Hey, y’all! Welcome to Returning to Life my personal fitness/health/maybe sorta lifestyle blog where we discuss the trials and tribulations revolving around coming back after a long break from maintaining your health and fitness. Here, I’ll be sharing my journey as I work to better improve my mental and physical health, and reach my personal goals. I hope you stick around and we can do this crazy thing together!
So, let’s talk “Comebacks.” I’ve been in this fitness game for about 6 years now and, let me tell y’all, I have had a LOT of “Project Comebacks.” (Side note: That term was coined by Sarah of Sarah’s Day on YouTube. If you love your influencers with a positive, hilarious attitude and a transparent “big sis” like vibe, give her a follow.) In my peaks, I was a sub-two-hour half marathoner and CrossFitting 6 days a week. In my valleys, I was mindlessly eating while watching Lauren Lake’s Paternity Court on repeat. This past summer was a major valley. I was living back home in Virginia during a two month delay between our PCS from South Carolina to Washington State, I was waking up at noon, meandering around, snacking on my parents’ ample fridge and pantry, and the most exercise I was getting most days was walking my Pit/Lab mix, Abby, at the local park. I told myself things would be different in Washington as if crossing state lines would suddenly give me the motivation, money, and means to become a Grade A Fitspo Queen. I would finally have my comeback. Because that is totally how it works, right?
Well, for a while, it seemed like it could.
The first month was a strong ascent. I signed up for a half marathon and recommitted to distance running, a sport I had not dedicated myself to in over 3 years. I subscribed to an inexpensive, online lifting program for strength training. I got a job at a collegiate fitness center, giving me free access to new lifting equipment and strength machines. Even my apartment complex had a treadmill. Everything was falling into place. Until it wasn’t.
I wasn’t consistent. I was skipping workouts constantly. My work schedule changed 3 times in 6 weeks, meaning I was forced to move around my ever-growing mid-week runs. My diet, which had started strong, fell into a spiral of denial and late-night Dairy Queen runs. I was still slowly progressing in my physical training. However, my mental health was atrophying fast.
This all came to a head this past week. I was sitting in my car, talking to my mom, while I waited for my training partner to arrive for our 12K race (which was the only run I had done all week). I was complaining to her, for what felt like the 300th day in a row, that I was unhappy with my life. My job is not fulfilling, the Navy is constantly taking my husband from me, and I’m trying to hold the household together with whatever is left of me. I’m pouring from an empty vessel.
“Jess,” you are saying right now, “what does all of this have to do with come backs?”
Let me tell you.
We live in a world where the classic comeback story looks like this: the Prodigal Son falls from Grace. After milling around in his failure and sadness for a while, he comes back to where he fell and proves he’s still got it. Think Tiger Woods. Think Demi Lovato. Think Logan Paul. All these people fell from their pedestals and, after some time, came right back to where they found stardom as if they had never left. But let’s look at the definition of “come back.”
Come back – intransitive verb
to return to life or vitality
Merriam-Webster
Not, “return to a former state of greatness.”
Not, “return to the spotlight.”
Not even, “return to where you once were.”
Turns out, I was thinking of my “come back” all wrong. I thought when I moved here I would come back as the previous version of myself who was crushing fitness goals and meal prepping and was the perfect wife and dog mom and employee and Christian and daughter and friend. I thought I wanted to return to former greatness, to where I once was. In reality, I needed to accept that the Old Jess couldn’t come to the phone right now, but that the new Jess would be with you shortly. That what I wanted was to return to life.
So that’s what I’m going to do. And while I’m not entirely sure what that looks like yet, I am buzzing to find out and get started. For now, you can catch me watching Lauren Lake’s Paternity Court while rolling out from this race. What? We gotta start somewhere!
Catch ya later!
Jess
The Year of the Bear 