Meteor Shower

Last night was the meteor shower. No matter what day of the week it lands on I make sure to stay up as late as I can to see all the shooting star action. Last year, I actually set my alarm to wake me up at the peak and I ended up thinking maybe I saw one shooting star, out of the corner of my mind.
Yesterday, all day I didn’t think there was an ice cube’s chance in hell that I would see a single shooting star that night. It got increasingly darker and rainy outside my office window all day long. After I got out of the gym, the rain had stopped but the sky was still thick with grey, heavy clouds. I did some writing while I watched the finale of So You Think You Can Dance and after also watching an inspiring weight loss episode of Oprah; I noticed a small clearing in the clouds. I grabbed my blanket, sat outside with the mosquitoes and tried my luck with my small patch of blue sky. My expectations were low after the disappointing clear sky of last year.
I sat and waited and I did something I hadn’t done in years. I talked with God. I apologized for all the time I had let pass between us and I said I was sorry for giving up on him and myself. And when I asked for the strength to help me through this weight loss, right in the middle of my clearing in the clouds a proudly bright shooting star streaked right in front of my eyes. It gave me chills. I cautiously went on asking God for help in various areas of my life with my eyes on the sky. And my little clearing in the sky answered with 4 more dazzling streaks through the sky. I was in awe. I have been turning to lessons from the past, Google, books, magazine articles, friends, doctors and medication for help all my life. I don’t think there ever was a time in my life when I thought to go to God for help. Last night, I did and I don’t have any substantial solid proof I can show to you to prove to you that God heard my prayers and is helping me. What I have now that I have been lacking is... faith... right to the edges of my fingers and toes. Someone or something great that looks down us is hearing me and telling me that they are there for me. I want to bottle the feeling up and put it down my gullet when I feel self doubt wash over me again.
When I think back even just a couple of months ago, I can see that God has been helping me. On a long weekend Monday in May, I caught an episode of Oprah with Julia Roberts talking about a new movie that she had made after a very long hiatus. I was so excited! I love Julia! The movie was based on some divorcee’s journey of self discovery or something. When I looked more into Eat Love Pray, I learned it was essentially travel literature, which I was really into at the moment. So that day (of course) I got Eat Pray Love. I read it feeling incredibly jealous that some rich New York City divorcee could be lucky enough to do what I longed to do and travel and go find myself. Despite that, Elizabeth Gilbert’s candidness about heartbreak and building yourself up after that and her amazing descriptions of all the wonderful places she had been really captured me. I wanted that same kind of journey, you know like of self-redemption and guiding yourself to the start of a new part of your life. I am ready for that ... I just can’t so much afford picking up and wandering the world in search of myself... yet!
Anyways, Eat Pray Love really got me thinking about my relationship with myself. And I realized I was just as guilty of treating myself like shit as any crappy person from my past. I just did it with carbs and laziness and binging and just making an epic mess of my life. So, I was done being my own worst enemy. I started the cleanse and I really wanted to join the gym but I didn’t have a dime to do it. That’s when I got some unexpected government money! WOOHOO! So, I joined the gym and I am planning to torture myself there for at least 5 days a week. But at least for two days of that week I get the joy of the pool. I love swimming so much... the weightlessness of it all is such a beautiful freedom.
Then just yesterday I went to the gym and while on the elliptical trainer I was thinking about how much I didn’t want salad again for dinner. When I got home, my amazing future sister-in-law made me a delicious and healthy snack that really was good enough for dinner for me! And it wasn’t salad!
God is looking after me, I am getting sent everything I need and I just have to see that and appreciate that. I have so much support and so much drive this time around; I know it is going to be okay. Everything is gonna be alright...
So maybe my path to self discovery is not as glamorous as Elizabeth Gilbert’s. Maybe mine is not in Italy but on an elliptical trainer. Who knows where my path will lead me? All I know is that I have shooting stars lighting the path I am on now...