When it all comes together

I can't tell you how much it feels like the whole world has shifted beneath my feet over this past week. And unlike how I normally feel about it, this time it's positive.

First off, I should say that I have an appointment with the specialist doctor next Monday. I'm surprised I didn't end up waiting longer than I did, but maybe the situation warranted quicker attention. I don't know. But maybe next Monday I can start taking real steps to getting this tumour out of me and out of my life.

Second, I drank more cola yesterday than normal. Now, normally I avoid much cola because too much caffeine causes my heart to do annoyingly weird things, like go kind of fluttery (best way I can think of to describe it). But I was really tired yesterday after not having slept well for a while, so I took a chance and drank some. I drank about the equivalent of maybe a can and a half, but I really felt the caffeine hit.

And I felt good! Not buzzed or running high or anything like that. But I felt like I actually had energy for once! I felt inspired, happy, like I was able to do things and like the day wasn't so long and hard after all. I could laugh, because I didn't feel so worn down. I felt amazing, and I wondered if this is what normal people feel. If that's the kind of energy that a person is supposed to have. Just living isn't supposed to wear a person down so much. They're supposed to have the ability to sing and laugh and enjoy themselves, right? That's the sort of thing haven't been able to do in years.

So feeling that made me really understand what I've been missing for so long. And I want to feel it more, and not just because I drank a bottle of Pepsi. I feel more motivated than ever to get healthy, to get fit, to stop letting things fall by the wayside. I know I'll never have the kind of body outside that I have in my mind, but that doesn't mean I have to have a body I'm so ashamed of. I can do better. And I will.

And through a series of circumstances that I don't quite feel like going into the details of here (kind of embarrassed, because it's more fangirly than I've been in a long time; hey, one step at a time, right?), I'm tired of letting everything fall by the wayside. I have art and music in me, and I've been keeping too much of it inside for years because I'm too afraid of rejection and failure to ever let them out. I don't want that anymore. Thanks to therapy I've gotten more used to the idea that I don't have to hide behind the mask all the time, but I hadn't quite taken that a step further and allowed myself to take risks. Not crazy risks like climbing the side of buildings because Spiderman's awesome. But risks like putting some of my music out there, or my art, or really seriously working toward publication. I've got talents. And too much of my life has been spent proudashamed of them, so that I love them but am terrified of really letting other people see them.

I'm tired of wasting myself. I'm tired of selling myself short. If I don't take risks, I don't get anywhere. I sit at home in my good-girl persona and don't actually do anything to make myself happy.

No more hiding.

Think of what could be if you rewrite the role you play.

I changed my journal name. Lighter than air. Because it's how I feel right now, that these ideas have formed and taken root in ways that I don't think they ever really did before. Not that I'm going to change my journal name whenever my mood changes ($15 is a lot of money to spend on a passing fancy like that), but I think that the reminder will be good for me. I know how I want to feel. I know what I have to do to feel it.

Here's to today. And to all the tomorrows I know I'm going to love.