Tag: fear

The Sun and The Moon

Nina Chapman12 Comments

mom

I debated on whether or not I should write about this subject, but then I got into the car to take Bridget to school and Fleetwood Mac started playing on the radio… on a pop station mind you. So, I took it as a sign that today is the perfect day to share this.

You see, when I was a little kid I was pretty dramatic. I secretly wished that I could break an arm or suddenly fall ill so that everyone would feel sorry for me and shower me with attention. Unfortunately for me, I was as healthy as could be and as sturdy as an ox. I’ve only broken one bone and it was while giving birth to my first-born child, an indication of the pain that comes with motherhood. It was my tailbone and you can’t wear a cast on that, so I just had to let it mend with time.

My mother was extremely artistic, she had many talents but her favorite talent was music. My childhood is littered with memories of listening to her sing Fleetwood Mac covers. I found the strumming of her acoustic guitar to be so comforting that many times it lulled me to sleep. As I would drift off I would look at her and think that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was my sun and my moon.

Then one night when I was in the third grade, I woke up to a funny feeling. Something wasn’t right. As I lay in bed the white dots of blurry vision swirled and blinked around me. I just kept staring at the dots until suddenly they came together and I realized that I wasn’t alone. Someone was floating over my bed and looking down on me. It was a woman who was familiar but I didn’t know who she was. She just kept looking at me with a smile on her face that was meant to sooth me, but it didn’t. Once I gathered the courage I bolted from my bed and into my parent’s room. I went to my mother’s side of the bed, as I always did, to tell her I was scared but she wasn’t there. She was in the garage with the car running, she looked like she was sleeping but she wasn’t, she was dead. She had killed herself.

To this day I don’t know if the vision I saw was from the carbon monoxide that was creeping into the house or if it was really what I thought it was, a figure of a woman. If I hadn’t woken up when I did there is a possibility that the rest of my family would have passed with her. But we didn’t.

When I finally went back to school everyone felt sorry for me. Even the meanest teacher in 3rd grade was nice to me. Through that I grew to hate pity. I did all that I could to keep from giving anyone a reason to pity me. Throughout time I built up a wall in an attempt to keep my vulnerability at bay. By doing so I thought I was being strong but I wasn’t being strong, I was hiding. I hid the part of me that was just like my mother, the sun and the moon.  There were times that she beamed bright like the sun and other times when she cast a blue lonely glow like the moon.

I only wanted to be the sun, but despite my efforts the moon would find its way into my life. I’ve come to realize that you can’t have one without the other. There will be times that get you down so hard that you think it is impossible to find your way back to the light. During those times you just have to remember that dawn always breaks no matter how long you’ve been lost in the night.

Despite not wanting to be like my mom I’ve discovered that our lives are very similar. We both went back to school to pursue English degrees after having kids. My mother was on the cusp of graduating and was offered a position to teach at the college she attended while she got her master’s degree. But she didn’t make it. She let the darkness swallow her whole.

I’ve gone through the darkness and I’ve finally made it through to another day. The sunshine is bright and the day is full of hope and I’m left feeling sad for my mother who never got to see that.

The lesson I’ve learned is that there is something empowering about finding strength in your vulnerability.

Pretending like you aren’t depressed doesn’t solve the problem. If you are like me you are overweight because it is a reflection of all of the things in your life that are weighing you down on the inside.

It might be fear, anxiety, self-doubt… it doesn’t matter. If you are going to truly have a transformation it has to come from the inside out.

I’ve begun to tear down the wall that I’ve hidden behind for so many years. By doing so I feel scraped open and raw but at the same time I can feel promise peeking over the horizon.

Oh God, What Did I Just Do?

Nina Chapman21 Comments

reunion

Writing a blog as been the most self-absorbed thing I’ve ever done. When it first started out I had no intentions of sharing it. In fact, if my husband would happen to walk by while I was working on it I would quickly click to something else as if I was afraid of being caught looking at something naughty.

After my weigh in on Christmas Day I had a break down. My husband who had been working over the holidays came home to a teary eyed mess and had no idea what had transpired since he had left for work. He went back to work on New Year’s Eve and my oldest daughter had a sleepover at a friend’s house. That night Penelope decided to go to bed at 6:30 and for the first time in a while I was left alone with nothing to do. I was looking at the photos that I had posted up and decided that drastic times called for drastic measures.

Before I knew what I was doing I was composing the following message…

Hi Friends,

 I have to warn you that I’m about to get kind of weird on you. Facebook as we know is kind of a strange thing because with the click of a mouse we can peek into the lives of friends or acquaintances. In the process of sharing tidbits of life people fall into the trap of over sharing. And that is precisely what I’m about to do…

As many of you know I had a baby this past year. After giving birth I suffered from a pretty big dose of postpartum depression. On top of that I suffer from a condition called PCOS which has a bunch of awesome side effects but the best one of all is weight gain. I’ve really struggled this year to get my mind and body together and through all of this I have finally found the light at the end of the tunnel.

Most of you don’t know this but I went to school to become a writer. One of my dreams is to be able to make a living as a freelance writer but I’ve never known how to get my work out there. I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a blogger but I’m not an expert on anything. While struggling to lose weight it hit me. I should write a weight loss blog. (Just to make things clear this is not a New Year’s resolution thing.) I’ve been working on it since November and I find it entirely inconvenient that I’ve finally pulled it together at this moment in time.

The reason I’m writing you is because I need your support. I want you to read my blog. Some of you are close friends and some of you are acquaintances but you are my preferred audience. If you like it, keep reading. If you find this message really awkward, we’ll pretend like this never happened. Just be warned that I’m letting it all hang out…literally. This is still in the rough stages but I’m hoping with your support I will become successful in more ways than one.

Thanks, Nina

I picked a selection of friends who I thought might go easy on me. My eyes started to well up and before I could chicken out I hit the send button. This was the equivalent of walking into my high school reunion butt naked and saying, “Hey guys! Check this out!”

After I sent it I sat there and cried and thought, “Oh God, what did I just do?” Then the first message popped up and then the next and the support I got was incredible. I stopped crying and started laughing. Before I knew what was happening people I didn’t know were reading it and commenting on it. One of my high school friends, Becca, knows a successful weight loss blogger, Skinny Hollie. Becca had sent her my blog and asked her to mentor me throughout this process. Hollie told me to get a facebook page and a twitter account. Before I knew it, the blog had blown up.

I feel like I’m going through some sort of metamorphosis. It’s terrifying and thrilling and painful all at the same time. It’s officially a turning point in my life. It’s also exhausting. I will be struck by a moment of genius and will want to share it with you guys. Then I have to contend with a teething baby who is underfoot and on some sort of kamikaze mission to fall down the stairs, an emotional preteen and an over worked husband. I’m getting my master’s degree and my classes resume on Monday. I’ve got a ton of laundry to do, not to mention grocery shopping and finding time to workout.

It’s a challenge, so please bare with me as I try to find balance in this whole blogging world, which I find to be surreal and bazaar. I’m warning you, there will be typos, I suck at spelling and I still haven’t figured out how to make my blog look the way I want. I’m just asking you to be patient because I’m just kind of figuring this out as I go.