31 Days at 31 Years: Day 16: The Love

Day 16. 7:58pm. Night. Drinks-0

I said there would be a time when I would address the response I got from "The Weight" entry, and tonight is the night. The last couple days have been a continuous reminder that I have met some wonderful, kind, and true friends. I have a lot of emotions from that day, but the overall take away is that the world can be a beautiful place when we decide to be kind and compassionate people.

This blog was meant to be a place that I could write whatever I felt or thought...or just a place to post gifs about wanting to drink but not being able to. I gave no one the link and had no intention of doing so. It was for me and me alone. When I sat down to write the Jan 12th entry, I was just going to mention that I wasn't losing weight. The words that followed were absolutely terrifying to write, but the act of getting those feelings out was incredible.

At the time, I thought I was the only person that would read them. Julia and Sarah are two women/friends I have come to respect and trust with my creative thoughts and writing. I sent that post to them because I felt so electric after writing it that I dumbly thought, "hey, maybe this is a good start to a new piece for a story telling event or even a character." After sharing it with them, I figured no one else would read it--for the love of Christ, I had pictures of my stomach in there! When they both encouraged me to post it publicly, my heart began to race, my throat was dry, and I felt the anxiety mount. The two of them (through much back and forth), made me realize that posting it was important for no one other than myself, and that was reason enough. They were right.

Several people have reached out with words of encouragement, love, concern or just "holy hell I feel the same way too." No matter what the reason, I am appreciative. This month (so far) has been a month of realizations, and it is nice to know that I am supported.

It is an interesting thing to put something so personal out in such a public forum like Facebook. Normally, I am shy away from things like that as I figure most people will think it is too much. I am not sure exactly what I expected, past a like from my closest friends and family. I, in no way, thought it would elicit such a wide response from people I talk to every day to people I have not seen in over 10 years.

In the past couple days I have run through so many emotions from, "wow this is amazing," to "oh shit why the hell did I do that," to "why do people think I am brave, I still can't leave my room if it is pitch black in the hallway because I think about scary movies like Scream and I get nervous." But overall, I just feel really lucky that people have been so kind, warm, and encouraging.

I am sure there are some haters out there, but they at least have a heart and decided not to say anything to me. SO I think that is another big WIN for society! Hopefully, they got two lines into that post, rolled their eyes, and stopped reading (good news-they can follow directions).

What I got from that post, was that I really really love myself, and I am proud of who I am...and that feels REALLY good to type.

So often, I look at social media and see that people's lives look incredible. Someone married the person of their dreams, had a beautiful baby, got that dream job, are traveling to cool places, bought a house, or not wondering how much money is in their bank account and if they could maybe get away with buying a chipotle burrito without overdrawing their account (not that this has happened to me before...errr). It is so easy to see these wonderful things and assume that their life is perfect. In the last 16 days, I have trolled so many facebook and instagram accounts and thought, "Damn, what the hell am I doing with my life?" The Weight post made me realize (finally), that we all have our struggles, and we are just trying to be the best version of ourselves we can. We are all trying to find the code to happiness each day. Some days we find it...and that warrants an Instagram post, a facebook status, or a social media shout out to let our people know,"hey y'all I am doing alright!"

THANK YOU to Julia and Sarah for pushing me to put my art/shit out there. THANK YOU to all the people that showed me I am not alone. THANK YOU to those who were vulnerable to me in your messages and outreach. THANK YOU to everyone for being good fucking humans with hearts. My hope is that whatever your "thing" is, whether it be weight, career, love or whatever, that you realize how loved you are. (THAT IS THE BEST TAG LINE TO A HALLMARK CARD--excuse me Hollywood, you there? Cause ya girl Becca is knocking down the greeting card door!).

For the 10 readers who got through this, I appreciate you tolerating me gushing about how good people can be. Also, if you are in Chicago after Feb. 1, let's grab some WINE!

Here are all the gifs I have stored that sum up my thoughts on not drinking...there are a lot of Real Housewives which leads me to believe I am and have always been a Real Housewife!