Last Friday, I walked away from a successful career which I have spent the last 30 years building. I put myself and my health first, and took a career break. I have no idea what will be waiting for me professionally on the other side of this break, but that does not concern me right now.
While my career may have taken off, my life had fallen to pieces. My weight soared, my blood pressure followed that same upward trajectory, and my health was starting to crumble in front of my eyes. The money I was making was no longer worth the trade off, so I left in order to spend the rest of this year focusing on my health and happiness.
I am blessed to have saved up some money which allows me to continue paying both my daughter's college costs as well as our health insurance during this break. I am also blessed to have a partner who is willing to cover our household costs for the rest of the year by himself so that I can undertake this endeavor. I have never been in a position to do this before, especially since I have been a single mother for the last 17 years. I am thankful for this every single day, and am not going to squander this opportunity.
I took time over the weekend to regroup and determine my plan for this week. I was also recovering after surgery last Tuesday, and wanted to make sure I was rested and firmly on the path to healing.
Flashback to last February: I went for a physical for the first time in seven (!!!) years, and found out that I was not in a good place health-wise. I immediately started to change the way that I ate, and worked to carve out 15 to 20 minutes each day to do a Walk at Home video on YouTube whenever I could manage a break from work. I also started tracking my food intake with the Lose It app on my phone.
That first appointment led to several others, mostly for testing, and I discovered that I had to have surgery to resolve an urgent issue. About a week and a half before my surgery, I started to struggle with heart rate surges, lightheadedness and dizziness, and chest pain. It put a damper on the workouts, but I kept on with healthy eating and food tracking, and was able to lose 10 pounds from my February 16 physical to the March 29 surgery. After the surgery, I worked to nourish myself, finish off my last few days at my previous job, and mentally prepare for my career break.
Yesterday was the start of my journey back to myself... the healthy person that I took for granted, the slim and fit person that I neglected to care for in lieu of work, and the happy person I buried under job responsibilities and relationships that drained me. It is a slow journey, and I started it with a step on the track... which turned into 2 miles worth of steps as well as dipping my toe back into strength training with very light weight settings on the leg machines.
Although the impetus for all of this is physical, the real work is also going to be inside of myself. Figuring out who I am without my job title, without my income... determining what really makes me happy and what I want my life to look like on the other side of this break. That's the scary part of this for me, because I feel like I have lost my identity these past fifteen years and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. So I am writing it all down here, the physical transformation aspects as well as the deeper ones. We will see where it takes me.
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