An inauthentic life

Preambles:
I was 19 and driving with my Mother down the winding highway from Lake Arrowhead to Los Angeles when I saw the thick dark expanse of smog that lay between us, here in the clear mountain air, and our destination, the city.  And the gut feeling that this was wrong struck a chord in me that presaged a crossroads in my life that would change everything. Later that Summer I hitched a ride to Northern California with a ... well, a friend with benefits. (It was the 70's, what can I say.) Working in San Francisco I met someone who took me in a totally new and different direction than I would ever have imagined.

I was almost 21 when I looked around and thought, what the fuck am I doing here? I was living at a Ranch with a man eleven years my senior, and while there is a whole other story here to be told, the bottom line was that I had reached a place in my life that felt inauthentic and I wanted out. I packed up and moved in with friends who in turn introduced me to the man I would eventually marry and have children with.

At 24 this same man and I were messing about with drugs, and one day I saw a picture of us and again the thought came, what the fuck am I doing? This is Not me. I am a strong, healthy, athletic, wholesome creature - how on earth did I get here? I knew that once again I had wandered into another place that felt inauthentic; I had no business wreaking havoc on my mind and body this way. This time I didn't pack up and leave because there was Love involved, but I did change my behavior and got clean. Soon after I was busy raising children and that was wonderful. Those were in fact about the happiest years of my life. But they were also some of the hardest because I was watching my husband slowly kill himself with drugs, and eventually I once again looked around and thought, this isn't where I'm suppose to be, this isn't what I want, this isn't me; this time he was the one to pack up and leave.

Which finally brings me to the thought I had last night. Once again I am at a place in my life where I am thinking this isn't me.  It's actually something I said out loud to my current partner years ago when my weight had finally topped two hundred pounds. This isn't me, I don't know whose body this is, but it isn't mine. Mine is strong and athletic and healthy. Basically we were having an argument about me not being able to love myself as I was; he loved my curves, what on earth was wrong with me.  So here it is years after that discussion and finally the clouds have lifted and I find myself in the middle of an "Aha" moment; looking back at my life and the times I have changed it because it felt inauthentic to who I was. How is this - being overweight- any different than those times? I can still feel at my core that same strong, healthy, athletic girl who prompted me to make changes in my life when it felt wrong. And boy does this feel wrong.

As I look back over the past 5 years I know that I have been changing in slow increments; learning about nutrition, trying to learn about how my brain works, and figuring out how my heart fits into the whole equation of spirituality and how important it is to quiet the mind and open the heart. In a way I have been packing and unpacking like crazy trying to make things better.

So this morning at fifty six I look at my body and say, this isn't me, this doesn't feel right, I can't do this anymore. Once again it is time to change an inauthentic life.