Discovering yourself....

With my glorious four day weekend on me, my sister and I decided we would have one of our very rare "girls' days out" today after my morning stint at the gym. I desperately needed some new cheap clothes, and if ANYONE can find good clothes for cheap, it's my sister. She is a veritable gold mine in all those discount stores. Throw in lunch and gossip and some time away from it all and it makes for a good day.

However, in the midst of all this shopping, like many things in my life now, I suddenly had a revelation. I have no idea who the person in the mirror is anymore. I mean, I know who I am. I'm not having an identity crisis. And I'm not nuts (though many would disagree). It's just that, for twenty-odd years, I've looked at that person, and seen the same thing staring back, and now, I don't see that. I've never seen this girl who lives to get up and go to the gym, or who is more concerned with nutritional values than just indulging some whim. I see someone who is more comfortable in workout clothes than in business suits, and willing to pay more for them too. And, for the first time today, I got a glimpse of a girl I might actually think is almost... pretty.

It's a really, really strange feeling.

Clothes shopping as a whole is kind of surreal right now. I pick up clothes in the size I know I'm wearing, and as I'm holding them in the dressing room, that second before I try them on, there's this heart-stopping instant where I think, "It's way too small; it'll never fit."

And then it does. That's a bit of a high. Actually, that's a lot of a high.

I still have a long way to go on my path, and still have lots to learn, and sometimes I think some of the most important things I'm going to learn from all this, are the things I didn't know I needed to be taught.