Learning to take it easy.

   I was reading this article, when this particular phrase hit me: You have to respect who you are, what you're capable of, and what you're not.  Not necessary the whole sentence, but rather the last part: You have to respect what you're not. To be honest, I never thought of it that way, though it makes perfect sense, in terms of having to accept yourself just the way you are and embrace the idea that real lifetime changes can be made only at a very slow, but steady pace, but then again, am I not the girl who wasn't familiar with moderation until recently?
  It so happened that, exactly while I was reading this article, one sweaty, exhausted boyfriend texted me from the gym, telling me he feels tired. Brief history? Boyfriend and I used to have kind of really unhealthy eating pattern in general, but also some short periods when we would be extremely interested in fitness. This vicious circle of fluctuations  ended in September, when I started to actually study Nutrition and I also lost some - a lot - of weight, not through a quick miracle diet, as I did countless times before, but through completely changing my eating patterns. Boyfriend didn't completely change his paths -though there were some improvements there also - until recently, when he's gone completely berserk with working out (yes, I did add a new word to my vocabulary, No, I absolutely have no idea whether I use it in the right way or not, watch me how much I don't care.) I - the girl whose life motto has been until recently "Do it until you feel you can't breathe anymore or don't do it at all!" - don't agree. Not anymore. But, it's not my job to agree or disagree to whatever he does, my job is to support him no matter what, to be there for him and, more importantly, accept that he is actually motivating me (yesterday, I ran 7k after a loooong time spent on the couch.) as I am probably motivating him. 
  If I have completely changed my eating patterns, you might ask how come I still don't have a steady working out plan. The first thing to know about me is that - as I have said in previous posts - as a child, I used to do pretty difficult (and by "Pretty", I actually mean "Freaking") martial arts training sessions, often outdoors, sometimes in the ridiculously hot Romanian summer, sometimes in the "Who the heck brought ELSA in Romania?" winters, most of them lasting more than three hours, most of them involving climbing, crawling, stopping for push-ups, abs, etc. on very high hills, ALL of them done without the possibility to hydrate during, but also a couple of hours after the training session, because - and here comes a direct quote - drinking water will mean we are weak, we have to stay strong! and, most importantly, ALL of them done without my consent. 
 As you can see, I have grown up dreading physical exercise. Not physical exercise as such was the problem, but those afternoons spent literally hiding in the closet, hoping that for once my father will be more like a ... father and less like a tyrant. It never happened, but as I became a teenager and I slowly started to rise my voice, I was often accused of being a rebel. Well, guess what? No one is born a rebel, rebels are made. 
  But I am rebel in each aspect of my life. If you tell me to do something, you need to give me a reason and the reason cannot be "because I said to, 'cause I'm your boss" or "because you just have to." Usually, it's really not that hard - for instance, at work I give my best because I genuinely want to make people (customers) happy. But, unless you give me a reason, I will go in the total opposite direction if you tell me I "just" have to do something, despite initially wanting to do like you said - because this is how fucked my brain is!
 I am in a complicated relationship with physical exercise. If physical exercise was a man, I could say he is the perfect man, handsome and understanding and healthy, a true Mr. Right who will keep me safe from all non-communicable diseases and whom I would definitely love to marry. If only someone from my past wouldn't have forced this gorgeous man to rape me constantly as a child! 
   I am currently learning how to take things slow. Never knew how to do that, really, which is actually the cause to all of my misery. Take as an example my experience with law school. While I was in 12 grade, I had no idea what I wanted, what exactly was the job specially designed for me, especially if you think about the fact that not only was I quite good in Math, participating in lots of competitions, but I was also a published writer whose secret desire was to buy a nice cozy house on the beach and never stop writing. No, 19 years old me definitely didn't have her shit together, nor was she capable of choosing a career, but she did knew one thing: Smart students go either to Medicine or to Law. So, without giving it a second thought, I spent my last year of high school studying like a maniac to get into the best Law school there was in Romania, not even for a second being aware of the HUGE irony that was standing right in front of me: I am more than 90 % an introverted person, so it is close to impossible for me to do what lawyers do on a daily basis, which is talking. A lot. With a lot of people. In frond of a lot of people. (When we talk about extroversion/introversion, we actually speak of a line, where we put this two words at the opposite ends and we mark the middle of the line. We situate ourselves on that line, depending on how much extroverted/introverted you are and it is said that it's basically impossible for someone to be 100% introverted/extroverted, but I come pretty close to defying the laws of nature, don't I?)
  So, I am learning to take it slowly and it isn't as easy as you might think it is. You might think I should be aware that I am always looking for the most difficult path, but I actually don't do it intentionally at all. For instance, recently I was stressed by the idea of having to choose a specialization. (I mean, come on, seriously, College??? I went to three different colleges until I actually found something I like and now I have to choose again, isn't that a little bit too cruel? Yeah, I'm not really keen on making choices.) I went home, I asked wise Mother what to do and I was really surprised that I didn't have to hear the "Do whatever makes you happy, honey, you know deep inside what is it exactly that you want, I will support you, no matter what." bullshit. I know people who say that only mean what's best, but doesn't it sound a little rehearsed? I mean, when you have no idea what to do, how can it help to hear "the answer lies deep within yourself"? No. My mum didn't say that. She asked me instead what the two options are and I tried to explain them to her as simply as I could, considering that I don't know much about them either. I said to her that one seems bit more complicated and that was the one I've been thinking to choose. The words she spoke next were so clean and simple that I almost had an epiphany: "You know, it's okay to not choose what seems to be more complicated, it's perfectly fine to not struggle, at least for once."