birthday.

today is my birthday. i am 24 years old. it doesn't feel strange to say that, because i've been telling the people i worked with all summer that i was already 24. you know, so they would take me seriously. or something.

birthdays at my house growing up were a huge deal. it was completely your day. you were exempt from chores. mom would get this nostalgic look in her eyes and retell you your birth story. how long she was in labor, how excited she was to meet you. your favorite dinner was served to you on the special red birthday plate. you felt like the world wouldn't be the same if you hadn't been born into it. for one day, you were allowed to let it be all about you.

being a grown up changes birthdays a little bit. we start to dread the numbers getting closer to 30. we have to do chores like take out the trash and clean up the dishes, because mom isn't around to do it for you. luckily, travis knows how important birthdays are to me and he pretty much does whatever i want done on my day. like eat my favorite and his not favorite thai food for dinner. and go camera lens shopping all afternoon. and read my new book about polygamy. and scratch my back for me all night. love him.

so because it's my day and i'm allowed to make it all about me, i'm going to write 24 things that have happened in my life or are part of who i am.

1. i'm a picky eater and have been since i was born. i was allergic to breast milk. now, i'm picky about things like salad, condiments, and sandwiches. i'd rather eat curry than a hamburger every time.

2. i have three younger brothers who i love and worry about and fuss over. we get along more like friends than siblings most of the time.

3. i'm very idealistic, which leads me to being disappointed a lot, and then mad at myself for expecting everything to be so ideal all the time.

4. seven different guys told me, in all seriousness, that they wanted to marry me.

5. i had an imaginary friend, named jimmy, who was/is an elf, until i was in 8th grade.

6. once, i sang on an album with a heavy metal band.

7. it's not an average day unless i've had an awkward encounter with someone. like when travis and i went for a couples massage on our anniversary, the woman who was about to massage me asked, "hey, we have been having some issues with this, so i need to know, do you have any diseases or-" and i interrupted with, "no, um no i don't have anything. nope. oh but i am allergic to penicillin. so yeah." to which she replied, "um, we don't really have that here." ... wth?

8. i have fallen in love more than five times. falling out of love is the hard part for me.

9. cooking. love the part where you add things together and season them. hate making a menu and going to the grocery store. i will eat quesadillas for three days before breaking down and going to the store. 

10. one of my all time favorite memories is of winning the "turkey trot" race in 6th grade. i hadn't planned on running the race, because i am so competitive i hardly ever compete unless i know i'll win, but i ended up doing it and beating several girls who bullied me all through grade school. one of the only times i felt proud to me myself as a young kid.

11. i have OCD. sometimes i have to say a certain word or i can't think about anything else. the shower has to be squeegeed the right way with straight lines or i have to start over. if i use the oven, i have to check it three times before going to bed. i have to pee three times before going to bed or else i just lay there thinking about how i have to pee, even when i don't.

12. music is such an integral part of my life i don't even know how to explain it.

13. i started my first official job when i was 16, working at a bakery. i have worked as a makeup artist, telemarketer, english tutor, piano teacher, among others. the most embarrassing however, was when i sold knives. door to door, yo!

14. i have two black chest hairs that i pluck. travis does not know this.

15.  i have only missed one night of washing my face since i was 13. there's that OCD again.

16. magic the gathering.

17. as i kid, my imagination entertained me at all times. one of my favorite games to play was with dandelions. i would be their midwife and their babies were the white fluffy "seeds."

18. the first time i went to the gynecologist's office, i passed out and fell off of the table.

19. i am a survivor of sexual assault and suicide attempts.

20. i read 2-3 books a week, in an average week.

21. i have extremely thin skin, something that doesn't work well with being a photographer.

22. that dream life, the one we secretly wish to have? i wish i could make it big in the music industry as a singer.

23. one thing that i am judge-y about and can't handle is cigarette smoking. i always ask smokers to put out their cigarettes or to smoke downwind from me. sometimes they swear at me, but sometimes they are polite about it. seriously, i don't want to smoke, so take your second hand smoke out of my face please. i'm actually getting upset thinking about it.

