...in the joyful mess.

'

There are photos that are anything but flattering, but yet, they're the ones that bring a smile to my face without fail. They were taken in moments where laughter mattered more than appearance & my ego slipped away into a corner and stayed there for a while. It's in the mess that I find the most joy. 

I'd always feared exercise because I had this fear of looking silly. I didn't like the thought of puffing and panting by the side of the road during a run, and the mere idea of being in a gym was scary - people much fitter than I would be there and I was sure they would silently be mocking me. Weights were a whole other story. I imagined dropping dumbbells on my feet and tripping over them - landing face first at some muscular guys feet. He'd step over me awkwardly and walk away. 

Yes, I have a very active imagination. 

But these last two years I've spent time in the gym, and running beside the road. I've even conquered my fear of weights rooms. I've been covered in slime twice - once at a kids camp, where a child won the right to tip a bucket of slime and BBQ sauce on my year, and another time at church, when as a fundraiser people voted with cash to decide which youth leader got slimed - I won by $300. 

So loved, right?! 

I've stumbled my way through mud, crawled through mud, tripped into mud, and probably eaten some mud too. 

In these messy moments, I've learnt a lot. But there's one thing that I've learnt above all, and I think you need to hear it just as much as you need to hear how to lose weight: Life is not about being the right number, it's about living. 

Do something that scares you. 

Get covered in slime, and laugh about it. 

Slip and slide in mud and don't worry about looking like a fool. 

Lose weight, yes.

But, more than anything, we need to live. 

For me, life is best lived in this crazy joyful mess.