I’ve always wanted to box.
I still do, but not against a person, a bag is just fine. I find hitting a boxing bag a huge release for me, it gets rid of whatever negativity I’m carrying plus makes me feel like a badass ;)
Even though I said I would never go up against a person (unless there comes a time in my life when I’m meant to play the role of Rocky taking down the enemy), there is one person that I have no problem going toe to toe with from time to time…
It’s the person I became, the person I was, the person I do not want to be.
Over the past few years I became someone else. Someone who was afraid. I didn’t have the courage to stand up for myself and would pile on masks to hide the pain I carried underneath. I was always “okay”.
I wasn’t, but I continued to ignore the feelings in my gut, fighting against them, repressing whatever my gut was telling me to do… and when you do that, the pain grows and festers like an infected wound. So, I tried harder to repress that shit. Booze helped.
I made decisions that felt right, and while they turned out drastically different than I had imagined, leading me down instead of up, I don’t look at them as setbacks, I look at them as lessons, because they brought me here (ACTUALLY here), in this moment, in today, in the right now where I can see that I have the power to actually live an amazing life, not just dream about it.
It’s so easy to point the finger and blame external factors for things that hurt or upset you including events, situations or outcomes that don’t go your way… because you did nothing wrong, right?
What I’ve learned is that this gets you no where. You just get angry and more pissed off with the world because of this and this and he said this or she did that and that’s not going to work and it’ll never work out and…. UGH! I can’t even type this without getting angry at the anger because it is just so stupid!
I spent years looking for happiness outside of myself, expecting those external factors to make me happy… it doesn’t work. While the people you surround yourself with can choose to nurture your happiness or even hinder it, the true happy, the true value of yourself… that has to come from within. Build YOUR foundation first, then decorate.
Which brings me back to boxing and the one person I have to beat the shit out of every once in a while - my old self. The one that believed she wasn’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, successful enough. The one who felt guilty for her accomplishments because she felt she didn’t deserve them because there were others in this world less fortunate. The one who would get so jealous of others for having what she thought she didn’t. The one who would isolate herself from the world because she was too afraid of what others might think. The one who believed she was a fuck up and couldn’t do anything right even though she tried.
Boy, she tried. And she kept trying until one day she couldn’t anymore and started looking for the easy way out.
That girl is gone now, but every now and then she shows up uninvited. Then I remember that I have a choice… I can choose whether I keep her around or send her away. Sometimes she stays for seconds, sometimes hours but I always manage to send her away, hoping she’s gone for good. It can be one hell of a fight, but I always win.
So grateful for this beautiful life :D
Thank you for reading,
xomo