Turn and Face the Strain

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same

Inevitably before any major change I exert a great deal of energy talking myself out of changing. It's not that I dislike change, because I like it, a lot, in theory and in others.
I find change revitalizing and energizing, I enjoy being challenged and stretched, pushed and shoved out of my comfort zone. I love change, when I'm looking back on it in the review mirror, or even out the side of it when I'm already in it.

But change is like the first tentative squealing steps into an ice cold pool in the biting January air. At the beginning I will do everything up to and including throwing myself on the ground and beating my fists on the floor. I hate it.
Change, when I see it coming down the pike is stressful, I'm sure for you too. I don't know what to expect, I don't know what will happen, I wonder about what I will wear, what I will say, will anyone talk to me, how will I be ridiculed and made fun of. I worry, I fear.

I'm claiming my 30th year as a year that I get healthy. Because I'm not healthy. Not even a little. I hate the idea of having to get healthy because it means changing some deeply ingrained habits and thoughts about my physical self.
For so long I felt like a pile of poop on the inside. Ugly, unlovable, undeserving of grace and kindness. I felt, well honestly I felt like I knew that at any moment the world would come crashing down on me and those that I admired, that I loved and longed to love me would wake up and leave because I felt so disgusting.

Since I fell in love with Jesus and began following Him God has been aggressively and at times painfully pursuing all the fragmented pieces of me. He's been stitching me back together and showing me in unimaginable ways that the way I used to feel on the inside was a damn lie. He's shown me that just because something is said to and about me doesn't make it true. He's brought people into my life that speak God into my life and his truth into my heart. It has been 5 years since it began and 2 years since I started cooperating with the work God has been doing.
I still fight the urges to remember the poison that used to live inside, when I'm stressed or tired I will still believe that I am worthless and ugly inside and out for at least a little bit. But my insides are recovering, they're feeling better and more stable.

I'm ready for the outside to match the inside.
But I still fight. The weight is an old friend, something that has comforted me through food and laziness. It's given me a convenient excuse to not take risks, to not engage relationships both platonic and otherwise. The weight has been my barrier against the world, everything and everyone in it.
I'm terrified and rationalizing that it's just not that bad I can wait a little longer, it's not a big deal. It's exhausting, annoying, inconvenient and it makes me feel crabby most of the time.

Tonight, it begins in earnest. I signed up with a personal trainer, a one on one wiping the floor with me personal trainer and certified nutritionist.
I'm afraid I'll fail, that I won't lose anything, that it won't make a difference, that I'll sabotage with chocolate peanut butter Reeses Pumpkins and Big Macs. I'm afraid I'll look stupid, that I'll get hurt somehow, that I won't be prepared for what happens, that I won't have the discipline and so on and so on.

But I'm turning and facing the strain. The strain that comes in changing everything.