I’m working on myself, mentally, physically, personally.

A large part of this is just hard work and it sucks. I’m doubting myself in ways I never have before.

However, I will come through all of this self-reflection a better person. Or if not better, the person I should be.”

I mean this. Physically I am working on eating better, working out again (yes, even from a chair, I used to exercise a lot,) and losing weight. My eventual goal there is weight loss surgery to get to a smaller plus size. When I tried this a few years ago I was not ready mentally to move forward with the surgery.

I feel like I am finally there. My eating has been good, I’ve been exercising, taking my medications, etc. Even as mentally I was falling apart, physically I have been trying.

Over the weekend, as I was in Ohio with my nerd family, I ate and drank with abandon, but I’m back on track now. Tracking, eating in my calorie counts and moving back toward my goals. I’m down about 45 pounds since the start of this journey. I have several pairs of pants that have already been moved to the nope pile.

Mainly because they fall down when I’m moving. I use crutches when I’m walking, I can not hold up my pants and walk.

Mentally, well, it has been a hard year. We lost my father-in-law in April to lung cancer, even prior to his death I was heading down a bad spiral.

I have suffered from depression my entire adult life. There are times when it goes into remission and I get on with life. Other times I depend on medication. The last time medication passed my lips for it was a couple years ago.

While I know it is there if I need it, medication destroys my ability to write.

That’s a problem as that is half of what I do for a living.

I have been doing all sorts of mental exercises, physical exercises, writing exercises to work on myself.

Recently, I was on a precipice of bad. My emotions were all over the place, the blackness was taking back over, it was not good.

Today, I am better. Today, I am good.

Last weekend helped. I got to spend a weekend away from my stressors, my job, my family, his family, just life here. I got to forget a lot and drink and hang out and just be my nerdy weird self.

All of this in an environment where I am accepted for who I am, enfolded in nerdy love, and just happy.

(This is all thanks to a dear friend of mine, R, who gave me the money to go to Ohio. We had canceled our plans, he saw I was drowning, he came to the rescue. Thank you, my dear sweet friend.)

Multiple days of just being Suzy. Not reporter, not Mrs. Smith, not Ruthi’s daughter, or Jean’s daughter-in-law, not his one’s aunt, or that ones, aunt.

I was just myself.

It was glorious.

I came back and I’ve been working harder on myself, mentally. Working the steps of getting my emotions and mind back to where I want them to be.

There is no getting around doing this, there is no way to do this halfway.

It sucks. It is hard. It has made me cry, but it will bring me out the other side the person I want to be. Or more accurately, the person I am, that I do not allow let myself be.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride. You might want to put your table up and buckle your seatbelts.