From the beginning of my journey, I have been focused on my weight. I talked a good game about self-care, about fitness, about motivation, about all sorts of things but every ounce of my drive was measured in pounds on a bathroom scale. Turns out, this may not be the best way to go about this. 

I took time off from blogging – about 19 months – and I made the decision to do that for a number of reasons. The first reason was that I felt obligated to generate content on a regular basis, which put me in a position of trying to write when I had nothing meaningful to say. I read some of those posts now and have to refrain from rolling my eyes as a few range from pretentious to banal. The second reason I stepped away was a nagging case of imposter syndrome. Who am I to dole out weight loss advice when I have never actually reached my weight loss goals, when I struggle as much as I do? I felt like a fraud, like I was all self-righteous talk without the results to back that up. The third reason I stopped blogging was that this blog really doesn’t have a large readership and it often felt like I was screaming into the void. Seriously, my own family didn’t even read this. 

Why on earth would I come back now? Most simply put, things have changed. 

I have started, for the first time in my journey, to really start digging deep into my emotional issues. I recognize that this is not a weight loss journey but a transformative journey of body and soul. I recognize that, until they are addressed, the issues driving my behavior will continue to reemerge and hinder my progress. It isn’t enough to want to lose weight. My weight was never my problem, it was a symptom of my problems. I wear my trauma on my body, like an anchor tethering me to my past. 

I have been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of talking to myself aloud, a lot of journaling trying to learn about the roots of my behaviors. I have been examining my core traumas, looking back in time to identify when coping mechanisms were adopted and patterns emerged. Looking inward doesn’t feel like enough. I feel the need to engage in the cathartic practice of writing my discoveries down. This is the deep dive. The peeling of the onion. The unpacking of baggage. I am the cartographer of the roadmap of my life. I write when I have something to say. I write with brutal, painful, potentially embarrassing candor without any hope or expectation of inspiring anyone. Finally, I write for an audience of one: myself.