The Woman I Keep Chasing

Six years later, and I'm back at 240 pounds.

I know it didn't happen overnight. It happened through heartbreak, comfort, loneliness, and many small choices that felt necessary just to make it through the day.

Now, every day feels harder to return to the habits that once made me feel like myself. Even something as simple as doing my hair can feel like more effort than I have to give.

Lately, I've been feeling lost and not just in my body, but in my identity.

I have this vision of the woman I want to be. She's the kind of person who wakes up early and goes for a run. She cooks healthy meals. She showers, gets dressed, and leaves for work feeling put together. She walks to the grocery store and buys herself fresh flowers just because they make her smile.

They're such ordinary things.

But lately, those ordinary things feel impossibly far away.

I keep asking myself how to get back to that version of me.

What if I was never really her?

What if the woman I keep chasing was only someone I could become for a little while? What if that's why I could never hold onto her?

Maybe this is the real me.

Or maybe I've spent so long surviving that I've forgotten what it feels like to truly live.

I don't have an ending for this. I don't have a lesson or a five-step plan to turn everything around.

I only know that I miss feeling at home in my own life.

And maybe the first step isn't becoming someone else.

Maybe it's figuring out who I am underneath all the weight I've been carrying. Both the kind you can see and the kind you can't.

K.