I miss you...where have you been

Someone ended an email to me like this tonight. I stared at it for awhile. I think it was one of the loveliest endings to an email I had gotten in a long time.
As I replied and tried to recant what it is that I've been up to I found myself thinking about how we prioritize our time. I mean, I could tell you what I've been doing, and who I was hanging out with and why it was that was important. But it really sparked this really random rabbit hole of thoughts.

What do we spend out time doing? Who do we spend that time with? Does it matter? Are we showing people that we love that we love them with our time, with our actions and not just with our words?
People give me flack sometimes because I have only 1 class to go for my associates and I haven't committed or really decided when or where I'm going to finish a 4 year degree and what it will be in. While I know it's important, do you know how much time I would spend on that? How many hours I would be gone that I currently spend leading outreach, having dinners with friends, spending time with family? A lot.
What's important to me now is spending time with the people I love, doing what I love. Sure, I think about doing these other things, but when I think about spending 2 hours in class that I could spend just loving other people..it's not even a contest.
So when I heard I miss you...where have you been I think about the time I spend with others that I love. But I think of something else too.

I think of how absolutely unloving I am towards myself. I will extend a boundless amount of grace and compassion to other people, but to myself I am merciless. It has only been through this excavation process I've undertaken in the last almost year that I've begun to see myself as worth anything...and I mean anything. I went to the doctor a few weeks ago for the first time in 7 years. I had to get blood tests and now find myself terrified of the results. I have an appointment for Tuesday to talk to the doctor, because apparently there's to much going on with my body to talk about over the phone. (I've decided that means I have a terminal illness and the doctors are letting me have one last peaceful weekend, and no that is not even a little bit crazy).
I've decided to take back this body that I don't even really recognize anymore. I'm terrified to tell you all that because it's pretty likely that I'll fail and still be this uncomfortably fat person.

I got so lost being someone else, being this other version of myself. A version that somehow has managed to live 28 years and not actually understand anything about nutrition. I mean I get the basics I suppose, but it's all so overwhelming sometimes. I've become someone else that is so unhealthy and slovenly and unkempt. For so long I've kept up this persona as a shield and defense against having to trust anyone, as a defense against having to actually extend my heart to someone at the risk of them saying no thanks. But I miss me and I'm beginning to wonder where I have been. This excavation of my heart has uncovered more of who I am then I've seen in at least a decade. It's time that I give that person the reigns and grow up. I can't wait for someone to come along and hold my hand through life. I can't keep thinking it will all work out. Because it won't just work out unless I do it. I've spent almost a year excavating, maybe it's time I worked on the body for awhile (not to mention losing weight can only help the terminal illness right?).