onceafatgirl

It’s not called a super chill system for a reason

I have had an absolutely insane week. Before we went to sleep last Sunday, we heard that our offer on a high rise condo with amazing Chicago city views had been accepted.

One thing a lot of people don’t actively think about is the fact that when we change, especially when we grow into people we have been hoping to become, our brains don’t cheer us on. They send our nervous systems after us. Like thugs in flat caps with tire irons. (My nervous system is apparently Irish.) 

So I have been managing a series of mini panic attacks in between filling out paperwork, signing electronically, and uploading documents. 

But there is a thing that having my eating under control for 20 years has done: it has taught me that I can act through my fear and my panic. That I can just take the next right step. I don’t have to feel like it to do it. I don’t have to be ready. 

What I am talking about is not just worry that I made a mistake or missed something. It’s not just about the process of buying a condo. It’s worry about all of the things that come from this change. For example, downsizing. 

I have been changing my wardrobe over the past year or so. Entirely switching up my style. And while I have had an apartment on the road and big house in the suburbs, I have not been thinking about space. I just get the new clothes I want. But there are still so many old clothes. Or new clothes that I realize I am just kind of meh about. So after a series of panic attacks about downsizing my wardrobe, I just took some steps. And it was a relief. I literally just made some piles to give away and packed them up. 

I have a problematic amount of craft supplies too. And this little voice in my head that sees something that inspires me, but that I have no current need for, and thinks “you have room.”

Guess what, voice, there is no more room for potential. 

So the purging of the craft supplies will be coming soon to a suburban house near me. (Mine.) 

Every time my nervous system tells me we are making a big mistake, I remember that it is fighting for the status quo. Because it knows we are surviving here. But survival and thriving can’t live in the same place.

As a person who wants more, who wants it all, love and friendship and joy and contentment without complacency, I can make friends with the panic, and move forward anyway. As long as I weigh and measure my food and keep my drug foods out of my body, I’m available to show up and do things, big and small, mundane and life-changing.