"Too" Something

As I sit here staring at a blank Word document, I am forced to think of all the times I sat on my couch wondering how I got so fat. When you run a personal blog, you have to recount some of the worst times in your life (and some of the best) so that you have the chance to reach that one person and let them know they’re not alone.

If you have ever felt “too” anything, someone else has as well. We are not alone in our thoughts/fears/concerns but people don’t advertise their worst qualities, right? I know some people use Facebook as their therapist but for the most part, we keep the nitty gritty stuff to ourselves.

I personally have never felt “too thin”; I am on the other side of the spectrum. I have often felt “too fat”, or “too butch/manly” because I am NOT girly, I have even felt “too ugly” for something because I am human and my own worst critic. I have had epic meltdowns behind closed doors because my pants didn’t fit or because I tried to get dressed and my “rolls” fell over my pants.

I cannot count the number of times I have seen a picture of myself and thought I was ugly. The rule is, if you really want to know how someone looks, looked at their “tagged” photos on Facebook, right? I have hidden, deleted and thrown out so many photos because I wasn’t happy with how I looked.

I have had many bodies in my life; I have been slender, overweight, skinny fat and now muscular (high body fat still). Through all of those bodies I have had to love myself, to find something about me that was okay even if I was “too” something and I didn’t always succeed. I was still struggling to see my beauty.

Then, one picture changed all of that and it was picture taken of me in the CrossFit Open during 15.1 and 15.1a. I had never seen what I looked like working out and besides suffering from “ugly lifting face” I saw power, strength, beauty, grace and confidence. I didn’t focus on my face, I didn’t focus on my stomach, I focused on what I had accomplished.

I wasn’t looking at me; I was looking at what my body was capable of. I was reliving the victory of that PR, that moment when the whole box is watching and cheering me on. I wasn’t ugly or fat, I was beautiful then and I am beautiful now. I am strong and confident and some days I’m even graceful.

I now have a slew of selfies thanks to my girlfriends that insist that we look just fine post WOD. I don’t focus on how I look in those photos so much as what I have just accomplished in them. My post MURPH photo, you can see I’m proud and my post RANDY photo you can see I am confident and my average day photo (because yeah we selfie a lot) you can see I’m strong.

You can never be “too” strong, confident or proud so find what makes you all of those things and never let it go.