships, cooking, blogging, working out—feels darn near impossible.


    Africa: a cell phone with one-color screen that got reception half of the time.

    America: an iPhone that rules my life and voicemails that terrify me.

    This is probably the weirdest one: I came back from Africa intensely upset by voicemail. I recognize this is irrational. After years of not having reception quite often, much less voicemail, I grew used to the fact that communication happened on occasion, almost by accident. The idea that someone can leave me a message whenever they wanted and socially I HAD to respond to it freaked me out. I just didn’t listen to them. At one point I had 12. The breaking point was when a friend was in SF for a weekend—that I hadn’t seen in months—and she called me and told me. I thought I missed the message, but then I realized that like all the other ones, I just hadn’t listened to it. I can’t say I am perfect, but I listen to them more now. This speaks to something bigger, a bit of discomfort with the way that here we’re so connected, but in artificial ways.


    Africa: No money and nothing to spend on.

    America: no money and too much to spend it on.

    In Africa I made $5 a day. In America I make over twenty times that and I worry about money about a million times more. Bills, monthly rent which is equivalent to more than five month’s salary in Africa, utilities, and all the good stuff… restaurants, $11 margaritas, fun distractions… too much to do, and too little money, in one of the most expensive cities ever. It was so much easier to just not have any money and to not care because I spent like $30 a week. Man.

    Africa: not enough personal space!

    America: too much personal space!

    Let me explain this one. In Africa, one of the hardest things about life there was people never leaving you alone. Anywhere I went, people wanted to talk, or at least talk about me in front of me. No one ever let me listen to my iPod in peace. No one let me walk down the sidewalk in peace. I longed, literally LONGED with all my heart to blend in and simply not be bothered. Some people grew to love kids calling them “mulungo!” (white person), yelling at you whenever you walked by. I didn’t. I got used to it, but I never liked it. I simply wanted to blend in. but in America, I miss that. We keep to ourselves too much. Yesterday I asked someone what bus had just passed and they looked at me like I was a crazy person. So many places in the world, you can make friends on the street or on the bus and no one thinks you’re a creeper. Here, people are content to live in self-isolation, and I never thought I’d say this, but, I miss that about Africa.

    Africa: freedom!

    America: trapped.

    I think this has been the hardest part of coming back. In Africa, I was free. Sure, I had a job and some responsibilities, but not that many. I had a lot of flexibility. I could take off for a long weekend, hitchhike 800 kilometers, spend a day on a beach somewhere with a cold soda for 25 cents, and not really have anything to care about. I didn’t have a to-do list coming home with me at the end of the day. I could travel to Swaziland, to the World Cup in South Africa, to Thailand. I went to eight countries last year, maybe 9? I don’t remember. I felt like I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. There were no limits.

    Here I don’t feel that way anymore, that sense of endless and limitless possibility. I look at my near future and instead of seeing world travel and adventure, I see a job and bills. That’s all I see anytime soon. I know that’s not fair—that this is real life and that real life demands certain sacrifices and the obtaining of a certain sense of balance—but I’ve been so far on the other end of the spectrum that real life feels like handcuffs. The idea of not leaving the country in 2011 (when I circumnavigated the globe in 2010!) feels too much to bear. I feel like some youthful irresponsibility has been forever lost. And my heart starts pounding when I wonder if I’ll ever get it back, or if this is really it. A former Volunteer told me “it all fades to a rosy hue…” and it does. I look back on Africa now longingly, missing the parts of life I’ll never get here, and forgetting all the times I wished I was anywhere else. That’s how life goes. It’s so hard to be content in the present.

    If there’s anything this self-indulgent post makes me realize, it’s that I’m still adjusting. I’m six months back, and life simply won’t be the same, no matter how hard I try. The only thing I can do is to accept the differences and find ways to explore the joys of Africa in San Francisco, to mix the best of both worlds, to find that balance between my two lives. To find the moments where I feel free and unharnessed, that the world is wide open in front of me, and hang onto those moments. To approach my life with that same sense of wonder that I once approached the unknown. That will prove to be my key to happiness. That will be my ticket to finally once again feeling like I’m home.

