feel a way you've never felt before.

I don't have much direction when it comes to my personal or professional lives. I've been content mulling around, living day-to-day, not exactly sure where my home is aside from the basic facts that I was born there, lived there once, I'm squatting here for a while, and we're going somewhere in the future.

"I have direction!"
"Yeah... towards the mall.

Gripping, I know.

I'm a 20-something in the midst of what other people would call a crisis, but it doesn't feel that way. My contemporaries are in intermittent states of panic, almost always characterized by random fits that begin with "WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFFFFFE?"

Okay, I'll bite. What am I doing with my life?

I could tell you what I did yesterday, or, I could tell you a story. I'm going to do both.

My life on a Sunday.

I awoke early at the contemptible hour of 12:45pm. It's not humane to subject mere mortals to such torture. [Ha.. ha.. I'm such a comic] Immediately after rising, breakfast was served to me on the finest platter of the Dixie disposable variety. We feasted on burritos made of egg and potato hash smothered in green chile pork of my own making, meanwhile enjoying Game of Thrones. The pattern of eating-and-watching-and-eating-while-sedentary-and-eating-and-watching-some-more continued well past dinner time (pierogies and sliced tomatoes, if you're interested). Like clockwork, we dressed for the gym at ten past nine. The rest goes like this: gym, shower, Breaking Bad, bed. The end.

I ask my suit-wearing bear friend that ALL THE TIME. No, seriously. His name is Sir Bunk and he wears glasses.

Aside from working on Saturday morning, I did nothing with my weekend except for eat, watch Game of Thrones, and think about eating while at the gym. If I made the mistake of sharing this information with my mom, she would yell at me and tell me to pull myself together and come up with more constructive ways to spend my time. It's true, aside from my garden and a paltry résumé speaking for my "career," I have not constructed much out of my life. The highlight of my days is the odd day each month I get to lift weights (and I say "get to" because, if I had it my way, I would lift weights every day). And then after maybe two or three weeks' time, I dance in front of the mirror checking every angle of my back, shoulders, arms, and legs, praying that my efforts have manifested.

I'm building muscle.

Oh Willy, you know me so well.

I don't for one minute believe that I'm special just because I've developed serious definition in my calves, but there's one thing you have to understand about me if we have any chance of being friends: this is new to me. I'm almost 26 years old and the concept/process of losing weight and gaining muscle is entirely, 100%, thoroughly new to my experience on this earth.

I upped my free weight bench press from 30 lbs to 40 lbs last night and today I'm prancing around like I fart rainbows. I'm that fabulous today.

Yes, it's true that I watched at least ten hours of TV last night. It's also true that I went to bed with my hair wet, and I let my alarm snooze 10 minutes longer than I should have, and I came into work six minutes late. And my skirt is crooked and my shirt untucked and my hair's a mess.

But...

As I was doing bicep curls in front of the mirror at the gym last night, for the first time ever I thought to myself, "Huh, those are some nice legs." And I almost cried. Self-acceptance is a beautiful thing.