Purple Everything

 It was a crazy week.

Every day, my Facebook notifications were 20+. I tried to scroll through all of them but once in a while, I'd miss one and see it later.

Purple.

Purple everywhere.

Purple shoes, purple nails, purple cups, purple hair, purple clothes...people were posting purple and sharing it on Facebook to honor National Eating Disorder Week.

It was beautiful. And scary. And overwhelming.

I'd like to tell you that the week was easy for me, that I didn't have to fight my eating disorder because of the recognizable love and support. But it wasn't easier. In fact, it was harder. I felt unworthy of the love. I felt worried that my story being shared over and over would land me in a place where no one would want to be my friend.

But it isn't true. That was ed talking.

My warrior friend, Tc, started this all. I remember when I first read her story and saw that she was asking people to wear purple for eating disorder awareness and then send her the pictures. I wore purple that Wednesday...silently...because I had yet to meet this friend in person and I was nervous.

I wasn't yet ready to open up about the severity of my struggles.

But I cannot believe what this year has done for me. I cannot believe what Tice has done for me.

Seeing all of the purple this week was powerful. Some of my coworkers wore purple on Wednesday and I had to hold back tears. It really touched my heart to see the support.

 On Wednesday, I decided it was time to put some wild color in my hair again and obviously I chose purple. I love it so much and am so happy I did it.

All week, friends were tagging me in their purple photos. These are just a few of them...

 And every day as I struggled to feel worthy of this love, I was able to keep going as I would stare at these pictures.

Saturday came and I was getting super excited for the National Eating Disorder Awareness walk the next morning. Last minute, I decided to make shirts for everyone we were walking with (15 of us total) so I stayed up late and painted NEDA WALK 2015 on all of them and on the back of each, I wrote "I walk for..." and filled in the blank with a personal message on everyone's shirts. Tc's family did the walk with us and I made each of them a shirt that said, "I walk for my (daughter, sister, aunt, mom, wife, etc)."

 As I walked behind my beautiful children and read the messages on their shirt, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the beauty of my life. We had talked ahead of time and I had explained a little bit of why we were doing this walk. Both of my children were proud to do it for their mom.

 Princess had a blast pushing the jogging stroller most of the walk.

 Tc and I had different shirts than everyone. Mine said, "I walk because I have worth" and hers said, "I walk because I am a warrior". We did this walk for ourselves. We also did it for others who have or are struggling with an eating disorder.

 Even the baby got NEDA pants. I painted NEDA on the bum and the front knees said NEDA 2015. Everyone loved her pants and she looked adorable.

 Not only did I walk for myself, I walked to teach my children a little about eating disorders and how real and scary they can be. I had the opportunity to have so many talks with them this week on body image and loving ourselves.

 I am so proud of them for taking that journey with me and being so willing to walk for their mom.

 If you didn't know, Princess and I are pretty similar in personality. :)

 Princess and Bella are two of my favorite girls in the whole world. I love both of them so much. Bella is Tc's daughter and it was so fun for these girls to be able to walk with each other.

 They are both brave warriors.

It was an incredible time and as we drove away from the Phoenix zoo, my daughter said, "Mom, can we please do that walk again next year? I loved it." And the answer to that question is yes.

We will do that walk every year we are able because it is personal. I have fought and continue to fight my eating disorder. It might seem like it isn't that big deal. Maybe it seems like I'm doing ok because I'm not a size 0 and my bones aren't sticking out---but eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes. This is real for me and I hope and pray I will be able to teach my kids to honor and love their bodies, no matter the size of their clothing or the blemishes on their skin.

Hard, Happy, Selfish, Angry, Faithful, Grumpy, Beautiful

Today is a hard day to explain.

I've had many low days---a lot of them in the past 2 weeks.
I didn't think it would be possible to pull through. Two weeks ago, I looked at my future and it didn't look bright.
I couldn't handle these new truths. I couldn't handle the reality that I'm learning has been the past 6 years of my life. I just couldn't do it.

Too painful. Too hard. Too real.

But three days ago, I hit a breaking point. I realized I am not this girl! I'm not the girl who breaks down in church on Mother's Day because she is so grumpy about her current life. I am not the girl who is inconsiderate of others' feelings because I'm so busy wrapped up in my own sad world. I am not the girl who acts selfishly instead of serving others.
I'm just not.
I'm not saying I'm perfect but I've always found joy in helping others and it's always been something that I love to do.