    If you’d like to read any of my posts about Africa, please check out my Peace Corps/Moz tab.

    Have a good night everyone!

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Musings, Postcards (Travel) Tagged With: , , , , , ,

    Welcoming 2011… A Little Late

    January 10, 2011 by 13 Comments
    IMG_0082

    In some areas of my life, I am ridiculously punctual and I hate hate HATE being late. After two years in Africa, however, my punctuality and stress related to being on time relaxed… a LOT… just in time for me to get back to America where everyone is running around stressed all the time and that things happen WHEN they are supposed to happen and deadlines actually MEAN something and the to-do list is getting longer and… it’s all quite overwhelming. Something tells me it will take me quite a while to return to full-on American mentality. I’d rather have breakfast take an hour and just stare off into space when I feel like it.

    I can’t believe it’s a new year… and that we are already more than a week into it. I rang in the new year in my old stomping ground of Los Angeles, where I got to enjoy some nice weather, eat some delicious food, and, MOST importantly, see some of my closest friends. More on that later! The first week of 2011 has seen me gallivanting all over CA without much time to breathe or reflect, which is something I love to do, so I am taking the time to do that now.

    For me, 2010 was definitely an interesting and exciting year. I was living in Mozambique, being constantly stretched and challenged, and also having some really crazy experiences—traveling to the World Cup in South Africa, seeing Swaziland, going on Safari, and then spending a full month backpacking in Southeast Asia (posts to come–yes, I fail as a blogger) only to return HOME to America after my 27-month stint. Exciting. Stimulating. Incredible.

    But with that being said… I don’t think 2010 was a good year. Don’t get me wrong, I had some amazing opportunities that I know I was very blessed to have. But I wasn’t truly happy. I survived in Moz, but I didn’t thrive there. I loved it, but I also missed my friends and family. I felt lonely, and most importantly, I wasn’t happy with myself. It’s crazy how no matter what your circumstances are in life—whether you’re rich or poor, fat or thin, black or white, living in Africa in a hut or living in an affluent California suburb—life happiness and satisfaction usually comes down to your relationships with others and your relationship with yourself. And for me, in that respect, 2010 was a hard year.

    On 10-10-10, I recapped how my 10 goals for 2010 were going. There were some that I did pretty well with my tangible goals (starting a blog, doing well on the GRE, applying to grad school from Africa, Traveling—8 countries!, and standing up straighter, or at least a small improvement. Baby steps.) But the less tangible, more important ones, like putting God back at the center of my life and stop selling myself short, were a big fat fail. As I get older and become more self-aware, I recognize more what needs to change in my life and how circumstances are not the most important thing. What matters most is what is going on inside.

    2011 is going to be one of the most defining and formative and challenging years of my life. It’s the first time I need to make a life for myself—I went straight from college to Peace Corps, which, while challenging in other ways, means not having to work hard to make friends, find a job or worry about many menial real-world things like bills and insurance and paying rent. This year, I have to figure this whole life thing out. I’m a little scared.

    I have a million goals for 2011 but I don’t know if I have a resolution (besides the aforementioned pescatarian project). I HOPE to find a great job. I HOPE to make a good grad school decision. I HOPE to make new friends and reconnect with old ones. I HOPE to be able to run a marathon. But I think my “resolution” for this year is, in a way, to know myself, love myself, and challenge myself.

