Press the Reset Button

Through straight up diet and exercise I have now officially lost 10 lbs.
I go to church 3 times a week.
I write to you about random things during down time at work.
I drink two liters of water every day.
I weigh myself every morning.
I chart my weight on my calendar, and on a BMI + Weight Chart on my phone.
I teach ESL classes to Spanish speaking adults on Sunday afternoons.
I am starting an initiative to, on rainy days, give umbrellas to people on the streets who don't have them.
I spend forty to sixty minutes every night, without fail, dancing to Bachata music in my bedroom.
I have sworn off dating for a period of 6 months. As for this never-ending quest, I may resume in June 2011.


When I was in high school and my early days at Lavery I was dating Russ Walker. I can remember wishing I could hurry up and be old enough so that Russ and I could get married and he could be my engineer husband and we could just be so cute and happy together. My mother had only been 21 when she married my father. I remember wishing I could get married before that. And when my mother said we should wait longer, I remember thinking in the back of my mind that I knew it was a stupid idea, too. It wouldn't make me happy to get married knowing that everyone thought I was doing the wrong thing. I needed my mother's approval at the least. Looking back, 21 is a stupid age to get married. In the four years since then, I feel like I've climbed some mountain of adulthood or something. I have reached the peak where I can see out in front of me and know where to go on my way down. People who get married at 21 are only climbing up together, having no idea what is on the other side. And you never DO really know what's in store for you in life, but you should probably know a bit more about where you're trying to go and how you want to get there before you do something as permanent as marriage.

That's why I'm pressing the reset button. My weight has expanded slowly over the past four years. So now at 10lbs down and 20 to go for my dream weight, I'm working on it. I'm focusing on what's best for me and the people I care about.

Yesterday I stopped at Kroger and bought twenty five dollars worth of products to use in the shower. Body scrub that smells like "tahitian velvet," shaving gel that smells like kiwis, fancy hair conditioner with tea tree extracts and mint, and a razor that has three blades and is a beautiful shade of lime green. It was fun. I had a blast smelling things and googling them on my phone trying to find the best product for the price. But it was nice to splurge on something that is just for me and has nothing to do with snagging guys.

I'm trying to make better choices here, people. Don't knock the technique. Turning your attention to the important things in life, while re-evaluating what you want out of it all is a really important step in growth. I've spent a lot of my time saying I'll change this and I'll change that, but never setting aside the TIME to do it. So. Here I am. I've got time.


Russ Walker IS married now. To some girl I don't know in Washington, D.C. They met a couple years after he moved up there. I helped him move. We loaded up his tiny blue Saturn and drove the whole way, weighed down, almost scraping the pavement when we pulled out of the driveway. I stayed two nights in D.C. and flew back, crying my eyes out like the world was ending. And in a way it was. A chapter of my life had ended. But I don't miss it.

Russ really did become an engineer. A top secret one. He works for the government. And I sorta did become a writer like I said I would. I'm writing to you, aren't I? But I don't think Russ and I would have worked out in the long run. People change a lot between 20 and 25. The heartbreak, the disillusionment, the pain, the nature of life, all start to become apparent. And in the back of my mind at 19, the whole time my mother would say "Wait," I thought to myself that 26 was a good age to get married. At 26, no one accuses you of being too young. At 26 you are fully yourself.

And I think I am. Or in six months, once this reset is complete, I will be.