Anyone else have that one thing happen that is kind of like a kick in the teeth?  It leaves you sucking in air, grasping for a thought to latch onto to keep yourself calm?  With everything that has been going on inside of my body, I have been getting a ton of blood tests.  (side note, anyone else have a huge phobia of needles and getting blood drawn is akin to getting stabbed?)  This morning (12/8/2020) I got the results and I studied them for a while.

                I think the best part about getting blood test results, is that they are essentially in a cryptic code.  I cannot read them for the life of me, and end up having to google what half of the words mean because quite honestly, they look like a made-up language.

                But in googling, reading, and trying to understand, I came up with two conclusions.  Conclusion 1, there is 100% inflammation in my body.  Which honestly truly helps validate the pain I have been feeling even further.

                Conclusion 2, I am at a high risk for a heart attack, or heart disease.  And that is such a hard thing to wrap my head around.  Because basically, if I do not change my habits;  if I do not eat better, start trying to exercise, start trying to be better, I could die.

                It is kind of like a kick in the teeth.  In addition to that, I am trying to navigate my emotions to determine how I really feel about this.  And honestly, I do not know.

                I have struggled with depression for so long, that the thought of dying, of not existing, is kind of like that friend you haven’t seen in a while.  Yeah, maybe you don’t get along as well as you did in the past.  Yeah, maybe it is comforting to see them, but you wouldn’t want any of your new friends to meet them.  But there is a comfort in it, and knowing it is there.  Knowing that, even now, years later, they would still embrace you in a hug so tight you couldn’t help but feel loved.

                Let me be straight.  I have gotten mentally healthy.  Or, I have done my best at getting mentally healthy, and am still on the journey to getting there.  I am enjoying that journey as well.  But it is a hard journey.  It is essentially walking up the the side of a cliff, and hoping the handholds don’t snap off and send you plummeting back down.

                But that comfort from my “old friend” is still there.  And the journey to changing your habits, is just like that journey to getting mentally healthy.  A cliff you have to scale.  And the set backs are never just tiny things, but instead dramatic and large.  And if I don’t change my habits, I already know what is going to happen.

                But what I don’t know, is what will happen if I do change my habits.  Will I be more positive?  Will I be happier when I look in the mirror?  Will the pain miraculously go away? 

                Why do I feel like I am writing the conclusion to an episode of a show in my life, where I can tune in next week to see what happened?