What the hell?

Have you ever got up in the morning, looked in the mirror and thought to yourself, “what the hell happened to my life?”

I recently had such a come-to-Jesus moment.

It took place on a Wednesday evening, in the dressing room of a department store – the scene of crime for many nervous breakdowns nationwide – the night before a rather large and important event that warranted something stellar. I had seen a rather cute dress on the store’s Web site, and insisted on adding it to my collection. So I found it on the rack, and grabbed a few sizes, including one that looked like a burlap tent, and headed into the dressing room confident that one of them would work – or, if it came down to it, the damn tent.

After trying all of them, I finally arrived at the “tent,” and couldn’t zip it up.

I consider it a blessing that my patient husband – waiting outside the dressing room – had driven that night and was the one with the keys. At that moment, I can honestly say that had a sharp object been in reach, I probably would have sawed it into my wrists and bled to death right there inside Dillard’s.

A few short years ago, I was a size 2 at Cache (which, by all other standards, is itty-bitty) and a Miss Teen state titleholder for a rather large pageant system. So how did I go from representing my state in a national pageant to a suicidal moment in a dressing room?

Like so many other people, I got married, graduated college where I walked 4 miles a day around campus, and started a career where I sit at a desk for hours and hours a day only to go home exhausted and burnt out. Said burnout, along with some domestic skills in desperate need of sharpening, is usually the reason for take-out every night. Over the past 3 years this series of unhealthy habits has led to a ridiculous lifestyle. So not only am I not insanely hot any more, I’m not in shape, fit or remotely healthy either. And it’s depressing when you think about who you were and the person you want to be. It seems so overwhelming and out of reach.

So I have decided that I am going to transform myself back into a beauty queen over the coming months, and I am going to chronicle this transformation here. Whether I ever compete in a pageant again remains to be seen, but I do know that I will personally benefit from a healthier lifestyle and condition.

While I don’t intend to be too specific about my weight in terms of pounds at this stage, you are probably wondering what size the “tent” was. Since sizes are pretty arbitrary from designer to designer, I will share that the dress that caused the meltdown was a size 14. I realize to a lot of people out there, that may be laughable, but I think that every woman, regardless of size, struggles with her appearance, and whether you have 5 pounds to lose or 100, each step is a challenge.

To be clear, I really don’t have a desire to be a size 2 again. But I do want to be healthy and feel good about myself. So I hope you follow me on this journey. I hope you can inspire me and I can inspire you as I find a way to once again “be the crown.”




P.S. I really do want world peace.