Being a young twenty-something girl in this crazy and hectic world we live in today has definitely taken it's toll on my mind, body, and soul. I am becoming aware of myself more deeply than I ever have and realizations about my life are starting to take the front seat in the vision of my future. The consequences of my choices as a teenager, good and bad, are ripping at my psyche and pulling me in all different directions. So where do I go from here?
As a blossoming teenage girl, my father walked out on my family. My emotional state became fragile and every shred of hope I had for a positive future came crashing down around me. I felt like I had lost all control of my life and my destiny and the heartache I faced in the years to come became unbearable. My first serious relationship ended in disaster. He didn't love me or care about me and he left my life just as easily as he came into it. I began to hate myself and couldn't find anything about me that I even liked. As a result, I quickly fell under the crushing weight of self-doubt and began starving myself as a last stitch effort to gain control back.
I'll never forget the day that my mom told my step-dad I was all skin and bones. It's not exactly what you want to hear when going to the first high school dance you've been to since the boy you were madly in love with dumped you. I realized then that I had a problem. I wasn't gaining any control back. I was just losing myself deeper in the abyss that had become the world I lived in and if I wanted to crawl out of it, the only way that could happen was if I let go off all the lies I'd let myself believe in and get back to being the person that I knew was worthy of love. So I ate.
Flash forward to a few years later and my next serious relationship is with a control freak who can't bare to think about the idea that I have friends other than him and I basically ate myself into oblivion and gained 40lbs. Having a metabolism that was slowed down by starvation didn't help anything and knowing how thin I used to be was constantly on my mind. Reminders of how ugly and fat I felt stayed ingrained on my body in stretch marks and pockets of fat and every time I saw them I would be reminded of how much the person in the mirror was not someone I liked. I realized after two long years of dating this terrible person that I deserved better than him and I decided to change my life once again...
After dumping the man who had once thought he could control every aspect of my life, I felt free. I felt like I had the world at my fingertips and for once in my life I was going to be somebody. I dumped the weight that I had gained rather quickly, but the stretchmarks still served as a reminder of where I had come from. I turned to God this time, though. I prayed he would give me the strength I needed to make a better life for myself and that he would lead me to the right person to compliment my dreams and desires. And then I met a man.
There was something innately different about this man that I had met. He had a sense of direction and goals he was ready to pursue and a stability that was lacking in every other person I had ever met. He was religious and outgoing and comfortable in his own skin and it was something I longed for. We instantly connected and quickly fell in love. Being with him was constantly an opportunity to learn about myself and to grow in my faith and to challenge my ideas of what was possible. It was a fresh start.
Today we've been together a year and a half and are still completely in love in every way... but now we are facing new life choices and lifestyle changes that need to be made. Together we are looking for a fresh start...and this blog is going to chronicle my experiences with finding myself, finding a purpose, and changing my life for the better.
I'm ready for a new chapter. I'm ready to make a fresh start. I'm ready to change the direction my life takes so that it can have a better ending. Are you?
