Once again this post is not going to be about what I thought it would be about before I started it. Even as I woke up this morning I thought I would be writing about Holidae today. But I am not sure I am ready to do that yet. Today I am going to write some truths about my current self-image. By self-image I am referring specifically to how I feel about my appearance and physical condition. I guess I could summarize how I feel with this one truth. I cannot stand to look at myself. My hair is falling out and turning grey. My lower jaw juts out a bit. One of my teeth is missing and some of the rest are on their way out. My chest has some evidence of pectoral muscles but is as much man boob as muscle. My belly does not protrude with a beer gut like Homer Simpson but it is way larger than I want it to be. My butt suffers from a case of noassatall disease. My legs are weak. My feet are gross looking. But it not those things per se’ that make it hard to look at myself. It is the fact that they are so far away from what I want for myself. It is the fact that in truth I know exactly what needs to be done to get what I want for myself. I am not looking for some large muscle-bound oaf of a body. I just want to be fit. I want to be stronger than average. I want to be able to run my races and feel that I am conquering them instead of them conquering me. What makes it hard to look at myself is because I am the biggest reason that I have failed to be that person. I cannot blame it on anyone else. I am just to weak. I want so bad for my physical fitness to by one of the big priorities that drive my activities and decisions every day. I want to know that when I go work out with a friend that I will not be embarrassed at my weakness. I want to be able to run and not feel like it is a constant struggle. I know that it is never going to be easy and I am ok with that. Some people want to look at themselves and be ok with what they see. I want to be able to look at myself and be proud of who I see. I will never get there unless something changes. I have to get my eating under control. I have to put more time into physical fitness activities and I have to intelligently prioritize what I do with that time. Right now I am suffering from some back and knee pain. There are still things I can be doing. Moreover, there are things I can be doing that will directly impact the recovery from those two issues while at the same time improving my physical fitness. But knowing what you need to do is not enough. Until I learn some self-control and start making some better choices, I am never going to be ok with the person I see in the mirror. I am not saying I am fat. I am not saying I am ugly. I am just saying I am not the best person I could be/want to be and that it is completely my fault. So that is that. I will keep running the race…….but I sure wouldn’t mind if I looked a little better doing it and that it wasn’t so dang hard.
Photo by Reno Laithienne on Unsplash