Getting real!

Its no secret that I am an over weight women. My pictures prove it, and as much as I try and hide it...well it shows. I have not always been over weight. I remember the days when I weighed 135 pounds and looked like this.

Those days are long gone.

A little history on me:
At eighteen I fell in love. At nineteen I got pregnant, and at twenty years old I got married and had my first baby. All my dreams had come true. I always wanted to be a mom, and a wife, but my dreams were shattered when after two more babies and a failed marriage of six years, I found myself, divorced, lost, and alone with no direction.

Finding myself in the roll of a single mom, I pressed on, joined college, got a good job and tried to hold everything together. I soon learned what I was and was not capable of. School did not go well. I was failing classes and just couldn't keep up with my three little ones, school, and a job. To compensate I quit going to school.

In the meantime, my parents, after being married for 30 years were getting a divorce. I was devastated. I think I went through a bit of a rebellion and dated a few men, who turned out to be nothing but disappointments, and fell deeper and deeper into dispare. I struggled a bit with drinking, depression, and over eating. What was going on with my life? Why couldn't I make anything work? These questions kept going through my head over and over. I was searching for answers, looking for love (as cliche as it may sound) in all the wrong places.

To try and fill my loneliness, I joined an online dating site that was supposed to be Christian. I met a man who I will call R. He was in the military (I love a man in uniform), seemed to love the Lord with all his heart, and certainly took a great interest in me and my children, which is what I was looking for. We dated from a distance(he was stationed in Washington state) for about a year. He came to visit me in Colorado twice, and from there I fell in love and we promised to get married.

We did everything right (so I thought). We kept our relationship pure till our wedding night, we read the Bible and prayed together daily, and I even talked to his pastor and many other people who vouched for him...everything seemed perfect. Plans were set, and he drove out to get me and my kids. I said good bye to my family and I blindly moved to Washington.

He was a very "Fundamental Baptist" sort of man. He was very strict in his ways, but very loose with his tongue.(boy could he cuss) What I thought I knew of him while we dated, turned out to be the opposite of who he really was. His discipline of my children was abusive, and about a year and a half after we were married I discovered that he had a fondness for young children...and had no interest in me. I was so devastate. I was three months pregnant with Skyler, and again facing single motherhood...but now with four children. Again I questioned God. I couldn't understand why things just never work out for me.

I took my children and my growing baby inside and attempted to start over...again. Boy was I getting tired of this starting over thing.

Starting over is never fun. Being in abusive relationships means that when I leave, I pretty much have to flee. We left with only what we could fit in our jeep, which wasn't much.

I went on to have my baby, who is now sweet Skyler. Two to three years passed and I didn't date anyone. I focused on my kids and was actually quite content being single. When Ron(Tyrus's birth father) came into my life it took me by surprise. I know I wasn't ready to be dating anyone, but I just went with the flow, as I do with everything else in my life. This time I compromised...and in an effort to please him, agreed to have a baby before we were married. When things took a turn for the worse and I discovered that Ron was not being faithful to me (if that is even the word for it when you are not married) I ended it and again was facing single parenthood, but this time with five children. I was done.....and couldn't handle things anymore.

You all know ware the story goes from here. I am not writing this as a sob story. I have long ago come to grips with the way my life has turned out...the reason I am writing it is to establish that because of the years and years of heartache and bad decisions, I have let myself go. I no longer look like (what I think is) the beautiful girl in the pictures above. I am 143 pounds over weight...this is dangerous and very scary. I suffer from a lot of problems that come with obesity, and although I have kept my high energy, my body is not handling the extra weight very well.

I have decided I have had enough. I want to get healthy again, and I would do anything to be even close to the weight I was before I had my first baby. Life would be so much richer if I could run with my kids, and roll in the grass...and just keep up with them in general. I feel as though I am an embarrassment to the kids. I want them to be proud of me, and I want to set a good example of health to them so that they can have long healthy lives.

In short(although there is nothing short about this post)its time for a change, its time to stop living in the past and saying things like "I haven't always looked like this." Its time to stop letting situations and circumstances rule my life. I'm ready to start taking care of myself and start living for me, not for the people around me, its time to get real.