    I competed in a duathlon last weekend by myself. It was a free race sponsored by Total Body Fitness (2 mile trail run, 7 mile hilly bike, 2 mile trail run) and fundraiser for Girls on the Run. I went alone. I was freezing. I was slow. I don’t think I passed a single person the whole race. I got discouraged at points. I felt awkward and out of shape and bad about myself because of how everyone else was doing. I realized I was losing sight of the point: that I am strong. Stronger than I think. Maybe I’m slow and all the overweight dads and their seven year old sons are creaming me, but that doesn’t matter. What matters more is how I see myself—believing that I am ABLE and that I am worth it—and forgetting the rest.

    Here’s to 2011.

    How’s the new year going so far? Do you have any “intangible” goals for the year?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

    100.

    November 2, 2010 by 16 Comments
    blog1

     This is my 100th post.

    It comes at quite an important time in my life, as well, being only NINE DAYS away from finishing my 26-month tour of service as a PCV in Mozambique, and getting ready to start the next chapter or so it seems. I figured this merited a tiny bit of reflection about this little project of mine and what is going to become of it. And since it might be one of my last posts from the Moz, I wanted to include some of my favorite pictures of this crazy country that I have come to call home.

    I started reading “healthy living blogs” last fall to get some inspiration for delicious/nutritious food and other ways to stay healthy, as it had become quite challenging for me in this country whose cuisine is often defined by oil and salt. They were a fun “time-waster” but really, I wanted my own project, my own space on the interwebs.

    In March I asked my dad, web genius extraordinaire, to help me set up a blog. I threw up a lot of posts that were silly or just featured pictures of really disgusting-looking food (food photographer I am NOT) but it was really just an experiment. I also uploaded several posts from my old, boring blog, musings on African moments such as the difficulties of bathing, and backdated my boring “first post” to the time that I started THINKING about blogging.

     I didn’t have the guts to start sharing my blog until the beginning of May,  and I remember getting comments on that post and getting so excited about this blog experiment of mine. Since then it’s been six months–100 posts is what many bloggers do in a month but I did what I could. And it’s been fun! I’ve had an outlet to blog about my travels to Swaziland and Maputo and Tofo and the World Cup and Kruger National Park and Gorongosa…

    And a place to talk about real things like body image and getting attacked (thanks for all the positive words) and how running is a privilege and the contradiction of “healthy living” here.

    I know that being the crazy girl in Africa has defined me as a blogger for these six months but even though my location will change, P&P won’t. Sure, my content will be a little different. I just need to re-figure-out what I want this blog to be. I will never be a “this is what I eat” blogger–enough people do that already, nor will I have gorgeous pictures of food, or-super-duper-creative-and-healthy “chocolate chip cookies with all the extra health benefits and none of the calories!” type of recipes. That’s never been me, even though sometimes I wish it was!

    I’ll just try to stick to what makes me ME and what makes my blog my own. Maybe I won’t be in Africa anymore–at least for a little while (!)–but my pursuits will stay the same: travel, delicious food and a life lived in love.

    Being back stateside with real internet (!) I will be able to blog more, finally get around to improving my site and all of that. But I don’t want to lose what being a blogger in Africa has taught me: that blogging is fun, but it’s something to be done when you can, and should NEVER be an obligation. (Unless someone wants to pay me thousands of dollars to blog. That would be a fine obligation.)

    The next several weeks for me will be crazy ones. I’m headed to Maputo on Saturday to close my service next week, and then traveling for a while. I have a big life transition happening over the next two months, and my greatest wish is to just be PRESENT, to delight in the unknown and the unexpected despite feeling… pretty gosh darn freaked out. My blog will surely change as I do, but, as with my own life, I suspect the change will be for the better.

    I know this is a boring post but I did just want to take a moment to pause. And to say thank you. This blog is something I created for me, but what’s kept me going and motivated me are all the people who have chosen to stop by and say hi, to offer words of support, to chime in on issues, and to just create a sense of community for me despite the fact that I live 10,000 miles away from anything. So, whether this is your first visit or your fiftieth, THANKS.

    Here’s to the next 100!

    tchau.

    For those of you who choose to blog, what makes your blog YOURS?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , , ,
    Next Page»