Weak ankles

It's an odd topic for a blog post, I know. It's not all it seems though, I promise!

Let's take it back to roughly 4 years ago, the nearly 6 year long relationship I had been in had just come to an end and while we remained friends, it still was a difficult transition. Now, let's got even further back...to the years between 2000 and 2010. I had never had self esteem issues, I didn't care back then if you liked me or thought I was pretty or smart or funny, blah blah blah. None of this phased me. I had (er...well...HAVE) amazing friends who I had great times with, I had boyfriends when I wanted boyfriends, really I had no complaints. I was never an angsty teenage, never fought with my mom, none of that and my friends were all the same, this was just normal to us. Cue the fall of 2003, I met this awesome dude, and we fell in love and it was, you know, what love just is when you're in your early 20s and have never really been in love before and you're just figuring life out. There's bills to pay and you're trying to maintain your friendships whilst also trying to maintain a relationship with your partner and their friends. This relationship went on well for many years. Of course we argued but we loved each other, and what couple never argues, right? We went thorough a ton together, some great things and some not so great things but we made each other stronger and the things we dealt with made us stronger and then somewhere along the way, resentment kicked in and anger and underneath all of those things there was still this crazy ridiculous love that was trying to shine through...but it just wasn't enough. So after the breakup and through the floundering to try and figure out how to become just friends, I became this very weak and emotional (ew) person. Everything bothered me and those self esteem issues I never had before suddenly became an issue for me. I was too fat. Too gross. Not pretty enough. You know what I mean...

I made myself sick over it. I lost a ton of weight, which was good and bad (bad because of how I lost it but good because I managed to maintain it afterward the healthy way) I was sleeping more that I ever had...and then this strange thing happened. Shoes that I had no trouble walking in previously were now troublesome and flimsy and wobbly. I couldn't walk without feeling like my footing was off. I've never been a big wearer of heels, I generally prefer wedges or flats but even those I found were troubling me, I twisted my ankle a ton, I stumbled, I fell a couple of times, it was terrible, my ankles were just flimsy little bits of jello barely holding me up.

Needless to say, I stopped wearing a whole lot of shoes I absolutely loved because of this.

Fast forward to 08/16/2015, yeah...yesterday...seriously. It hit me as I was lying in bed staring into my closet the reason for this weak ankle business. And here it is:

I started letting other people tell me what I was worth, I stopped standing up for myself, I was weak and submissive where before I had been so much my own person and nothing had ever shaken that. Why it took me as long as it did to put two and two together, I'll never know...i suppose after a while I just stopped thinking about it and accepted it.

Don't get me wrong, I learned quite a number of valuable lessons along the way, this journey wasn't for nothing.

But let me tell you, I still have the majority of those wonderful pairs of shoes I stopped wearing all those years ago...and I think it's time they come out to play.

Has anyone else ever had this kind of reaction to something? Or maybe had your emotions thrown so out of wack you didn't feel like the same person anymore?

Xoxo

-j