I have been insanely, insanely busy the last month or so. In case you don’t know, I am moving to England in approximately 22 Days. It will start out for graduate school, but I’m hoping to make a permanent go of it, be all worldly and obtain dual citizenship. Which means, I not only have to get things together for grad school overseas–which in and of itself has put my blood pressure through the roof–but also have to have a plan set in place for the next leg of my journey after my education is done. So really I’m trying to plan for the next 3 years of my life.
Like I said, busy.
And when I get really busy and focused like I have been, some things in my life take a backseat. Waaaay back. Like having fun. Or exercising. Or generally doing anything that is of any physical or mental benefit to myself. Usually, when I get all busy and focused it’s an awesome time for my figure because I forget to eat, and I drink black coffee like its my next breath. My weight automatically climbs down. It’s not healthy, I know but I always thought it was kind of God’s gift for me getting my ass in gear in other areas of my life:
Here, let me swipe these ten pounds off your thighs.
But none of that matters. Because, inexplicably, I have changed my habit. It came out of nowhere. So now, when I’m nervous about grad school and getting my student visa (which is still being processed and is not helping my frayed nerves) and all focused about packing and getting the funding out and searching for jobs and internships for next summer, I eat, and eat badly. Utz chips, oatmeal raisin cookies fatty greasy cheesy Italian food…I even picked up a pint of Ben &Jerry’s Chubby Hubby yesterday. I haven’t seen the inside of a B&J’s pint since my last break up two years ago.
So this morning (8/18/10), after I read LiLu’s post I kind of looked at myself and gave me a good hard bitch-slap, figuratively speaking.
Because what it boils down to is insecurity. I am very, very insecure. It’s not surprising, going off to a different country where I know no one beyond the staff of my university’s international student development center to a different academic system where I will probably will continuously misspell words like, ‘favorite’ and ‘color’.
I have been keeping busy, doing ten trillion things at once, all to avoid the insecurity I feel. But the things I’m doing are only making my anxiety worse. In addition to all the stuff I should be worried about, now, I have to worry about my health. How I’m going to make it without a car because I am so overweight and soooo out of shape that probably walking 1/2 mile to class will wind me.
That stops right now. In the last 22 days of my life here I am re-committed to making sure I am taken care of. I will swipe the dust off the eliptical machine, crank up Turbo Jam, stay away from the potato chip isle in the store and make sure that I have one less thing to worry about when I cross that ocean. In short, I’m back In It To Gym It.
Do the Right Thing, Yo as Spike Lee says.