I had a wake up call that snapped me out of this hatred that has started to fester in my heart. I am not going to give in to Satan! I am not going to abandon my faith and my kind-hearted nature (Are you laughing about that last part? I swear, I try to have a kind heart.).

Monday, I fought. I fought so well that I wondered if this would just be easy.
But Tuesday was harder. Tuesday took a little bit more out of me when I fought---but fight, I did.
And today has been one of the best days I've had in a LONG time. Because today, I don't question my faith in God and I don't question my heart. There are too many explanations that made up today being a great day and I won't go into them.

But I am grateful; grateful for a day of peace, grateful for hope, and grateful for the people in my life. I know I talk about "the people in my life" often. The funny thing is, they aren't always the same people. Heavenly Father knows who I need when I need them and someone always seems to be there who can help me through whatever crap I'm going through.

I cannot deny God's hand in any of this. I just cannot.

After such a wonderful day, I signed onto the computer and was staring at images of my Petey from her recent birthday photoshoot and I just couldn't help but be amazed that I've been a mother for almost six years now.

Through all of the trials and all of the heartbreak, I know I am where I need to be right now. Being a mother is the most important thing in my life and I often am in awe that my Heavenly Father gave me THESE kids---because although they aren't perfect, they are perfect for me.

I love life today. I wasn't sure if I would ever fully feel that way again. I can guarantee you I will still struggle but tonight, I am overwhelmed with how much I love my life---my current life.

The Togetherness Project

A month or so after my husband moved out, one of my friends from high school messaged me on Facebook with some supportive words and a link to a blog post that she thought might help me.

Pioneer Woman was a post that changed my perspective and helped me feel like there could be support in the decisions I was making. I was feeling backed into a corner and I wasn't sure whether to fight or flight.

I felt an instant connection to the words on Jacy's blog and I spent some time reading posts upon posts upon posts to learn more about this Brave Warrior Woman who I had never met.

Gathering from her blog posts, I assumed Jacy lived in Utah so when I emailed her to tell her how much her blog had helped me in my journey, I was surprised when she emailed back to tell me she lived literally 20 minutes away from me. What?!?

I kept on reading Jacy's blog and she would sometimes refer to The Togetherness Project and I was a bit intrigued by what seemed like a community of women who had been in similiar situations as myself. But I was nervous. Oh so nervous. I knew NO ONE besides my friend and at the time, I wasn't sure if she was going to attend the conference.

But through Jacy's blog, I came across an incredible post written by Tc and from there, I reached out to her and met her in person...kind of by force. :)

What I'm trying to say from all of this blog tagging and name dropping (because in my world, these people are famous) is that I feel like my connection to The Togetherness Project was a bunch of tiny little pieces that created a completed puzzle.

So I finally signed up. I did it. It was a step of bravery for me and this is my year of BRAVE so I did it.

Weeks upon weeks before TTP (The Togetherness Project) and I started to look forward to this band of amazing women who were very supportive of me. Countdown had begun. I had hope that I would find new friendships and a healthy amount of support and also that I would be able to support other women and love them.

My vision of TTP was almost spot on. Support, love, friendships---it was all there.

Mark Bell started the day off with a bang, teaching us about empathy vs. sympathy. "Sympathy drives disconnection. Empathy is feeling with people. When does an emphatic sentence start with, "At least."?" I connected to this message because having gone through a few crappy things in my life (infertility, divorce, etc.), I've heard a lot of these messages. At least you have two kids. At least your husband didn't die. At least you get breaks from your kids every other weekend. For the most part, I could understand that when people would say these "At least's", they were trying to help me feel better but once in a while, those sentences just plain hurt. The phrase "at least" seems to minimize the pain I'm feeling because at least I don't have it worse.

The other message I wanted to touch on was a class taught by Marilyn Tenney. If you've known me a long time, you might know her as well. Marilyn was a youth leader in my church growing up. I was so excited to attend her class just to see her and her class ended up being my favorite! I really related to the things she spoke about regarding "Codependency as a Trauma Response". I have had a hard time in my outside world (my world outside of TTP and the women who get this trauma) explaining how traumatic this has been for me. I feel like I get a lot of weird looks when I refer to my divorce as betrayal trauma because it's not like he did anything to me. I wasn't abused.Abuse is outwardly traumatic and everyone agrees but it's hard to recognize trauma that is all emotional. There is no proof and it's harder to understand. I felt shame for even feeling like I had suffered trauma because I felt like maybe I'm just overreacting. One of the first things Marilyn taught was, "If it affects how I see my world, that's trauma." Then she went on to explain that I need to, "Identify the truths and lies of my shame." Why am I feeling this shame? What are deep-rooted feelings behind all of this?

