I’ve got a lot of great things going for me right now. Simultaneously, those same things are what keep me busy day-in and day-out.
I’m working a lot, getting the hours I need to pay bills, which I didn’t always have when I was a barista. Shift supervisors pretty much have 30 plus hours each week guaranteed, which eases financial stress. I also believe my higher-ups are satisfied with my work and I think I exceed their expectations the majority of the time–always a good thing.
Same thing at school. I’ve been staying on top of assignments, for the most part. Every now and then, I turn something in late, but most of my teachers know the kind of schedule I have and grant me a bit of leniency. My point is that this semester in contrast to last semester is a vast improvement in self-motivation skills. I’m pushing myself to do well all the time.
I’m also tapping back into something I love to do that I see myself doing for a living in the future. This semester has me in my degree’s “practicum”–working for the school newspaper–and I’m working as a photojournalist. If you remember when I first enrolled at Lee, I volunteered as a contributing writer during my first semester and quickly discovered how much I despise deadlines! They were creativity’s worst enemy and I hated the fact that getting something turned in on time was more important than piece’s brilliance-factor. Everything I wrote had to be beautiful and I couldn’t achieve that when I had a date hovering over my shoulder–absolutely impossible. However, in spite of this, I feel a lot differently about taking pictures and getting those turned in on time. I’m currently in a state of learning how to get the perfect shot, but in the meantime, I’m not as pressured about deadlines (even though I still have them) because I can take thousands of pictures and one of them is bound to be genius. I recently took pictures of a women’s basketball game and while the white balance was totally wrong, I really felt like I was in my element, standing in the bleachers, searching for good angles, moving with the players… It just felt good. I really loved it. And it made me think of a dream I’ve had for a while–taking pictures for the Olympics–and I actually thought it might be possible. I haven’t felt that possibilities feeling in years. It was so refreshing!
I know I’ve been limiting myself. I’ve been working for Starbucks for over two years now and people have asked what I plan on doing after I graduate…
“Uhm… Work for Starbucks?” is all I’ve been able to come up with.
But now, maybe I can do more. Maybe I am capable of such things, which I always thought I was a few years ago, but ever since… Well… To be honest, my self worth was shot to hell after I moved here. But maybe it’s actually starting to climb back up? I really hope so. I was always confident in my talents before. I don’t know why I ever stopped believing in my own abilities. But you cannot know how much psychological and emotional damage I’ve had to overcome in the last year. Simply unfathomable.
I’ve lost 23 pounds. There’s a confidence-booster! I can credit this success to the South Beach Diet, but it’s become such second-nature, that I don’t even think about it as a diet anymore. So cliché right? “It’s a lifestyle change!” But it really has been, which I find hilarious. I never would have believed it unless I did it myself, but I have and it works! And it’s only been eight weeks since we started. Let me put it in real perspective for you: I haven’t weighed this little since the eighth grade. I can only imagine how much I’ll have lost by the time a year has passed. It’s a crazy feeling when I always thought I would look a certain way. I’ve never been an athlete and I’ve never been “thin”, so the fact that it even feels possible is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. You can’t understand if you’ve ever been thin and then wanted to “get back” to it because I was never “there” to begin with! I’m going somewhere I have never been! Try that one on for size!
What I really find interesting about this whole thing is how people used to say to me, “Carly, you don’t need to lost weight! You look great!” And now I’ve lost nearly 25 pounds and I feel and look so much better and people are complimenting me. So I think to myself, Didn’t need to lost weight, huh? But I think it goes back to that whole idea of never having been “there” and people have a hard time imagining you any other way than how they’ve always seen you. So when you show them what you’re capable of, they’re saying things they never said before. Good things.
I love being married to George. A lot of people simply say, “I love being married,” but I have to say I love being married to George. I can hardly wait for us to graduate from school and move back to Seattle so my friends and family can get to know him even better than they could this summer. Everyone got to meet him and they all enjoyed him, but there’s so much more to him than meets the eye. I could not have married a more supportive man. A guy who joins his wife in her weight-loss goals, despite the fact that he was thin to begin with! George has lost 20 plus pounds since we started South Beach. And what a listener! I can be a total basket-case and he would always say, “That makes total sense,” just to make me feel better.
So yes. So many great things going for me. And I feel like I’m on the road back to “the good ol’ days” but they’ll be more like “good ol’ NEW days” or something. I have felt stuck in this rut of work-school-homework-sleep for so long, but I’m starting to see glimpses of new experiences in the future. Opportunities–I never thought I’d see them again, I’ll be honest. But I guess that’s just my naivety and I had to figure that out on my own.
But I’m figuring it out. Slowly but surely.
One area that needs work (it always does) is the relationship-with-God area. He and I don’t talk that much and I miss feeling close. But like everything else, I see hope for the future. I just have to trust that it will get better, just like everything else seems to be…
