Finding Myself

It has been quite a while since I wrote anything. Quite a while since I felt good about myself. Life really took me on quite the downward ride following COVID lockdowns. I remember leaving work the day before we shut down, feeling nervous but like I was just going to have a long week off. Never did I imagine that three years later we’d still be dealing with the aftermath of all that transpired.

Within two weeks of the shut down, I began to realize the seriousness of this life event. My mother was trapped in a care center and the news coming out was terrible. She began to run a fever and there was nothing we could do to help her. She was in Queens, the epicenter of this pandemic and passed away within a week. My school was shuttered and I was working 24/7 trying to hold it up with no direction other than being told, we are flying the plane while building it.

Mom passed away, alone. Typing that still makes me angry and sad. We had no real funeral or gathering to celebrate her life. I never had the opportunity to say goodbye, or grieve as work just continued to evolve and the need for my presence was intense. People who worked for me were getting sick, losing husbands and parents. Families were losing parents and sadly one lost their child. The emotional toll of all this was truly indescribable.

Days, weeks, months passed, but the stress levels never really diminished. My colleagues and I were trying to support each other, but in all honesty, the asks were unrealistic and perhaps inhumane.

This September 2022, I returned to work hopeful that we were finally ready for recovery. I hired a new Assistant Principal and was very excited for the work ahead. Unfortunately, life had other plans for me. In November, my husband was told he needed heart surgery, a difficult pill for a healthy man to accept. By the end of November, I knew it was time for me to retire and for us to move to our newly purchased home in Sussex County, Delaware. My husband had been in and out of hospitals for all of November and December. He was not doing well at all and the stress of that, coupled with work, left me realizing I needed to step down. It was the hardest decision I have had to make, but I knew it was right for my family and for my school.

When I retired, I was stressed to my limits, grossly overweight and at my unhealthiest. Unchecked stress, complete lack of exercise and horrible eating habits had pushed me to the brink. I was the unhealthiest I had every been in my life and felt there was no way back. Honestly, where would I even start?

I drove away from my life in New York City on January 27, 2023, with my 91 year old father in tow. I arrived in Sussex County, Delaware hopeful that I made the right decision and determined to start again, to reclaim my health.

I am so fortunate to live in a community that offers a health club and active lifestyle. No, it is not a 55 and over community, but the amenitities offered here helped motivate me to get started. I am writing this post 8 months into my retirement. I am 33 pounds lighter, 30 points lower on my LDL cholesterol levels and emotionally healing. I have worked with a nutritionist and personal trainer to unpack where I was and what I needed to do. I have pushed through days where I didn’t want to get out of bed. I wish I could say it has been easy, but it hasn’t. The scale moves every so slightly each week, but I celebrate each ounce as a victory. I have not taken any drugs as part of my weight loss journey. I have done the hard work of healing internally and externally and it has begun to pay off.

If I had to sum up my experience, I’d say moving away from the stress of my life and job was a huge help. The distance has helped me start over completely. My personal trainer has helped me plan and understand that most of my issues I saw as obstacles were internal, not external. I had a terrible mindset about myself and needed to reevaluate who I was and who I believed I deserved to be. Reconnecting to yoga was a huge emotional and physical healer for me, as I had been completely unable to practice following COVID. My mind would just not cooperate. My New York trainer, Larissa Schiano, tried hard to help me so many times, but I just couldn’t find that spark. I appreciate that she never gave up! Finally, finding a new sport, pickleball, to play and compete in brought me so much joy that I’d been missing since giving up running.

I am eating healthy, walking and working out daily and just honestly feeling so grateful to be healthy again. I am far from done with this journey, but am on solid ground for the first time in a long time. My message in all this for you is don’t ever give up. I gave up and resigned myself that I would be heavy and unhealthy for the rest of my life. I thought I was too far gone and couldn’t recover. But, it is absolutely never too late. Find your spark and let it guide you one day at a time.

September 2022 August 2023