Yes, that’s right, the badass bitch is back.

Monday and Tuesday nights saw me bringing back the habits I’ve spent almost a year cultivating. On Monday I went to the grocery store (erm… three grocery stores) to get unprocessed food and ingredients for some of my favorite meals. I had forgotten how much I love grocery shopping and how good it is to have real food in my house. Incidentally, all I wanted to eat for dinner that night as a result was the lovely Brussels sprouts and uncured turkey bacon I had just purchased from Trader Joes.

Delicious.

On Tuesday night I decided that I had eaten enough on both Monday and Tuesday that I could justify letting myself run again. While I’m trying to take it slowly to get back into the swing of things, I also wanted to push myself. Twice in the prior few days I had to cut runs short to 20 minutes (with 5 minutes for warm-up and 5 minutes for cool down) because my body just couldn’t handle how much I was pushing it. This time I did 30 minutes (with 5 minutes for warm-up and 5 minutes for cool down).

While that’s still five minutes short of my usual workout, I felt so accomplished because I did the time I set out to do. I knew that I was not trying for the full time and gave myself grace to be okay with that. I just wanted to finish. It felt glorious.

It felt especially glorious because I almost stopped part of the way through. I got a cramp, had a moment, wondered if I was pushing too hard again, but looked over to my right and saw one of the inspirational signs that 24 Hour Fitness has on the wall. It said “Change Your Life.”

I couldn’t help but think of all that I’ve been processing lately and what I talked about in my post yesterday.

Change doesn’t happen by continuing to do the same things and progress doesn’t occur without effort and, yes, pain.

I breathed through the cramp and did my last five minutes, smiling like a fool through the cool down. Having finally earned my favorite post workout song again, I did my best not to dance on my way back to the locker room while blasting Feel Good Inc on my IPod.

While those motivational signs usually annoy me to no end, I suppose they really do have a purpose. I hope that the powers that be at 24 Hour Fitness feel good and smug reading this (because they do, of course, read my blog!) seeing as I’ve scoffed at a few of those signs several times before.

Long story short (as if that ship hasn’t sailed long ago…), it feels really good to feel like myself again. Getting past the week in the hospital and death of my grandmother was one thing, but I have to confess that it was deeper than that. I’ve felt off center for a long time. Actually, I’ve felt off center since October 1.

Whether that ought to be attributed to the incident in the car or meeting The Boy, I’m not sure, but I wasn’t quite equipped to handle any of it yet. I’ve been fumbling along since then. Now that I’ve untangled the emotional web and actually been honest with myself, I know that I can handle it all.

So I’m back; back to taking care of myself, back to acting like myself, and back to working toward a better life for myself. Coming out the other side of all of it, though, I feel like an adult for the first time in my life.