Quarter Life Crisis

After a series of lots of self-doubt and mini meltdowns in my mind, I think I can finally say that I am probably going through a Quarter Life Crisis. My girl, who I was sharing this with the other day (more like yesterday), doesn't think it's a real thing. I still love her anyways :-)

At first I thought maybe I'm just reacting to adulting in general - newly married, new-ish job, just turned a year older, balancing responsibilities and ever increasing demands. And on most days, I feel like I am just not getting it right. Whether this is by general standards or by standards I have set for myself in my own mind, I don't know. But it's not a very pretty place to be.


I just turned 27. Twenty-freakin-seven. I'm getting old. (Yes, I can feel you rolling your eyes at me. This is a no judgment zone ) Yet still feel like that's within the threshold of still being allowed to be young and stupid. I don't think I'm doing too badly, but I don't feel like my life is where I thought it would be either. I know that something needs to change, I just can't seem to figure out what that 'something' is  :-(

Hence - Quarter Life Crisis

All this has really been eating at me for a while. And I think the thing that sucks the most is that you kind of have to wade through it and figure out what works for you on your own. No one can do it for you. There's no magic pill that you can swallow and have everything revealed to you. And don't even get me started on those moments when you find yourself casually (or not so casually) comparing the trajectory of your life with that of your friends/peers, which ends up leaving you feeling that much more lost (as if you weren't already lost enough)... Everyone around you suddenly seems to be doing so much better than you, and seems to have all their stuff figured out and you end up feeling like... Well... Like you suck. Pretty much.


But in the midst of all my confusion and (apparent) lost-ness - the one thing that keeps tagging at my heart is that life is not a competition. At least not with anyone else. I know we've probably all heard this before and it begins to sound very cliche, but the only person you should really be competing with is you. To be better today than you were yesterday. Better next year than you were last year. And when you get lost in feeling like you need to figure out the next ten steps, you can easily forget to take the one step that's right in front of you that would pave the way.


It could be in a great way - like discovering a new planet, or it could be in a little way - like picking up a new hobby.

But more and more, I feel like life is meant to be lived. Not (necessarily just) figured out.

Break away from the routine. Don't be so hard on yourself. Do things for you. Find things that you enjoy doing and do them. Most importantly - Live life on your terms. And live it loud and proud. No apologies. After all - you came in alone, and you will exit alone. SO you may as well enjoy the ride.
 (Side bar - I think this little pep talk is mostly for me ;-) )

And who knows - in the process of living life, you just might figure it out.

XOXO

Almost Home

30 days.

I feel like I have so much going on in my mind, and it's all centered around 30 days. I can't believe I am getting married in just 30 days. This thing has always felt so distant, so abstract. And now it's here. It's real.

I am going home.

I have a house, and soon I will have a husband. And we will have a home. I guess this means that I am almost successfully adulting :D.. That matters - because I feel like I haven't been adulting very well!

I'm not a mixed bag of emotions. I am excited, and I am tired. Those are the only two things I feel. We are having a wedding, and putting a wedding together is A LOT  of work. But it's been amazing. Our first real little project, the first of many. My colleague couldn't believe when I told her we've pretty much put this wedding together, just the two of us. It's been fun. We've disagreed, agreed, agreed to disagree... And in the end realized it is never that serious.

All that matters is that we get home.

Home is wherever we are with each other, and I can't wait. I can't wait to not have to say goodbye anymore, I cant wait to not have to only see him once a week.. I can't wait to build a life with him.

He is home.

So I don't have anything deep to share. Just sitting here amazed at how far God has brought me. How faithful God is.

Mr. O - thank you. For seeing my crazy, accepting my crazy, and deciding that you can spend the rest of your life with my crazy. You have loved me selflessly, beyond anything I could have asked for. You have been my closest friend and my biggest supporter. You are THE man, and I am so proud to be your woman. You truly are the one He kept for me. Here's to you, here's to us, here's to forever.

24th June 2016 - here we come.

We are coming home.

"The one I was praying for
The one He delayed me for
The one He kept for me
Until it was time"

In Living Color

I am such a lazy writer. Well, not lazy, I think I just rely a bit to much on how I'm feeling to write. You should see how many drafts I have! *gasp*

But that is neither here nor there. :-)

There's two things I have come to embrace about life: Life should be lived in color and Life shouldn't be lived in one place. (Before you close the page - No, I am not doing a World Ventures Pitch :-) ) And  both these things are really about one thing - Perspective.

I love color. I used to low key love color, I don't quite remember when I openly embraced my love of color. A turquoise will always catch  my eye faster than a grey. When I think of my soon coming home, I see simplicity and color. Actually when I think of most aspects of my life at the moment, I see simplicity and color.

My belief that life should be lived in color moves beyond literal color. It's seeing the good in the bad, seeing the rainbow in the rain. Looking beyond surface value. Understanding that you will never get everything in life, but you will almost always have enough.

