Daily Ramble for 29/01/2014... The Pool, New Job, Brittany, Mental, Emotional and Physical Health... in Life as I know it...

Last night when I got home from the vegan/detoxing/cleansing presentation, the friend I went with, Brittany, sent me a text saying how much better I looked compared to the last time we saw one another, which was about a week and a half, maybe 2 weeks ago. I asked her in which way I was looking better and whether I was looking particularly miserable when she last saw me. I often get told that I look miserable, angry and grumpy, but that's just my face. When I wear my glasses for some reason I look a lot kinder. Who knows why. She said that I had more of a sparkle in my eyes and that I looked more "alive", which I guess is true. It's been 3 weeks since the break-up and I'm feeling pretty damn good to be honest. When I saw her last, I was having a bit more of a rough time. I think I have finally reached the acceptance stage of grief, which happened super quickly, but I attribute it in large to all the life changes I have made and the excitement around my new job starting soon.

Today I did something very rare, even though it is something that I love doing. I had a swim in the pool. This might not seem as such a big deal to other people, but my horrible self-image and complete lack of self-esteem as well as years and years of body issues have made it an incredibly difficult and anxiety provoking experience for me to take off my top. There was about a 3 - 4 month period in my life where I was comfortable doing so, and that was during my extreme bodybuilding days when I was all jacked and ripped up. When my life revolved around exercising and eating. Right now, I don't look like that. No matter how many people tell me that I am attractive or very good looking, I do not believe it and continue to see an image that I despise in the mirror. This is an enormous contributing factor to all my anxiety issues and something that I have never been able to sort out.

I have a traditional Afrikaans "Boer" (or farmer) body. I am naturally big and muscular, my legs are usually bigger than some people's waists, I am quite tall and I am just "big". Unfortunately, this doesn't fit in with the current "hipster" look and all the skinny jeans and shorts. I have a terrible time finding jeans or shorts that fit me. What fits my waist, doesn't fit my legs and what fits my legs, doesn't fit my waist and now with the whole skinny jean fad that has been going on the past few years, it is so difficult to find stuff that I can comfortable wear. The same goes for t-shirts, The stuff that fit my shoulders and arms hang down all the way below my ass and the stuff that's a bit shorter makes me look like I come from the Jersey Shore.

Anyway, seeing all these hipsters and lanky and lean guys wearing all the stuff that's "in" really affects my self-esteem in a negative way. I just can't wear that stuff. That's what girls like, that's what everybody is wearing and I stick out like a sore thumb, but back to the swimming. I live in a complex where there are 3 different houses and we all share the pool. I had just finished doing my DDP Yoga session and I was soaked in sweat. I usually just take a cold shower, but I exercised a bit later today in the afternoon and it was quite hot. I've always had overactive sweat glands. Back in my bodybuilding days it would look as if I had a shower while I was training. So I stood around for about 15 minutes, checking if the gardener wasn't around and that there weren't any neighbours outside, dashed to the pool and got in as quickly as I could. It felt amazing, I love being in the water. I saw this as a big step for me today and I was even able to congratulate myself, which is an even bigger step.

I feel like I should be updating my portfolio and my recipes file for when I meet with the owners so we can plan out the menu a bit more, but to be honest I just want to chill out right now. I've been doing quite a bit of testing and messing around in the kitchen and have come up with some good stuff that the owners loved so I'm happy with that. They seem to be very impressed with me and happy that they hired me. It feels so much different that my previous position as the Junior Pastry Chef at a 5 star Boutique hotel that was owned by "Mr PK" who owned tons of other restaurants in very high income areas. He didn't know who I was up until I was there for 6 months already. One of the first things the owners said to me a few weeks ago, was "Welcome to the team" and "We're glad to have you as the new member in out team", which was really nice to hear and I already feel that I am respected and appreciated more than I was.

I'd like to have a serious day of testing and updating my portfolio and recipes tomorrow, I just have to motivate myself. The biggest obstacle isn't spending time in the kitchen, I've always loved that. No, the biggest obstacle is going to the shops to get everything I need. This requires me to interact with a large amount of people and be in the presence of all the people, which makes me anxious just thinking about it. Sigh, I wonder if this anxiety will ever go away. It has lessened, I'm sure of that, but I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be. I'm hoping that my new job will eradicate some of the anxiety. Sometimes I wish I could just stay in the countryside, far away from anybody, with my dogs, but that would be very impractical.

I think that will be it for today's rambling, unless something serious happens, which I doubt.

Thank you for reading, have a wonderful day. AD