Talking 'bout My Motivation

Hike Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Nola, Meggers

Today was probably the hardest day for me to get out of bed. The weekend was hectic; there was pretty much no pause to the activity. On Saturday, I showed my friends and Anna around The City. We hit it all - SF MOMA, Coit Tower, Union Square, Haight-Asbury, Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Sunday (also known as my 24th birthday) was spent with lunch at Half Moon Bay, and then with a wine and dessert party at my place. My friends were leaving town Tuesday, so Monday was my last day with them and I didn't want to spend the entire day tired and grumpy. Plus, their flights were at 6:15 am and 7:30 am on Tuesday, which meant I would have to get up at 3:45 am the next day to take them to the airport! If I was going to be up then anyway, why hike today if I was likely going to hike tomorrow anyway? Since I had friends in town, I assumed that everyone else that normally joins me would assume that I wasn't hiking. This, of course, meant that I didn't have to show up at all really, because there would be no one waiting for me. Being curled up in bed didn't help the hiking cause either - my bed is my little haven of peace and comfort!

I struggled with whether or not to go for about 20 minutes. I kept on hitting the two snooze buttons (one on my phone, one on my alarm clock). Finally, 6:25 rolled around - do or die time. I groaned and forced myself out of the layers of cozy covers and got dressed. I knew that the most important thing for me to do was to keep up with the schedule - no deviations allowed. Megan had wanted to join me, but I was already running late, so I tried to sneak out the front door without waking her up. Believe it or not, I was kind of looking forward to spending some alone time. But I guess alone time was not in the cards for me today, because I woke up Megs on the way out the door. She asked me when I was leaving to hike. "Now" I said.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she said, annoyed.

"Because I just woke up" I retorted. I'm not the world's most pleasant person in the morning.

"Five minutes" she replied.

And in five minutes, Meggers and I were off. We got there a little late, but I didn't feel bad about it because I assumed no one else was joining me. As we walked up to the entrance, we passed Nola's car. I immediately felt bad about being so late - it's one of my biggest pet peeves and I hate to be late to anything. I hate being late so much, in fact, that I am usually 5-10 minutes early to any engagement that I have. Thankfully, Nola didn't mind so much, or at least didn't show it.

Since I had to get up so early the next morning to drive my friends to the airport, I had decided to do a hike on Tuesday as well. I wasn't sure whether my body would be able to run a hike, walk it the next day, and then run it again on Wednesday, so I decided that we'd walk this hike. It was kind of nice going back to walking the hike. I wish I could say that it was easier this time around than the first time, but to be honest, it wasn't really. The hills are still brutal. And it's not hard at all to walk the top part of the hike. In fact, I started to doubt whether or not this was doing me any good at all, and whether I was making any real progress. Instead of dwelling on this despondency, I decided that even though I couldn't see at the moment if this was doing me any good, I could not definitively prove that it was doing me any bad, so I might as well continue on.

I wish I could explain the drive that keeps me going. The hard thing is that it's rarely ever the same thing that gets me out of bed each morning. One day, I'll wake up and go because I'm tired of being so overweight. Another day, I'll wake up and go because I know I'm being held accountable by my friends. I've also gone because I know it's good for my health. I've even gotten out of bed for my future children; I want them to have a healthy influence in their life and I don't want to die early on in their lives.

[Here goes the honesty pact I made with myself again ... I would rather not share this on such a public forum, but I am because I said I would be.]

If I was truly honest with myself, however, I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for someone else - a whole lot of someone elses, actually. I'm doing this for men. When I was younger, I took quite a few low blows that have stuck to me like superglue. I don't think I have to elaborate about how cruel kids can be to each other. I wasn't even that fat as a young girl; I was just taller and a little bigger than everyone else. For me, becoming fat was self-fulfilling prophecy in a way; the more kids teased me about my weight, the more I turned to food for comfort, the bigger I became, and the cycle continued. I remember once, when I was about 13, the kids on my block all got together to play truth or dare. I had a crush on the cute boy that lived next door - he was older (14) and wiser (not really), but, to be honest, kind of a jerk. While playing truth or dare, he was dared to kiss me or my friend Emily. Anxiously, I awaited his decision. Then, after what seemed like ages, he decided: "Well, I've always wanted to know what blubber tastes like." I stormed off in tears, and turned back just in time to see him kissing Emily.

Low blow number two came around the same time of my life. For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to be in a relationship. Even at age 14, I wanted so badly to share my life with someone else, although I doubt my true desire to be in a relationship was really that well-intentioned; I'm pretty sure I just wanted my first kiss so I could share my story with the other girls. One day, while I was out on the town with my mother, Emily, and her mother, I decided to share my frustrations with the group. I don't remember much else of what was said to me, but I do remember the following words coming out of Emily's mother's mouth: "Well, honey, if you do get married, at least you'll know that he loves your for your brains and not your body." Nice.

The hardest low blow came from an unexpected source: my mother. My mom had always been my advocate, although often more than I wanted her to be. When kids started tormenting me in elementary school, she tried to put me on diets. I think I've been on and off diets since I was about 8 or 9. I've seen multiple doctors (nutritionists, endocrinologists, physical therapists ...), gone to exercise programs for overweight youngsters, you name it. Unfortunately for my mother, the more she pushed me to lose weight, the more I wanted to spite her by gaining it; all I wanted to do was be left alone. Even though it annoyed me to no end when I was younger, I knew deep down that she wanted the best for me, which is why this following statement caught me off guard. I was in high school, and warmed the bench while all my other girlfriends were starting the 'relationship' game. I went to talk to my mom about it, and her response to me was something along the lines of "No one will ever love you or marry you if you're fat." To this day, she claims that I have misinterpreted the meaning of what she said; she was just trying to be real with me about the world we live in. No matter what the intention (or the fact that we've struggled with this in our relationship and have now moved past it), it's still the one thing that I believe more than anything else in this world. Potentially more than I believe in God.

After years of struggling with trying to get myself past this belief, I think I've given in, so to say. If I believe in it so much, then why wasn't I doing something about it before? It's been about 10 years now since I've really wanted to be in a relationship, but have never been in one. So I guess it's about time I took my future in my own hands and did something about it, even if I know how untrue that statement is. Part of my struggle with this hike is inextricably linked with my struggle to love myself no matter what my outside looks like.

The funny thing is, though, that if any of the guys I know now decide to ask me out after I have lost all the weight, I'll probably turn them down. I doubt I'll be that different of a person after this, other than looks-wise, and if someone can't appreciate me for me the way I am now, then why should they after I've lost the weight? Seriously. Maybe I don't believe in that statement as much as I thought after all.

So, yes, as much as I hate to admit it, my motivation lies in changing my looks, with the end goal of getting a guy. How sad is that? But whatever my motivation is for a given day, week, month, or overall, at least it gets me up the mountain.