This is a big deal for me. I am primarily a Choleric. I know, reading this doesn't sound much like it. But ideally, I really like for everything to be in a straight line and be very black and white. Unfortunately, life never rarely goes down like that. I have learned that when life gives you lemons, sometimes you gotta make Lemon Meringue Pie :)

And sometimes the thing that prevents you from seeing the color is having perspective that is stuck and tied to one thing and will just not shift. And that's why I believe life shouldn't be lived in one place. A change of perspective requires you to move. Sometimes literally, most times figuratively.

My first experience with travel was in my first job. I thankfully got to travel a little bit due to my job and yo! The world has so much to offer. Getting to experience different cultures and visit different places will teach you more in a week than a year of class ever will. And that is the moment I knew that I would spend a good chunk of my life travelling.

However, baggage makes it hard to move. How often do we find ourselves with so much stuff that we can't just let go of? In almost everyone's home there's a room that is just full of stuff that no one has used for YEARS. Or you know, that item of clothing that you last wore 2 years ago. Or those things that you pack when you are moving that you've seen for the first time as you were packing? Or that thing you're buying that you know you will never use. Or that friendship that drains you of all your energy? Maybe that breakup that left you in pieces? Could be the relationship that you know is going nowhere?

Baggage = stagnation. Shed it.

You can't move as long as you are weighed down by baggage. Whether it's moving to a different country, or moving to a new space in your life. Baggage holds so many people back without them even realizing that that's what's happening. Anytime you find yourself desperately holding on to something that you think you can't let go for whatever reason, you are probably holding on to something that is keeping you from moving forward as you ought to. And if you can't move, you can't change your perspective.

My point - if you don't like how something is going in your life, remember that you are not a tree. If you don't like the way things are looking, change your view. I have learned to look for color in the most dull of situations, dance to no music, and move - release baggage before it becomes baggage. Wherever you find yourself, whatever the situation, learn to look for the color. And allow yourself mobility, sometimes all you need is a change of perspective.

Embrace color, embrace movement and see what difference it will make in your life!

Love & Light,

Of Life And Plans

I had a plan yo.

And by all intents and purposes, it was the perfect plan. The plan of the way my life would play out. I really believe most of us do. There's very few people who are born "free spirits", ready and willing to go wherever the winds of life would blow them.

Isn't that the whole reason we push through the education system and have dreams of the perfect job we'll get and all the steps we'll take to move up the corporate ladder? And when we'll meet the perfect man/woman and get married and the perfect children we'll have? And how our happily ever after will last 50/60 years before my spouse and i will die (or one of us will die first and the other soon after as a result of heartbreak)

Ok, I exaggerate :-D

But really. Everyone has a plan. There's just a way that either in your  mind, or on paper somewhere, you see your life playing out. Then real life actually happens. I think it's really cool if life plays out for you exactly like you had planned. But there's so much more to be gained from failed plans. At least that has been my experience.

I turned 26 a couple of weeks ago and sometimes when I sit and try to take stock of my life, almost nothing seems to be going to plan. In fact as an outsider looking in, compared to the plan I had laid out - my life looks like a hot mess at the moment. In my early 20's things were pretty much in line with the plan. Then everything begun to feel like it was just falling apart.

The crazy thing though? I have NEVER been happier than I am right now, in this very minute. Actually in every minute of every day. Granted there are those days when I have a mini anxiety attack about how bad I think things seem to look, but I get through those pretty fast.

Life not going according to plan has taught me A LOT. It has made me the strongest version of myself. It has made me learn things about me that I never knew existed. I have never been much of a patient person, but I have gained patience in ways I did not even know existed. I have learned to enjoy every minute as it comes, and take each day as it comes because that is really all you have assured - so make the most of it.

I have learned that life does not owe me anything, and nothing will be handed to me. There's even thing I will not be able to take. And all that is actually Okay. Embracing that fact has given me more peace than I have ever know. Tied to that, I have also learned that life is not a competition. We each have our own unique reason for existence, and that's what you need to focus on. You can't compare your step 20 to someone's step 100. You will be constantly miserable.

I have learned that when you are in a position where you need to sit tight and wait, believe me when I say no amount of tantrums, tears and pleading will get you out if there. Best thing to do would be to embrace the season, learn and grow, build your character, then move when it is time to move. And sometimes being in the waiting season could be the best thing you could go through - character formation.

Anyway, like I said - life has not played out at all like anything I had planned, but it is currently more amazing than I could have imagined. And I could only see the beauty surrounding this chaos when I finally embraced the change of plans and begun to focus on what is at hand.

So if your plan isn't currently working - let loose. Don't take yourself to seriously. Enjoy life, nobody comes out of it alive anyways. Keep your head up and embrace where you are right now. Embrace the journey that life will have you take, because it could be very different from what you originally planned. And it could be the best ride you ever had :)

Love & Light

Weight A Minute!

"Discipline is simply choosing between what you want now, and what you want most."

