10pm ramblings

I’m writing this at 10pm at night. I’ve just gotten home from the gym and showered, had a brief chat with my husband, and sat down at the laptop to let the words spill out.

You see, I’ve got a lot on my mind. Writing it down gets the thoughts out of my head and “onto paper” (on the internet, in this case). It can stop circling around, and my mind goes quiet again.

I’m not happy. I haven’t been for a long time. There’s a lot of reasons why, and if you didn’t know me very well you’d just assume it was because of my weight. I talk about my eating disorder a lot, so it’s a fair assumption. To be honest, I would have thought that too until about 3 weeks ago. It’s easy to blame everything on physical appearance, weight, and eating disorders.

My unhappiness runs deeper. This year I realised that mentally I’m actually not OK. To be clear I have a great life, I love my family, I have wonderful friends.

Yet I have unresolved issues from things I experienced growing up and insecurities that fester deep. Issues that make me cranky at irrational things. Issues that make me cranky at things people should be cranky at. But I don’t deal with them very well.

And now I sit here staring at the screen wondering how I move on from that. What do I write now?

Bear with me, this post might be a bit all over the place. A bit like my thoughts really.

I can’t share with you right now all the things that make me unhappy, I’m still piecing that together myself.

That’s part of the problem – I keep trying to solve it by myself. That’s going to change soon.

To sum up how I feel right now, I expect it’s like a drug addict who has finally decided to get clean. Someone that understands that the path to sobriety is actually long and hard. It’s not some cool quick fix thing that if I just do this one thing over here that I’ll find happiness and peace.

• I can’t do it on my own
• There’s multiple pieces to the puzzle
• I need my friends and family more than ever
• I need expert assistance

One of my sisters is a drug addict. Due to an overdose she will now be in care for the rest of her life (do you stop being an addict when you can’t physically feed yourself let alone take drugs?). I’ve been so high and mighty all of my life thinking how much better than her I am, because “at least I’m not a drug addict”. I’ve been angry at her for all of my life for things that she put me through.

But you know what?

I’m not better than her. My life was just different to hers, I faced different challenges. And yet here I am, in what I assume is a very similar place. I’m not happy, and I medicate with food. She wasn’t happy, and she medicated with drugs. I’m just lucky that I have a chance to save myself before it’s too late.

I’m not better than her. I’m not better than anyone.

So anyway here’s the deal.

I’ve been tossing up rebranding my blog, starting fresh. I had a poll on my facebook page asking for new blog names. I contemplated wiping away the old posts, putting on a new design and doing things the “right” way, whatever that actually is.

It’s what I do with life. When I don’t achieve what I wanted, I just forget about the goal and start fresh. New method, new approach, “this time it will be different”.

Spoiler alert – it’s never different. I’m still unhappy. I’m just distracted for a while with something else.

So let’s change it up.

I normally wait until the 1st of January to post my 52 in 52 list. Start of a new year, start of the new list. Simple right? I always wait for a specific date to start things. It has to be a meaningful, balanced number. When I adjust the volume on my tv, or stereo, it has to be meaningful numbers like 5, or 10. They’re the halves or full numbers. Not like 3, or 7. They’re in the middle, and when doubled they still don’t make a clean number.

This time, my 52 in 52 list for 2021 starts tomorrow. The 29th of December.

2021 I’m shaking things up. It starts now. We’re doing things differently. The very next post I write is going to be my 52 in 52 list.

My name is Kelly. This is my world. I am a continuation of my story.

But my story is about to go in a different direction.

Let’s get this show on the road.