I could go on and on about codependency and what I have learned from those feelings. I had a late night/early morning talk with a great friend (you know, the night before the conference when we pulled an ALL NIGHTER) about how I hate myself when I start feeling codependent. I can hardly stand it! When I start feeling lonely, I get angry at myself because I WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT!
My friend taught me that there is a difference between being codependent and lonely. They are not the same thing. When I'm lonely, it isn't because I'm weak, it is because we, as human beings, want to feel connection with other people.

Honestly, I'd pull an all nighter all over again, despite the effects on my body from 2 days post-all-night, to learn what I learned that night---and that was BEFORE the conference had even started!

There were so many other amazing speakers and classes that I attended. I learned so much about myself, about my situation, and about the strength I CAN have in any situation!

Not only can we do hard things, we can do AMAZING things! As human beings, we have the power in any situation to come out on top.

Together, we can rise above.

Monday FUNday and a Weekend of CrAzY

 Here we are, Monday. The start to a new week, a new week that I am very much looking forward to.

I spent the first day of my weekend doing a lot of this---yes, I really did take a picture of you, Tc. Next time I'll warn you...or maybe I won't. I painted and untaped and laughed and layed down in the grass and was tackled by a 6 year old approximately eight times and listened to beautiful singing and SOMEBODY even touched me with their feet. Gasp! {I hate feet}

So that was Friday. Imaginably the best day I've had in a while.

As you read on Saturday, things started to get rocky for a bit. I had a hard morning and I layed around watching tv and/or dramatically crying about how life just isn't fair.

But then I decided that I was NOT about to spend an entire day feeling sorry for myself so I picked my butt up off the couch, cranked my music up, and started cleaning and de-cluttering and getting rid of 90% of Petey's toys and 60% of Spidey's toys. Booyah. Then I organized the family room and planned to add wallpaper to one of the walls but it was 2am so I decided it could wait for another day.

Sunday morning came and I realized I had forgotten another plan I was going to accomplish on Saturday---changing my hot pink hair streak to teal blue. I had 2 hours until church and since I suck at math, I calculated that I had plenty of time.

Ha!

I had to bleach it all first and that took over an hour and there was still some pink left. No biggie, right?

By the time I added the teal, I had 30 minutes before church which meant I had 10 minutes to leave the color in, 10 minutes to wash it all out, and 10 minutes to dry my hair enough to get to church. Hmm...

It didn't quite work out how I had expected and I went to church looking like a freaking Easter egg. Good thing it was actually Easter, right?!!

 

I came home from church and dyed it again. This time it took all the pink out but was left looking purple, blue, and green.

 

So after dinner, I tried ONE MORE TIME, and it is as good as it's gonna get right now. It's blue and greenish blue. Oh-freaking-well.

 

Maybe I should leave that crap to the professionals! Knowing me, I probably won't have learned my lesson and you'll probably hear about me doing this all over again in a few months.

 

At least I was the world's cleanest person yesterday after THREE showers.

 

So today, stuff got real. I was bound and determined to make today productive!

{Ha! Its 9am and I'm on the computer blogging.}

Petey had crazy hair day at school and I was so excited!

We sprayed it hot pink and put gold sparkles in it. I ratted 3 crazy buns and added a few ostrich feather bows. She loved it and we were both happy that this meant it was also a "dress down day" meaning no uniform!

I love uniforms but once in a while, it's fun to dress her up.

 

Then stuff got really real when I decided to sweep the floor in the kitchen...

 Yes, that's the pile I was left with. Why am I showing you? Oh, I don't know, BECAUSE I'VE LOST MY MIND!
I even did the dishes---because I'm such an overachiever.

It's 9am and I think I deserve the rest of the day off. Oh wait, I'm just kidding. Maybe I'll put that wallpaper on today. Or maybe I'll get some laundry done. Or maybe I'll just sit on the couch.


We shall see...