Heavy

 I like many people gained weight during COVID. Twenty pounds to be exact. 

I started COVID 10 pounds over my normal weight - I was still trying to lose my last 10 pounds of "baby weight". Not sure I could still count it as baby weight as my baby had just turned 7 a couple of months prior to the start of lockdown. 

So, here I am 30 pounds over my normal weight and feeling it.  I know the number on the scale isn't the only thing that matters, but I also feel heavy. I feel like a rock at the bottom of the ocean with no way up. Even if the scale doesn't budge I want to feel light again. Have energy again.

I grew up dancing which meant my dance teachers talked about diet and size a lot. You wanted to look like everyone else so you could fit the part. I never did anything crazy to manage my size. I danced a lot so I could eat what I wanted too, but I still felt fat at times. What girl didn't who grew up in the 90's when diet culture was all the rage. Anyway.... As a dancer I felt whole. If I was on stage I felt like I could conquer the world. I was confident, light,  and powerful. Off stage I struggled. I was a loner at school, a super nerd who danced. I lived in two worlds - my dance world where everything made sense, and my school world where I was weird. Yet, I made it through high school and onto college. 

I had dreamed of going to New York for college to study dance, but I got injured at 16. That opened me to the world of physical therapy. My career dreams changed but I still wanted to leave where I didn't belong. Unfortunately while in high school my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy and was going through treatment when it was time to decide where to go. I chose to stay close by just in case something went wrong. I'm glad I stayed because my mom died when I was in my 20's so it was good to see her when I was able rather than the 2x a year that I would have seen her if I was far away. 

My first year of college I was sexually assaulted by my boyfriend - great guy. I never told anyone except for my counselor I started seeing two years later. After the incident I ate a lot. I gained the freshman 15 + 5. I wanted to be ugly and hidden. I figured if I wasn't seen I couldn't get hurt again. I focused on studying which made me a great PT, but it also made me lonely because all my friends were busy finding boyfriends. The first two years after college I was a bridesmaid six times.

While my friends were busy getting married I got busy running. I trained for my first marathon after college. I was finding myself and my strength again through movement. My confidence was back as a person. 

A few years after school my sister was expecting her first kid. She and I were close so I applied for a job in the city she was in and moved so I could be closer to her. While there I kept running. I completed many races in my 20's including two more marathons - like I mentioned in my first post my husband proposed at the end of my third marathon.

I entered my 30's happy, confident, whole, light. I gained happy weight in my pregnancies. Thirty pounds with each. The second time around like I mentioned I only lost 20 of those pounds. But, I was happy and still felt light. I was walking, doing yoga being me. 

When COVID hit things in life were  running smoothly. My family was functioning like a well oiled machine. That machine crashed hard very early on. During the third week of lockdown I had to take my oldest to the ER because he wanted to take his own life. That was the worst night of my life. No one was at the ER because of COVID. A social worker tried to talk to us a few hours after we were admitted to the ER. My child was asleep - he is a sound sleeper. He has been known to fall out of bed and not wake up he sleeps so soundly. Needless to say he couldn't wake up to talk to the social worker on zoom. She wanted him admitted to the psychiatric hospital across the street. That meant he would be locked up without me and no way for me to see or talk to him in the middle of lock down. I begged the attending in the ER for a different plan. She agreed to wait till my child was awake and have another assessment performed. So he slept and I tossed and turned all night till finally mid morning a new social worker was available to talk to us via zoom. After a long talk she agreed to discharge us home since we already were working with a psychologist. But, that night changed everything. I lived in a constant state of high alert. Not knowing how to protect my kid from himself. Not sure what I did wrong to get to this point. I had anxiety like never before. I was eating to numb myself, to comfort myself, to survive all of my thoughts and feelings. Over time things improved slightly, but I don't think I really exhaled until this past Spring. In Feb my child started an anti-depressant because even though things were better my child was still depressed and withdrawn. After a couple of months on the medication I started seeing my kid again. I started seeing his smiles that are infections, and his laughs that are pure joy. I finally could be still. I started working out with a trainer six month ago. Trying to build strength so that I can start to move with confidence again. I am now ready to nourish my soul with food rather than hide my feelings in bingeing. My hope is as I ate for nourishment I will feel lighter and that my workouts will give me strength to swim out of the abyss. I started dancing again -  just around the house, but it gives me joy and makes me feel centered. The journey to finding center is just beginning, but I finally feel confident that I'm headed in the right direction after two and half years of sinking to the bottom of no where. Here's to hope of becoming light once again.