it's kind of like Christmas morning.

in 6 days, I'll participate in an unsanctioned meet at Asheville Strength. 14 days from then I will compete in a sanctioned meet at ETSU. I'm not sure what got in to me to think that this would be a bangin idea.

I'm Nessie, I'm shy, I have social anxiety, I get scared easily, I'm not as strong as everyone else, I'm uncoordinated...I could go on.

All of those things though, can be changed. The reason I called this blog a chance to start over was because I thought that weight loss would be my chance to start over. While that's true, right now my starting over is stepping outside of this huge bubble of comfort I've made for myself. There's not a ton of magic in a comfort zone, but right outside of it is where the wild things are, where the magic happens. I'm starting my own homelessness project, I'm finding a job that's going to make me like going to work again, I'm going to follow through and compete in these meets.

I love olympic lifting for one reason, and that is it's fun. Not because it's something that will help me lose weight (having my jaws wired shut would help a lot) or something that I do out of duty because I want to be "healthy"... I love snatches (twss) and jerks...cleans not so much but that's neither here nor there. Tamara keeps telling me the weights I'm missing at aren't heavy for me, and I want to believe she's right. I just can't get my mind to shut up and let my muscles do the talking. It's like I get halfway up in a snatch and think "this is so heavy" and that's it. It turns in to pretty shitty front raise. Last week, Tamara had me doing snatch triples, I got up to 30 kilos and told her it was iffy at best, because most of the time I couldn't get 30 kilos up. I did one, she had me walk off the platform and come back and try again. I got two. Then I walked off the platform, came back and did a third. They probably weren't the prettiest snatches, but I got 30 kilos up 3 times in a row which I'd never done before. I also got 32 which was a match for my current PR and got 34 up and promptly lost it.

I've been writing down weekly goals, and you know what my goal for next Saturday is? to spend more time enjoying myself and the people around me than worrying about how fat I must look and how light my weights are compared to everyone else. Same goes for the sanctioned meet. I've thought 100 times about waiting until next year for a sanctioned meet. I go back and forth in my head about it at least 2 times a day. But you know what? 2 years ago I wouldn't have thought about participating in a weight lifting meet and here I am 6 days away. Its an experience I'm looking forward to in a Christmas morning kind of way. A little worried about the preparation, but excited to see how it all comes together if that makes sense.

Next time I blog, friends, I'll have a new title. Nessie, competitive weightlifter extraordinaire.