24. sometimes when i'm at my kickboxing class, i feel strong and i get tears in my eyes because of how amazing it feels to feel powerful.

wow, it is harder than you would think to write 24 things about yourself.

i'm thankful for my life, my healthy body, loved ones, and my travis. 23 was a rough year, but some good growth came out of it.

here's to celebrating yourself and your life. i'm ready for you, 24.

35 pounds.

today i'm going to share some pictures that i swore i would never show anyone.
a couple years ago, i put on a little weight. and i was extremely sensitive about it. how does one put on thirty pounds in three months, you ask? one moves to hawaii, feels like it's a permanent vacation, has extreme acne breakouts that limit the amount of time one feels comfortable being around others without makeup on, like say, the gym, and one eats copious amounts of food to try to feel better about oneself and to cope with loneliness. binge eating, that was my thing.

like eating one or two bags of raisinettes every single day.
like eating 3-4 pints of ice cream every week.
like eating 7 cupcakes in one afternoon. 
like cooking a bag of spaghetti noodles and eating the entire package in one sitting.
like when your friends invite you to go to a concert and instead, because you're feeling insecure about your skin issues, you decline their invitation, stay home, and microwave flour tortillas with butter and sugar over and over until you're so full you can barely get off the couch.

that person was me.

when i went home for christmas break, none of my size 6,7, or 8 pants fit. i had to go buy new pants in a size 11 and it was pretty depressing.

this is the picture that inspired me to lose weight. 

a dear friend who came to visit. the entire trip, i wondered if he was disgusted by my weight gain. 

you know i still wore my bikini like a champ though. 

as one girl said to me at the beach, "you might not have a bikini body, but at least you have big boobs." 

... some people, right?

(sadly, i did lose almost an entire cup size. if only we could just transfer the belly fat to the boobs, amirite??)

so i moved home and started dating travis, who is extremely active. i felt pretty embarrassed about how out of shape i was, so i started running again. i stopped eating sweets, and started scaling down my enormous portion sizes. travis and i started playing racquetball, going running together, and since he doesn't have a sweet tooth like me, it was easy to say no to desserts. probably the best thing for my weight loss though, was joining a gym. i started going to kickboxing, step, weight lifting, yoga, and pilates classes, attending faithfully 6 days a week. that was two years ago in january. 

overall, i have lost 35 pounds, going from a size 11 to a size 4 and it took about a year. after i lost the weight, people would always ask me how i did it. "diet and exercise." i would respond. "seriously?" they would ask in disbelief.

it's funny because the gym is such a huge part of my life and i realized i hardly ever blog about it. those kickboxing classes gave me my self esteem back. working out is such an adrenaline rush, and getting to know the women in those classes and the teachers opens a whole new social scene. if you are trying to lose weight and it's taking forever, and you feel like you're never going to get there, i promise that if you stick with it, you'll be so happy and proud of yourself. we have these amazing bodies. are we treating them with respect and love? 

so why am i choosing to write about this, now that it's been a few years? the past few months, i have been slipping back into bad habits. eating late at night, eating sugar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and using food to feel comforted. there are a few foods that are "trigger" foods for me, like chex mix, cereal, and baked goods. it's like i eat these and the floodgates open. i do not want to go back to that person who blew off her friends to stay home and eat, so i am going off sugar, hopefully for a whole month. today is the second day, and it's killing me! but it will be worth it. to keep myself accountable, i'm going to write about it here. 

no sugar, day 2: 117 pounds.
(don't mind the instagram photo)

and no, i'm not really looking to lose any more weight. just curious to see if going off sugar amounts to any changes in my bod.

