Wow! What a crazy week! I am currently high on life / too hyper from my spartan bars session this evening.

Been trying to write a blog post all week but haven’t been able to due to other things such as… well, life I suppose! But now Im here so I am doing it, and just to give you heads up, it’s long and it’s emotional!

If you follow me on twitter or if you’ve been reading some of the recent posts, you will know that I have been pretty down and sad lately. Actually, it got so bad that I just randomly started crying big baby wolf tears in the middle of Liverpool Street Station 9am on Wednesday morning. Let me just put it this way – the suits were not impressed.

But me being sad this week is not the ‘point’ of the post tonight. I had a very interesting (read: very heated and loud) discussion last weekend about why I am so open about myself on this blog, and when I tweet.

Some people might think it’s because I want attention, confirmation, praise and so on. Well let me tell it to you fair and square – it’s not about that at all.

You can be the nicest person in the world to me, if I think you are full of shit or just saying nice things to me to be nice, I will not give a shit. In fact, you will probably annoy me more than you will cheer me up.

Trust me when I say – it is HARD to be so open about how I feel, about how I think, about all the bullshit I am going through, mentally and physically and everything in between.

I mean, imagine being at your most vulnerable state and then just expressing that in a place where the whole world can read it and comment. It’s fucking scary!

But I do it because I don’t want people like you, who are reading these words and this blog, to ever be scared or ashamed of telling people how you feel, what you are thinking, what you are going through and so on, no matter how cringing or stupid it might seem.

And that is why I do it. That is why I share the most vulnerable things about myself, good and bad.

You see, I have felt so bad, for so many years. And Im not saying that for sympathy, it’s just the truth. I might seem like I have all the confidence in the world, and when it comes to my personality, I probably do. But when it comes to my intellect and my appearance – I have zero confidence.

Ask my mum.

When I moved to London in 2005 I lived in university halls, my mum came here with me during my first 5 days so she could carry some of my stuff in her luggage and she stayed with me in my tiny room.

During one of the nights she was here, they were arranging some kind of party for all us freshers living at halls and we were meant to meet up in the lobby so a big coach could take us to the venue where the party was going to be held.

I got ready and headed to the lobby not knowing a single soul. After standing around there for about 15 minutes I ran back to my room where my mum was, with a big chunk of tears in my throat. My mum asked me what was up, and I, half crying, told her that I didnt want to go because nobody would want to be friends with me because I was too fat and ugly.

…

Ok now go back and read that again.

This is a young woman, who has had the courage to move to a completely different country, let alone big metropolitan city, ON HER OWN, who is about to start university, studying her dream subject, in her dream city, telling her mother she doesnt want to go to some party because she is scared nobody will want to be her friend because she is too fat and too ugly.

Now take that feeling and multiply it by a million.

Did you know that there was a period in my life where I didnt go out? As in, I didnt go to the pub or to a restaurant, for like a month or so, because I thought I was so ugly and fat that people would just stare at me.

It sounds so fucking stupid and insane typing it out, but its true.

I was just so fucking ashamed of what I looked like that I didnt want to go out. I just wanted to hide from the world.

And there are so many other instances, so many other stories that I could share with you about how it is just feeling so fucking bad, and so shit about everything, that you literally wished you didn’t exist in the end.

But I wont now. Not this time, because that is not the aim of this post.

The aim of this post is to try to explain two things:

One: it is ok to feel all those shitty things as long as you actually express them and share them with at least one person. I mean, I don’t want you to feel that way, but I do want you to know that it is not weird and that you should not feel ashamed about feeling the way you do. Talk about it instead because whether you believe me or not, it will help and it will make you feel better!

Two: I am not some nutter obsessed about running & what time I will complete Berlin in & so on. I know a lot of people have been giving me advice, and telling me off, and a bucket load of other stuff. And TRUST ME – I appreciate it all so much! Even if it sometimes makes me want to scream of frustration (sorry but its true…) I do appreciate it so much.

Never in my life did I ever imagine that something like running would give me a community, a family, that is so loving and encouraging and amazing as the people I have met through Run Dem Crew and Team Bangs.

However, this is the deal… and if you know me you know this, and if you don’t, get to know:

I have had a stomach illness/problem for as long as I can remember. And that has included being in constant pain for the greater part of almost 10 years of my life. I am also pretty confident in the fact that it was a major contribution to why I felt so incredibly bad, not just about myself, but in general too.

Now up until January 2012, I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined that I would LIKE, let alone enjoy, and god forbid, LOVE, running, because I honestly did hate it for most part of my life.

But not being able to do it for 2-3 weeks now properly has made me realise why I love it so much, why I miss it, and why I feel so goddamn sad not being able to do it.

It got rid of all the pain in my tummy and replaced it with confidence.

It sounds like bullshit – I know. But ask anybody who has known me for a longer period of time:

I have never EVER done skin tight (like lycra) in my life,  only really baggy clothes that was hiding my figure. So to not only wear skin tight clothes, but to do so in public, and feeling good about it, and not being in constant pain, well, it was just too good to be true.

So just to be clear, the Berlin Half,  not the journey, not the getting fit part, not the looking good part, but just the actual event represented that for me – as in:

The Berlin Half Marathon to me is about feeling good about myself and the way I look and the way I feel, in a public space, for 13.1 miles, where I can just go HERE I AM AND I AM FUCKING AWESOME! YES! EVERY LITTLE BIT OF ME IS AMAZING AND IF YOU DON’T AGREE YOU ARE MISSING OUT! I AM FIT AND I AM SMART AND I COULD RUN CIRCLES AROUND YOU BECAUSE I FEEL NO PAIN – I JUST FEEL FREE.

And after searching long and hard this week, after crying my eyes out in a public space, after hiding under my duvet not being able to face work and uni and the rest of the world, I can honestly say that I am scared of not being able to do that.

I just want to be able to hold my head up high and feel like I am worth something, anything, without the pain, without the anxiety, without wanting to hide from the world.

Running gave me that and now it’s temporarily gone.

And it feels like shit.

But I am determined to go through with this! And its hard. I am crying just writing about all this because its so fucking hard. And I feel pathetic and stupid for saying it but you need to know because, we are kind of doing this together even if I don’t know you!

I don’t know how, but I will get through this, and I will rock Berlin, and come summer, you will catch me in the sunshine, running to this tune feeling like A DON! (seriously, this is my spring-summer time jam, I will never get tired of this song, especially Left Eyes part, it made me cry on Thursday’s run because it’s just… me.)

Tagged: on Saturday, February 25, 2012 · 5 Comments »