Roots of She: LOVING YOUR BODY

Jamie over at "ROOTS OF SHE" had a very good post about changes our bodies undergo over time...and her final thought provoking question was:

How has your relationship with your body changed over time? What has been important along the way?

WOW did her post open up the flood gates in my brain. I have been dealing with these same issues now for a while myself...and it has definitely made me step back and think about a lot of things.

Like Jamie started out...

I think I am still in the semi-pissed off stage, disbelief...something. I have never had issues with my body, even when I have gained weight in the past I would still be able to function and do anything I wanted. I could always rely on being able to do everything.

I have recently had a few health issues come up with my body I am being forced to deal with....one of them being issues with my knee and the simple act of walking and being able to get around well enough to do simple activities of daily living. I am still young and never honestly felt I would ever have any problems with anything like this. I have always been there for me...to do everything I needed done and for those around me...like my son. I was told I needed a knee replacement already...but I am too young..as I would outlive the knee replacement and have to have the surgery twice or even 3 times..and each time they are less successful. There are days I cannot even walk from my office to my kitchen (I work at home). I hobble around worse than my grandmother who is 88 years old. I wonder how I will be able to mow my yard this summer in this house I finally decided to commit to buying under land contract last April. How will I be able to physically do many of the things I will need to do? Things I have always done...but now can't. I can't even climb on a chair to change a lightbulb. I do not at this time have oodles of spare money to pay someone else to do many of these things for me...and I cannot imagine going back to apartment life.

I have issues too with weight that has been ongoing and OFF-going now for years. WHY I just do not get the excess off and keep it off is something I still work on. It ticks me off that I started out with my first job as an exercise instructor and always took care of my body and was in good shape and now I just don't give a crap. I mean I do..but I apparently really don't if I cannot manage to get my weight issues under control. Bending over is near impossible now because of my enlarging abdomen....I look like I am pregnant but I am not. Tying shoes is like holding a basketball in my lap and trying to work around that. NO fun...this alone ..these things alone...should make me want to change and while I DO want to change it all seems like such a big effort. It was not an effort before...or I had made it routine. Not sure. NOW everything is an effort. Not being able to move my body to walk let alone exercise is not helping. I have to plan simple outings on good days and now I never even know for sure if I will have a good day. Things I would like to do with my son already I wonder if I will be able to. This disturbs me..and yet I remain the same. I am not really even making little changes anymore. I have become a slug at best. I seem to be allowing myself to deteriorate. I have to ask myself why.

I have issues too with another problem regarding some glands....and different things in my body being out of whack....possible tumor...a rare disorder....and it gives me many symptoms too that I all along just thought was due to my being overweight or out of shape or my bad attitude.

Stress I know can take a toll and it is now more than ever with my body. I try to adapt and just breathe and go with the flow...just float.....but lately I feel more like I am drowning and no longer even floating.

I also go off on these incredibly long verbal/written tangents such as this...no explanations why. Maybe because I get out so little and have so little outside interaction with others....

Of course this can all easily lead to depression. So I struggle with that..and truly TRY to keep looking up....and knowing that somehow it will all work out. BUT my belief is being jostled a lot...and sometimes I don't think I really believe anymore. In a lot of things. This just makes me mad and sad that I cannot believe in certain things anymore or certain people anymore.

sigh......so my life is changing...always changing as is yours and everyone else who has managed to stick with this long tirade of words to actually finish reading it.

I focus on now...but also am anxious about my future...and know if I want to be able to MOVE and DO things in the future I have to make some serious changes NOW. I fight it I guess. I am the spoiled child stamping her feet...NO I DON'T WANT TO! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! but I know I have to...maybe I can change that word "HAVE" to another word....

I look at my 88-year-old grandmother and how all of a sudden now she cannot easily crochet...something she confided in me last night was the reason she kept living all these years....(she crochets things to donate for babies in hospitals and cancer patients)...that gave her something to do. ..but now her hands are really troubling her from neuropathy and her hands can no longer work for hours anymore to crochet. Her feet and legs have also developed the neuropathy in them..so she loses balance and falls. She has been so young and spry all these years and now at 88 she too is facing change where her body just won't do for her anymore what it always has. ALWAYS HAS....

Am I lazy? Too apathetic? Too tired? All the above? Something else?

I do not have a answer. If I did I guess I could easily become rich by selling it online as a $97.00 course....cause everyone is looking for THE answer..but THE answer will be different for each of us I think.

Hope we can all enjoy the journey. I am thankful at least..even if I struggle to move around..that I am still HERE to be able to make the journey!

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ROOTS OF SHE