if you ever need encouragement or a referral to a great gym, trainer, or classes, email me: collette.charles7@gmail.com

the luckiest

last night i heard a song i hadn't heard in years. and it just hit me so hard. you know when you hear a song you haven't heard in a long time and it makes you remember the last time you heard it?
the last time i heard that song, i was in a sad place. i just knew i would always be alone, that i would never find someone who would make me understand this song from a lover's point of view. i wanted to be the luckiest and feared i never would. i can remembering listening to this song on repeat late at night, over and over and over, and sobbing. i was missing alex, who was on his mission, and feeling convinced that i would never find real love.

i heard it last night in travis's sister's car. travis and i were sitting in the backseat together. it was dark, and the music was loud. all those emotions i felt the last time i heard it came flooding back, but they were accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of safety, gratitude, and love for travis. for such a long time i was convinced i would always be alone and never find someone who can handle my crazy, my stubbornness, my flaws, fears, self criticizing doubts, just everything. sometimes it hits me and almost literally takes my breath away, he loves me. 

then the song came to the last verse, about the old man who dies and then the wife goes too, and i lost it. sitting in the backseat of the car, and even now as i listen to it while writing this, i cry. i think about my grandpa who is sick with cancer and his wife being all alone if he dies, wandering around their big, empty house. i think about travis and i growing old, and how terrifying it is to love someone and take that risk, the risk of losing. i think about how our life together has just begun, how young we are, and how far we have left to travel together.

if you are currently alone and afraid, i know how awful that is. i know what it is to feel alone in a crowded, dirty, apartment. you watch everyone else find love and you feel left behind. it won't always be that way for you. maybe in a few years you will hear this song again and cry just as i did, in thankfulness.

 i'm so grateful for my life and that i have a person who shares it with me. when i remember just a few months ago, when i was so low, and compare it to now, it's just amazing.

a few weeks ago, i was treated unfairly by a family member. i was complaining to travis how unfair it was and he made an excuse for that family member, a valid, solid excuse. but that morning, i had gone to counseling and relived a particularly painful memory. i described to my counselor the first time he had assaulted me and how i can't remember exactly what happened, but that i can so clearly remember walking home from his house. even now, it's hard to say this. i remember walking home alone, in the early spring weather. it was about four thirty in the afternoon. i stood looking at my house from across the street, thinking my mom would wonder where i had been, that she would be preparing dinner soon, and that i had a soccer game later that night. i vividly remember thinking to myself, well, what happened, happened, and i'm done thinking about it. and then walking into my front door, like i had always done, except that i wasn't the same person anymore.

since then, anytime i have remembered that 14 year old girl, i have felt contempt, shame, guilt, anger at her for being so stupid, and self hatred. in counseling as i described this memory, i felt those things. i felt that my counselor probably also thought those things about that girl who let a boy use her and didn't stand up for herself. even though i can remember fighting back. for so long i felt i hadn't fought hard enough. and now, i'm a person who stands up for herself, so it's difficult to remember being a person who didn't have a voice. for so long, i have hated that 14 year old girl.

my counselor has been sending me home with reading materials about different ways to think about trauma, how you can approach those terrible thoughts with curiosity, acceptance, and patience, instead of shame, fear, and anger. and as i listened to travis make those valid excuses for the family member who hurt my feelings, i thought, no one ever made those excuses for me. i never made those kinds of excuses for me. all i ever did was hate that helpless girl. i never looked at her and said, "it's ok. you didn't know how to handle it. how could you have ever known what to do? it wasn't your fault and you are part of who i am and i love you."

and then something incredible happened.  i wept for her, that helpless, scared, junior high girl who didn't understand how a boy could take something without asking. that girl who just wanted to be liked, to be thought pretty. it wasn't her fault. it wasn't my fault. 


i grabbed onto travis and just wept into his shoulder. he knew why i was crying and he let me cling to him, something i had never done before, preferring to either hold it in or battle it out in private where no one could see my weakness. it's terrifying to let someone in, to let someone see you at your lowest. i truly am the luckiest. 

i don't hate her anymore. i am learning to look at her with sympathy and kindness, instead of cold indifference. it's the start of something. and i am so thankful for that.