The OK Adventures of Peppersloth and Annie

This title seems way less fun after the ‘Star Wars’ days. But the day itself was pretty good! Jerrad took me retail therapy shopping, which is always fun! And it is the most appropriate type of shopping to do during Birthday Month! Just don’t tell Dave Ramsey! We haven’t finished the Baby Steps yet, and am very sure we would get a scolding. But we’re out of debt, so we should get SOME credit! 

We started with Starbucks, as any good retail therapy shopping SHOULD start! I tried the new summer drink…So good! I love bursting bubbles! And I always get my drink either without ice, or very light ice. I don’t know about you, but, if I’m going to pay $7.00 for a drink, I better get more drink, than ice. That is the most annoying thing about coffee shops to me. I do not want to pay for ice! I want to pay for the overpriced drink that I’m too lazy to figure out how to make at home! 

Something amazing happened to me though. Today was hard. It didn’t go the way I had hoped, and I was feeling kind of emotional when I picked Jerrad up from work. He told me we were going out shopping, and that we were getting a treat. He asked me what kind of snack I would like. I named a few things, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was not hungry at that moment. I was tired, and I was emotional, but I was not hungry. So, I had a choice. I could acknowledge my feelings of the day being difficult, or I could eat my feelings and ruin my dinner. I chose to acknowledge my feelings. I spoke them outloud. Today was hard. And you know what? That felt better than a large fry with extra salt! Now, don’t get me wrong. If I am hungry, I am absolutely going to eat the fries. They are their own food group in my world! But I’m realizing that sitting in the feels is better than burying them in something else. It isn’t an easy realization, but it is an important one. 

Part of my Birthday Month journey is mental health, and if I want to have a healthy mind, that means being okay with my feelings. Even when those feelings are hard. Better to face them now, than to deal with them 20 years down the road. I want to move beyond the place where my weight is tied to my happiness. Because it shouldn’t be. To be defined by a number on a scale is to reduce me down to the food that is weighed and priced. And if God calls me more important than that, then who am I to do otherwise? Also, the scale doesn’t take muscle into account. It doesn’t know that my balance is off due to the shape of my feet. And it doesn’t know that the number it flashes at me has reduced me to tears in the past.

I’d like to confess something: I am a closet people pleaser. I know. Terrible. You wouldn’t think that of me, but I am. I’m a 9 on the enneagram, and it comes out the most when I am in conflict, or when an extrovert is telling me how to live my life. But I wrote something on a post-it note a few months ago that has really helped me. ‘Don’t work so hard to please people who don’t like you, or respect you.’ Did that hit as hard as I intended it to? Let me say it again, louder. DO NOT WORK SO HARD TO PLEASE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIKE YOU, OR RESPECT YOU! Don’t! It isn’t worth it because nothing you do will ever be good enough! If you tell them you lost 30 lbs, they’ll ask why you didn’t lose 60 lbs! And then your amazing accomplishment, because it IS an accomplishment, will feel like nothing. Don’t do that to yourself! You are better than that! You are! I promise! You are not defined by a person, or a number. You are defined by a Creator. THE Creator, to be more precise. And if you allow the ignorance of fatphobia to infect you, you’ll never be all that you were created to be. So, eat your fries, and feel your feelings. You’ll be okay. There are worse things than wearing size 18 jeans, or XXL shirts, I promise.