Every time I decide to journal, I make it a month or so and stop. I think it's time I just accept that little nugget about my personality. Sometimes I wanna write stuff. Sometimes I don't. And that's okay, I think. So here goes this round of blogging.
Reading back through the whopping 19 posts I managed to bang out before losing interest made me realize something very strange...and kind of scary.. and definitely disappointing. I feel like a different person wrote them, and yet I'm gearing up to write about essentially the same exact things.
The last 19 posts were almost entirely about leading a healthier lifestyle, losing some poundage, becoming vegan, and the adventure of a new job. Weird, dude, because that's what I came here to write about! It's strange to think, two years later, I'm coming back to this same blog to flesh out the same struggles. Does that mean I just keep failing..? Ugh. That's depressing.
The scary difference is that my former posts are all very positive, energetic, and optimistic. I came here feeling nervous, negative, pessimistic, and just overall junky. I was going to give a brief synopsis of my life over the past 2 years and basically move forward beating myself up. But honestly, who wants to read that? I don't want to come back 19 posts and 2 years from now and read about some depressed loser who feels sorry for herself. How embarrassing. So, thank you, former Kendra, for being optimistic and spunky and for preserving your enthusiasm in a web based arena. Thank you, current me, for taking the time to read back out of curiosity. You two make a good team!
So, as a newly inspired gal, I just want to take a moment to pay tribute to the past two years...
Right after my last post, I got a job as an operations trainer at TMG. Man, do I wish I blogged about that roller coaster. I made a wonderful friend who really took me under her wing, but I just felt out of place. Sometimes, I enjoyed the job, but I worked long, long salaried hours, and toward the end, I was crying on my way to work, at work, and on my way home. It was a serious mess. I consistently felt like a failure. I worked there for 7 months and don't think I could have made it a second longer.
In early December 2012, in the thick of my TMG nonsense, one of my girlfriends called me from Florida and asked if I wanted to come down and live in Florida with her. I thought she was joking, but later came to realize her fiancé had a job opening where he worked and they thought I might be good at what he did. After not much debate, Sean and I decided to move to Florida. By the end of January, we were driving down to our new apartment in Naples. It was a tough goodbye, but we loved the tropics...for a while.
I really enjoyed my job. It was easy most days with just enough challenge to keep my interested. I absolutely fell in love with one of my co-workers, who I still look to as a sister to this day. It was incredible to hit the beach every weekend, and even sometimes after work for a quick walk in the sand. I lost weight for the first few months, because being outside was intoxicating and I really began to enjoy running. I was able to spend time with one of my best friends who I wasn't sure I was really going to see again since she had moved. I even made really good friends with her fiancé. Every few weeks, I took the trek to the East Coast to see my brother and nephews. It was really quite amazing.
In March, things started to go down hill. By April, when my parents surprised me by showing up for my birthday, I was feeling extremely homesick. Watching them leave was one of the most heartbreaking feelings. We stopped going to the beach as often. We had a falling out with my brother. We started eating dairy again and gave up on our previous success of being completely vegan. I started to move up in my job and become some kind of leader figure, but I wasn't paid for or respected as such by most of my coworkers. It was starting to become much less perfect than we had thought it was going to be.
By the summer, I realized I sweat way too easily and way too much than to be a Floridian. I was gaining weight from stress eating. Sean and I both had taken a dramatic turn for the worst emotionally, and we were starting to feel like we needed a major change. A new job for me, definitely. But would that be enough?
In September, things were so bad I can't even talk about them here. It was clear we needed a support system back home, and we needed to move quickly. Truly. So, by the end of September, I had actually been promoted with a new title and a pay raise, but it was too little too late. The day after the promotion hit my desk, I attempted to quit my job to come home, but my director asked me to consider staying on and, if we could convince the powers that be, continue my leadership position from home in Pennsylvania. (Let me be clear and explain we knew our days were numbered, as the company was being bought out by another health system. It was just a matter of exactly when that would happen.) It was swingable, apparently, because we left Florida in our Budget Truck on Halloween 2013. We left straight from a late night dinner with my girlfriend and her fiancé at Waffle House, and it was almost as difficult as leaving PA a few months before. They had become our family and our support system. Yea. Definitely a difficult time driving away from that restaurant.
We made the best of our situation. We stopped at Universal Studios on our way home so that we could experience the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (AMAZING), and we truly allowed ourselves to accept moving back home without considering it a failure. We tried it out, and we didn't like it.
November 2013, we were back home with our families. Our parents had helped prepare an apartment my parents had scouted out for us in Clarks Summit. I was working from home as a Senior Coordinator, and while it wasn't ideal, it wasn't the worst thing in the world, either. I did my best and accepted it as such. Sean and I both found a fantastic psychologist, and things have been looking up ever since. I "graduated" from therapy after 6 sessions, my psychologist having determined I need to basically relax and not expect myself to be absolutely perfect all the time and teaching me how to get my brain headed in a healthier direction. It's an ongoing battle, but I think I'm winning.
So, what about now? Now, Sean has a good job making decent money. I'm unemployed and at the heaviest I've ever been. The merger went through, and I didn't want to move to Tennessee for the job offer I was given from the new company. I got laid off, and I'm not horribly upset about it. Thankfully, I made enough that we could build a nice savings. Add in the unused vacation time, the severance bonuses, and the tax return, and we're okay for a little while.
That brings me to today and the reason for coming back to this blog. I want to take my time of unemployment and really get something good out of it. Most importantly, I want to get myself trained on a healthy lifestyle again. I want to be vegan again. I want to start running again. I want to be the person I was in the 19 posts prior--energetic, optimistic, and absolutely loving life.
Today I started the Advocare 10 Day Cleanse. I know a few different people who absolutely swear by Advocare, but I wasn't sure about taking on the 24 Day Challenge. My cousin, an Advocare distributer, advised that I try the 10 Day Cleanse. Why not?
I'm using it as a launching point. I'm a sucker for a cleanse and using it as a starting point is kind of my thing. I've had a lot of starting points... so hopefully this one is long-lasting. I'm a quarter of a century old, for goodness sake. I have to start taking care of myself at some point, right? I already splurged on activewear and will be heading out the door for Day 1 of Week 1 of C25K as soon as I publish this entry.
Honestly, there's so much more to say, but I'm about done with this novel. Dare I say I just want to get outside and run..?
So, here's to sticking with things for a while. Cheers.
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