Just want to be normal...

I want to be a normal 27 year old female.
I want to love myself completely.
I want men to find me approachable.
I want to fall in love.
I want to someday start a family.
I want to no longer yearn for a better life.
I want to be content with my life.
I want to be the best that I can be.
I want my dreams to come true.
I want to find my perfect place in this world.
I want to run a lap at the gym without becoming winded.
I want to climb many flights of stairs without having my knees hurt.
I want to go rock climbing, bungee jumping, sky diving, snorkeling, scuba diving...

But then reality hits...

I want to do it ALL now, not in two, three, five, ten, fifteen years; I am impatient.
I want to start living right this second, but feel held back with the excess weight I have on my body.
I want to give up the fight, but know I cannot.

Just some business items...

Here I am on July 28, 2007 in Virginia Beach, VA visiting my sister. Yeah, I know...I'm slightly burnt. I need to get better at the reapplying sunscreen bit, especially after being the water. As my sister puts it, I've lost it all in my boobs. Maybe this is true...maybe it's not.

My trainer hurt himself a couple weeks ago, so I've been trying really hard to be an easy client. After seeing how much discomfort he was in as he was going to walk with me at the gym, I told him not to worry about it and I'd just jog a lap. Of course he took me up on the offer. I jogged 5 laps (maybe 4...) last Monday, ended up getting shin splints in the left shin, and my right knee was slightly hurting. On Wednesday, he mentioned again that I may need to upgrade the shoes I was wearing, so I bought a pair yesterday. I'm going to try them out today at the gym.

Compliments

I have never been able to take compliments very well. After hearing one, it always seems like my "Thank you" is forced and fake. I believe my thank you's sound fake because I don't believe what the person is telling me to be true. I have always had the perception that if I'm not perfect, then nothing about me is perfect. And if I'm not perfect, I don't deserve compliments. Make sense? I'm sure it doesn't...I'm messed up in the head and sometimes I just need to write things out to have them make sense again.

The reason why I bring this subject up is because I have received numerous compliments from complete strangers these days. Today I was on the elliptical listening to my iPod and watching little league baseball, and a lady comes over to talk to me. I assumed she wanted to change the channel on the TV, so I took off one of my ear phones, and we had the following brief interaction:

"Have you been coming here for awhile?" She inquired.
"Yes, for quite some time." I answer in between my heavy breathing. (I have gotten this question from people who had just joined the gym and they need help for one thing or another or they're curious about if I like it.)
"I just wanted to let you know that it looks like you've lost weight."
"Thank you so much. It hasn't been that much, but I have been losing more inches than weight."
"Well I just wanted to let you know. Keep up the good work."

Three weeks ago the front desk clerk at the gym inquired about the same thing and I had to answer "Well, we'll find out on Wednesday when Matt and I do measurements!"

Two people at work have talked to me about it as well...

It's great that people are noticing, BUT I STILL HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO. I think that's why I like chatting with the trainers more because they understand this and most of the ones I know are extremely encouraging. Also, most of the employees at the gym know me either by name or face and if they don't see me for awhile, they keep me accountable. I ran into Rob this week (another front desk guy), he just finished working out and was going to go back to work, we hugged and he then backed up and said "Where have you been? I haven't seen you in awhile."

As for the compliments...I guess Matt is doing something right with me...I just wish the scale would move already.