Hi. My name is Awino and I am overweight.

I do not refer to myself as "Plus Size", not anymore. Because that's not what I am. Hiding behind the plus size tag was not allowing me to see what was really happening. And as long as I was not seeing it, I couldn't change it. You can not change what you do not accept. 

Anyone who knows me well enough knows that this is not a topic I usually discuss freely or easily.  I But here I am today, baring my soul. Don't worry, I'm not here to start a fitness journey series - there's enough of those going round on Instagram :). I am here to encourage someone who feels stuck - there is a way out. But you have to want it more than you've ever wanted anything in your life.

I really don't know how to go about this post, I just know that I need to do it.

I have actually been overweight my whole life, so I'm pretty used to being big. That's been my life. I embraced it, have always been confident about it, loved my body - the works! I still do. I have an almost unshakable self confidence as far as my body goes. I never felt like I needed to change. I always felt like if you don't like what you see, look at something else :-D .. Maybe it also helped that I am tall, so I really don't look as big as I am heavy.

And I guess that's a common thing with most overweight people. We can often be real confident, borderline defensive. Trust me when I say - there is a fine line between being confident and being defensive. I know it because I have lived it. We often beat people to the punch - label ourselves before we are labeled, laugh at the jokes, heck even make the jokes!I guess it's all part of the defense. Coz believe me, life is hard our here for big/plus size/overweight people. Being confident is simply loving yourself despite and inspite. Everybody needs that. Being defensive on the other hand, will cause you to refuse to see a problem where there is one.

The funny thing about weight is most of the time, you don't even notice it piling on. I know I've always been big, but I also know the weight has piled on over the years. I never quite noticed it happening, but it did. And there will always be a reason, especially if you've been big all your life. You'll be told the way you are big boned, heavy set etc etc. And I bought into all this, till I met someone who shed 48kg's after being told all those stories. She looks ridiculously good. So that's where I kinda begun to believe that things could be different.

I just got to the point where I begun to think that there has to be a way out. I NEED a different quality of life. I was tired of being told that I can't get much smaller that I am because that's just how I'm set. I was tired of trying thing after thing after thing that either didn't work or was just a short term solution. I didn't have issues with how I looked, but I definitely became more aware of how unhealthy it is to be overweight. It doesn't matter how fabulous you look (because there are so many ridiculously fabulous looking big ladies out here), you can not be overweight/obese and healthy. And if you are healthy now, just wait it's catching up. I have nothing against "Plus Size Power". I could possibly be the chair-lady :)) ..But yo! I think it's time we started calling a spade a spade and not a big spoon.

Weight loss is not easy. It really requires a lot of sacrifice that most of us don't want to make. For me it was especially hard because I just couldn't seem to find a program or regimen that would give me the kind of results I wanted. And this kept me super discouraged, and would often have me on the verge of giving up. I tried working out, and it made me feel great but I wasn't seeing any real change. But I did notice that when I gradually begun to change my eating habits, I begun to get results

Lightbulb moment!

I stopped taking gradual measures and begun taking drastic measures. I met the most amazing lady who put together the most amazing program for me and yo! It's difficult, but it works. And it's not a short term fad - it's lifestyle change. That's what I love. That I will shed this thing and not have it come back, unless I allow it to.

Am I happy? Immensely. Weight loss will suck if you are doing it for anyone but yourself. It has to be YOUR journey. Yours and no one else's. It's not a journey you can share. You can't even rely on other people to cheer you on - they can cheer you on, but you can't rely on that to keep you going. There will be tons more who want you to remain as you were

Human beings thrive on wins. When you win at something, it keeps you motivated. Up till now, it had been a pretty suck-y year for me. Most of the amazing things I had planned had slowly and surely fallen apart. And most of it was things beyond my control. But somewhere in June, in the middle of my job hunt one day, I decided that I needed a win for me. So I decided to take my weight loss a lot more seriously that I had been.

I want to live long (if my long life was to be purely a factor of weight-related health issues), I want to live happy. I want to have babies when I decide to have babies. I don't want to feel it's time and have a doctor tell me "Nah, you need to lose xx kg's before you can even think of having kids to avoid complications - I know about 4 people that have gone through that). I want to enjoy the great outdoors with my man (because I realized the real reason I don't like outdoor activities is just because they are exhausting because your body cant handle it), and I want to run around with my nieces and nephews and my future babies. I want to get into a public transport and be confident that people aren't busy thinking "Please don't sit next to me" :-D. I want to have energy. I want to find clothes my size in any store I walk into. That's why I'm doing this. I want to live life on my terms. And I am slowly and surely getting there.

It can happen. It's happening for me, it can happen for you too. But you have to want it more than you've wanted anything before.

So if you're on this journey - soldier on. If you've been looking for the motivation to start, get on it! People are changing their lives, one day at a time. So start your journey, one day at a time.

Because that's the only way - a day at a time.

Love & Light :)