Deep, Dark, Truthful Mirror #2

I’ve heard it said that when you really want to change, you will, and there’s no point forc­ing your­self to if you’re not ready. Appar­ently, I’m ready.

A few months back, I changed jobs. While the work I’m doing now isn’t really any “sex­ier” than my pre­vi­ous 10-year stint as a cus­tomer ser­vice rep, it’s much more relaxed, and allows me to actu­ally do some things out­side of my job descrip­tion which I enjoy. In my old job, any attempt to reach beyond one’s sta­tion was met with a crush­ing bur­den of red tape meant, I can only assume, to dis­suade one from even try­ing to bet­ter one’s self.

I’ve also been actively try­ing to do some­thing about my weight and health. I’ve vora­ciously read online fit­ness forums and resources, and mirac­u­lously seem to have found a healthy, sus­tain­able (in the “I can do this” sense, not nec­es­sar­ily in the envi­ron­men­tal sense) way to eat. I joined a gym, and I’ve been going reg­u­larly for about a month and a half.

One after­noon, I was work­ing out on the ellip­ti­cal machine and hap­pened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mir­rors on the wall fac­ing a bank of tread­mills. I was sur­prised to see, not hollow-eyed dread or dis­gust, but accep­tance and pos­si­bil­ity. I needed a fresh start, and appar­ently, found one. I could still imag­ine my face in the mir­ror that day in Salem, but for once I could see a future where things were much bet­ter. Maybe not imme­di­ately, but eventually.

“My cup is one-sixteenth full. I’m get­tin’ there, but the gettin’s slow.” — Glen Phillips, “Released”

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