Believe in what you cannot see!?!

So many times we tell our selves to just trust in the process that there is something bigger and better brewing within that will show it's face in one way or another.  Much like all advice that people deliver you generally take this with a grain of salt.  What you want is immediate and the waiting process is a long and frustrating one.  I think back to the first time I wanted to try to make a change...not necessarily believing anything would indeed happen but I was willing to try.  That was November 2001 and the leap of faith was Weight Watchers.  That showed me what I didn't believe was in fact truly within me.

I started to care about me and what I was and was not doing.  I was feverishly tracking my food and logging and doing two classes back to back at Lifetime fitness.  I was loving this new person that I had unleashed.  I loved getting sweaty, coming home to my newlywed husband and create something fun and exciting for dinner.  All of these things we were doing were in uncharted territories.  I got myself into a good place...and I found that there was a fun loving strong young women under the fifty plus pounds that I shed.  

Then I had to believe in something I couldn't see yet again...we decided it was time to start a family and we had to trust in the process and doctors and all things that were scary and unknown.  Over the next eight years we would be blessed with four amazing, strong, healthy, quirky, funny and exhausting children!  I trusted in the process that had worked with me before to find that fun loving strong girl each time between pregnancies.  It was scary and tiring and not always perfectly executed but I worked my best to try to get back to that new me.  

So then came the final time that I was going to uncover this girl...the happy on the inside and outside girl...and I knew that our family was complete and that this final push for a fit me was going to be the real deal...and there were not going to be any more up and down.   I had to believe that there was something even more than what I had uncovered in the past. 

If you told me at 23 and 200.8 lbs wearing my size 16 wedding dress that I would be sitting here today excited about my impending third marathon in a month, after running many other races and completing a half Ironman...I would tell you that you were in fact crazy.  I would tell you that with four kids there was no way I would have time or want to make time to make any of these situations a reality.

I have come very far in this journey...and it's a journey I didn't know I was on until recently.  I never thought that I would have these hopes and dreams and think that my boyfriend I met when I was 18 would be there step by step sharing in them with me, leading, coaching, pushing when needed, and encouraging.  All of these things I never thought I would see or want to be a part of are things I would never believe to be true.

high school...many moons ago

July 2008

July 2013

July 2015

march 2000-july 2015 

I guess my point here is that you have to just believe in you, the new you you have yet to uncover, the stronger you.  You are the person that makes the choices each and every day...the easy ones and the hard ones.  The bag of candy at the checkout line in the grocery store and lagging your way through that store so in fact you can't fit in a walk/jog through the neighborhood before the kids get home off the bus.  Every day it's you verses you.  I know that there are people out there that are faster than me, more fit, and more dedicated.  I think I have finally come to a place where that no longer affects me.  The person I look at in the mirror every day is the person that I have to encourage and believe in.  Seeing other succeed only helps me become more determined for me...makes me want to work harder for me so I can become stronger...not stronger than them...but stronger than I was before.

I believe in this person that I have created.  I believe that I am capable of hard things that I have yet to uncover.  I believe that I will always have to trust in the process and know that it will never be perfect but it will still work.  

Embrace the suck...choose you...believe it what you have yet to uncover...believe in the unseen!