Motivation Monday

This a story of two very different girls.

This is the first girl...

Hot Springs 2012

Nashville July 2012

CMA Fest June 2012

Nashville 2012

July 2012

Christmas 2012

She is 26 years old and is a third grade teacher.  She enjoys buying shoes, going out to eat, going to musicals and going to Nashville (a lot).  She has a pretty good life.  She drives a sweet red Mustang (with pink interior lights) and has the best friends a girl could want.  She is a funny girl and has big dreams.  She believes your only as old as you feel and she still feels like a kid.  She loves pink and sparkly things.  She never meets a stranger and could talk to anybody.

But that is what she wants you to see.  She wants you to see her with a smile on her face and she wants to see all the fun she has.  She doesn't want you to know that inside, she isn't happy.  She isn't satisfied and she is disgusted with herself.  She knows something has got to give.  She is tired of feeling this way.


Now, I would like you to meet the second girl.

June 1 2013

March 2013

May 11, 2013

May 11, 2013

Hardy 2013

May 2013

She is 27 years old and is going to be a 2nd grade teacher next year.  She has recently graduated with her Masters degree.  She enjoys shopping (and is addicted to Kiki La'Rue), she paints her fingernails a different color every couple of days, she loves to sing karaoke, and watching the Walking Dead.  She loves to laugh and smile.  And she smiles a lot.  She enjoys going to the gym and lifting weights, and her favorite thing to do is squats.  She is a confident and determined woman.  Giving up is not in her vocabulary. 


You see, I was that first girl.  I was that girl that was terribly miserable in my own skin, but you may have never known that.   You may have never guessed I battled myself every day, but I did.

Now I am that second girl.  I am in the best shape I have been in a long time.  Am I skinny?  No.  Am I perfect?  No.  Am I happy?  Yes.  Am I proud?  Yes.  Am I done?  No.

I still struggle, I still cry, I still feel like that first girl some days.  I guess I always will.  But when I look at old pictures, I don't know who that girl is.  She seems like someone else, not me.

Everyone has a story.  This is mine.  What is yours?
Everyone's journey starts somewhere, start yours.  It's scary and it's hard, but it is worth it.  When you can look at pictures from a year ago and not recognize the girl you were, it is a strange and liberating feeling.

I posted a picture on facebook about a week or so ago that said You can cry because you're overweight or you can cry at the gym, only one has helped me lose weight.  And that's the truth.  I have shed many tears about my weight and how I felt about myself, they were wasted tears.  The tears I have cried since January 2013---the ones of happiness, the ones of defeat, the ones of exhaustion...those tears have mattered.  Those tears meant I was trying and trying hard. 

I am sure it seems like I'm tooting my own horn....but TOOT TOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am proud!