Regrets

I'm linking up with Shell today for Pour Your Heart Out
(for some reason I can't get the link from Shell's blog to work right for me...so here is her picture and a link to her blog is below)



http://thingsicantsay-shell.blogspot.com/


Regrets

I try to exercise 5 out of 7 days a week.  I have found that when I do some kind of exercise that I feel better physically and emotionally and I see a better weight loss for the week.  The weeks I don't exercise, or don't exercise enough, I have a crappy weight loss (or no weight loss at all) and feel bad about myself.  Usually I walk or ride my bike, but last week I tried to run some.  At first I hated it, a lot, and decided that I didn't want to do it anymore.  But then a good friend recommended that I try the couch to 5k app for the iPhone and see if that would help me to not hate running so much.  I did, and it helped.  I don't know if I will take up races but I don't hate to run so much anymore.

Anyway, while I was running (well, run/walking) last week at the high school track I started thinking about things I regret in my life.  I have a number of regrets that I try to not dwell on so much.  Most of them I can push out of my head because of the outcomes they have brought. 

I regret not being more "loose" in college.  Not that I wanted to be a slut or a drunk...but I was pretty uptight in college and could have probably had more friends and fun if I had loosened up a bit.  I don't dwell on this too often because I think of the great friends I made in college and the fun that I did have and how much I loved college. 

I regret the choice I made for my grad school.  I received my masters from a Christian Seminary, and while I think it's a very good school, I don't think it was the right fit for me.  I regret not going to either UofI Chicago or the University of Denver to get a MSW.  I don't dwell on this because if I had gone to a different school I most likely would not have ended up in Florida and I would have never met my husband.  I love my husband, he is a wonderful man and the perfect ying to my yang.  I would never change a thing when it comes to him, so I can't beat myself up over staying at a school that wasn't a good fit for me.

The biggest regret I have that I can't reason away is not being serious about my health earlier in my life.  I have been overweight my whole life.  I was a 10lb baby.  I was a large child, both in height and in weight.  I was obese in adolescence and as an adult.  I was not a happy child or teenager.  I don't really know why, but I do know that I had so many fears and used to wish I was a cartoon instead of a person.  I could never identify my feelings so I ate them.  I drown myself in food.  I was such a shy girl and never felt like I really fit in with my peers.  I hid in my own body to prevent getting hurt.  I got fat to keep people away.  I've known for a long, long time that I needed to lose weight.  I've always said and thought this will be different when I lose weight...that will change when I'm thinner, but I never followed through with those thoughts.  I started doing weight watchers in 1999 but 11 years later I ended up being the heaviest of my life instead of losing or staying the same.  I don't know what, but something snapped in me last fall that said enough.  31 years of being fat was enough.  Now that I am getting healthy, I feel good, I feel happy, I feel better than I've ever felt.  I hate that I waited so long to get serious.  I hate that I waisted all that time.  There's no positive spin on this regret...just 31 years of waisted time feeling awful about myself and unhappy with my body.  I know that I should focus on what's good now, how I feel now, that I didn't wait any longer.  I know I should focus on that I'm still young and that I've extended the years of my life by losing the weight and taking better care of myself.  But when I run, and feel great emotionally even though I feel beat up physically, all I can think of is the regret that I didn't do this at 21.