Am I Positive?

Over the past week and a half, I haven't been able to write.  Ok, so I've been able to write, but I'll get half way through something, deem it crap, and discard it.  In the precise moment I let everyone know what happened at IMAZ, and subsequently wanted to be left the F*$^ alone...my friends and loved ones did the exact opposite.  I was immediately flooded with emails, text messages, comments, etc.  Turns out, what you all did was exactly what I needed.  [Side note: Thank you doesn't do it justice.  It really doesn't.  I'm still rather speechless about it all, so until better words are formed in my brain, thank you will just have to do.]

But the content of what everyone was saying to me shocked me just a little.  I still got called a rockstar.  And many people commented on my positive attitude.  In fact, one person mentioned the desire to bottle my positivity and hock it on QVC. 

Now, positive is not necessarily a word I would typically use to describe myself.  Being the formerly really fat girl with eating disorders has always bread more of a self doubt type of rational going on in my brain.  So, my insistence on not quitting until either 1) I got my chip pulled or 2) finishing isn't something I see as being positive.  I see it more as being stubborn.  And my willingness, in fact, insistence upon immediately trying again may have more to do with the fact that I'm 1) again, stubborn, and 2) already signed up for Cedar Point.  And in fact, internal positivity is something that I deemed worthy to add to my list of stuff to work on over the next year.  I can do this...I WILL do this.  You know, stuff like that. 

In fact, in the not to distant past, one person actually told me that I should be a more positive person and that way, more people will want to be around me. 

But what I will admit to is that over the past few years, I have gained an incredible amount of self-confidence.  There are always days where I feel fat and ugly and like I can't do anything.  Let me tell you, having taken two weeks off completely from working out and eating healthy has me feeling down in the dumps about myself a little bit.  Well, maybe not down in the dumps per se.  Frumpy.  I feel frumpy, and unattractive. 

But maybe, just maybe, I'm not frumpy and unattractive.  I was on a business trip this week for work, staying in the middle of no where in Iowa.  Ok, I was in Des Moines.  And most of Iowa should be considered the middle of no where.  Except for where this really adorable 19 month old lives.  After a long day of work, (and have I mentioned not only am I feeling frumpy, I am also sick with a cold.  Bonus points added to the I'm not so hot this week column) I walked into the lobby of my hotel.  And there was a huge group of guys.  And I'm a girl.  And I just walked in the room.  Every single pair of eyes in the room was on me.  My immediate reaction was to shyly put my head down and walk through the room as quickly as possible.  But then I remembered I was wearing my super cute new red heels.  And no one wearing super cute red heels should shyly put their head down and walk through a room filled with guys, whose attention is focused on me in that moment.  So I lifted my head, put my shoulders back a bit (ok, so I had on a backpack and my shoulders were already pretty much back) and walked through the room.  I may have even smiled.  Eat your heart out boys. 

In that precise moment, I made a pact with myself.  Don't shy away from the boys attention.  There will come a day when walking in to a room isn't going to turn heads, so you might as well enjoy it while you can. 

So where was I going with all of this?  Maybe, just maybe, somewhere along the line, I somehow became a rather positive person.  And gosh darn it, people like me.  You really like me.  And I can do anything that I set my mind to.