"Sometimes it takes a crooked road to figure out. Oh I wish I'd known what I know right now" - Matt Wertz "What I Know Right Now"
It feels a bit like Criminal Minds to begin this entry with a quote, but I felt like it sets the mood for our short time together today (or whenever you read this). I leave in a few weeks now. The folks I'm working for have bought my ticket, I've met (via Skype and email) a few of the people I'll be working with, and almost everyone I needed to tell about leaving now know. I cried a few times at my desk at work this week; the impending end to my time there and closing chapters with my guys, transferring them to other therapists really weighed heavy on me. I try to remain really emotionally strong for them and for my coworkers. I want them to know that it will be okay. I want to know that it will be okay.
I'm getting a lot of words thrown at me about my next adventure. A lot of thoughts on bravery, risk taking, guts, pioneering, and the like. While I know that taking this leap and moving across the globe is very brave. It just hard to think of myself in that way. I feel as though anyone in my position, faced with this decision, would take the opportunity to create some good and immerse themselves in the once in a lifetime chance. Maybe people wouldn't, I'm not sure. For me, the decision was made for me before I had the offer. It was in my plan to go to Cambodia. I wasn't aware initially, but once the talks began, I knew that this was next. I'm going to be involved with an incredible organization, with some really amazing people. I'm honored and somewhat intimidated by the chance to join their ranks.
I never really questioned my abilities to do the job well. I've had really AWESOME clinical directors, I've had supppppper bad ones. I know what I would want in a leader, and those are the things I plan to take into this position. I've been taught really well, and I know when to ask for help. I have a great community of professionals that will still be around that I can bounce ideas off of. I think my biggest insecurity in this position, isn't whether or not I'm qualified, it's whether or not I deserved it.
From my teens years until now, a lot of my accomplishments and future endeavors have depended upon my body and my worthiness. No matter how hard I worked, the grades, scores, or whatever, my success rested on my body. This scale that measured my success was the one that also told me my weight. I know now that the scale only measures the gravitational pull my body has, not how good of a person I am. I get it..however it doesn't take away from the little voice in my head that says "this would be better if you were thinner" or "if you were thinner this would happen".
I've had to take a significant break from the scale. I've gotten to a place that most days I'm really proud of my body. Yes, I know that I'm overweight. And I'm doing what I can to change that. (Even though I have been slacking on my diet lately.) I enjoy that I'm curvy. The trainers I have had in my life have been the ones to teach me about strength and not how thin I could get. I never really listened until the last few months, when I just grew tired of counting calories and killing myself with the guilt of missing workouts to gauge rather or not I was a good person. I decided that my worth wasn't going to be given a numeric value. I'm a good person, fat or not. I'm worthy, at any size. I am entitled to laughter, being silly, loving myself, and respecting myself. I deserve to try whatever I want to do. Even going to the other side of the planet, to go after my dreams. I deserve the fear and the crazy of that.
The little voices have gotten smaller, but they are still there. So when someone says I'm "brave", I wince because something in me still doesn't think I deserve that. I am hoping that through all this, I continue to learn what I'm truly worthy of.