Getting Ready to Get Ready

Despite my fervent hopes for a better year, 2009 hasn’t exactly “Met Expectations” so far. Some of it is user error so to speak, the rest of it has been general “life isn’t fair-ness”.

I won’t belabor the “life isn’t fair” part – see my February 3 blog “Tribute”. As for the user error, well that my friends is all me.

I started this blog with big plans – tackle those things I’ve been putting off, start really living my life and embrace the unknown. I was going to take dance classes, go on blind dates, climb Mt. Everest, start cage fighting. Ok, maybe not those last two, but you get the general picture.

I have poked my head out of my shell – I’ve gone out a few times, more than I typically have. To my amusement the past two Fridays I’ve found myself out until the early hours of Saturday morning. Granted one night ended with three of us drinking decaf at Dunkin Donuts and the other at a diner, but still, I wasn’t wearing my comfy sweatpants getting to know my couch a bit better.

However, I find myself, in many ways, exactly where I started. I’ve enviously read the status updates and blogs of my more adventurous friends as they plan their next adventure, wondering when I’m going to get my ass in gear. I feel like I’m in a state of getting ready to get ready. I’m almost there, but not quite. I need a deadline or something else to kick me out of inaction.

So, with that in mind, I’m setting a deadline, and I’m putting it here, in writing. Wednesday, February 25. For the Catholics out there, you may recognize it as Ash Wednesday – the first day of a time of fasting and prayer. As a student in the catholic school system, we were encouraged to sacrifice something during this time. Even though I have strayed from the Catholic Church, I still adhere to many of the traditions. I am going to give up the barriers I have built around myself, beginning with the layer of fat I have built up one french fry and one piece of bacon at a time.

I’m nervous – I’ve spent the past few years hiding myself away. Getting hurt sucks, and I’ve been in a race to escape it, to little effect. I think I’ve wound up hurting myself more than anyone else could. While trying to avoid rejection, I’ve put up a wall that would rival the Great Wall of China and have isolated myself from living. When I’ve been upset or agitated, I’ve turned to my old ally, food. I’ve avoided confrontation, hidden from embarrassment. To ease the pain, I've stuffed those feelings down, hurting myself along the way.

Enough.

I’m note quite ready to sign up for those dance classes, or put myself out there on the dating scene. The wall is a little too sturdy. So I’m starting small – giving up my pattern of eating is going to force me to feel, force me to confront. I won’t be able to turn to the vending machine or a mozzarella stick as a coping mechanism. If I can’t spend my Friday and Saturday nights in a feeding frenzy of junk food, I’m going to need to figure out something else to do.

Am I looking forward to it? Not exactly, but I know I need to do something. I think it’s time for me to tear down this wall. I guess it’s time for me to get ready.