INFJ.

I feel like any comments about one's personality test should be prefaced by "yes, I know, personality tests are not the end all be all." I'm totally okay with this - it's unreasonable to expect that the billions of unique people on this planet can be oversimplified into a few letters. Since I was younger, though, I have loved delving into personality tests. We love anything that gives us an opportunity to understand ourselves better.

I know that personally, I am not exempt from this category - I was that kid that never felt like they "fit" in anywhere. I preferred to have one or two close friends, which I have always been totally content with.  Trying to keep up with several friendships is draining to me. I didn't like small talk - I have always preferred deep conversations about faith, politics, books or philosophy. I'm quiet. I'm slow to get to know people. I enjoy social events, but I don't like to stay at them long - they drain me, and I prefer to sit in the corner at them and find someone to have a conversation with. I like to have long drives alone to think and listen to music. I like to have thoughts in the form of ongoing dialogue in my head - and frequently stare off into space, just thinking. There's only a handful of people I feel as though I can be myself around. I'm extremely private - I'm very hesitant to open up about my private life and share information. It doesn't mean I don't like someone if I don't share with them - I love to listen to other people's stories and life details, but I can only open up on my own time, when I'm ready, and there's only a few people I have been able to do that for. I feel like I've lived almost my whole life in this little bubble of isolation, and it's not just a matter of just learning to be extroverted - it's not that simple. It's just a fact of life for me.

As a result, my introvertedness and extreme privacy meant that I wasn't ever the popular kid - a fact that I've known and voiced since second grade. Second grade me was a little sad about this, but had no idea what to do about it - I think she realized it was useless to try and fit herself into a round peg when she was obviously a square, unable to change the person she was. So, instead I learned that I didn't want to be that person. I liked people - I wished I could connect with them more - instead, I found a couple people I could connect with, and spent the years teaching myself to be content with the fact that I have to work with the personality type I was given.  I was nerdy, I would read at sleepovers (and any time, really), and I liked to follow the rules. Me trying to fit into popular social constructs made me end up feeling like I was an actress who was on stage and suddenly couldn't remember her lines. Frankly, I feel that I'm kind of weird. I've struggled with communication and self confidence for a lot of my life, and much of my college career has been spent attempting to improve these two qualities so as to make myself successful in my current and future work life. My personality makes me the type that is extremely satisfied by working for myself - I have worked for other people in the past, but I have always made children's entertainment my primary form of income, and it is the work thus far that has made me feel most fulfilled. I love the freedom of working for myself, booking events, savoring a hard days' work and mixing my creativity and love for people/happiness into my work while being able to build financial freedom for myself. I've always felt a little boxed in working for others. It's this same mindset that makes me feel relatively confident that I can be successful as a home health physical therapist. This isn't to say I'm only happy working for myself, of course. I value purpose and meaningfulness: I can find meaningfulness in anything that helps people in some way, and truly, I have been able to rationalize all of my current and past jobs into fields that have been meaningful, and thus fulfilling, to me in some way.

Despite learning to be content with my God-given personality, my feeling of "weirdness" made me desperate for anything to explain why I was the way I was. I took the Myer's Brigg at the start of my sophomore year of college for class - and there was my personality, "summed" into four letters - INFJ.

My Myer's Brigg test obviously doesn't define me. But I was thankful for it, because it made me feel that I wasn't crazy to be the way I was. "The idealist," or "the advocate", my personality type claimed to be "rare", making up only 1 percent of the population. My mode of living is focused internally - that's extremely accurate. My internally focused life has always made it difficult for me to externally express myself. I have always had an easier time of expressing my thoughts on paper, and I love to write. The way I grow is by taking quiet time to reflect and jot down my thoughts. I've kept a journal since 2nd grade and it's been pivotal to my sanity, I think. When I was diagnosed with Diabetes, part of the reason why I took it so hard was because Diabetes, a chronic illness, seemed like yet another thing that made me feel personally isolated from the rest of humanity, or at least the 99% of people I didn't seem to click with. That's part of the reason why I started this blog - it's taken the place of my journals for the most part, because I wanted to have some window through which I could try to explain what life with a chronic disease is like. And it's a hard one, in many ways - because Diabetes is an invisible illness that makes it very easy to underestimate the grave psychological as well as physical impact it has on people who have it. This blog also became a challenge to me - trying to take my introverted self and express myself in front of other people.

I'm old enough now to understand that no matter what my attempts, I'm not going to just wake up one day, connect with everyone and become a social butterfly. I have learned to be more extroverted when I needed, but that's never going to really be me. It's taken me a long time to be okay with that, but this post isn't meant to solely be me griping about my inability to fit in and have effortless conversations. If there's anything that my (almost) 23 years have taught me, it is to be thankful for who I am. I'm thankful for my internal-focused life - it has helped me to delve into writing and art, it has pushed me to educate myself through literature and to strive for furthering my education. It has given me the opportunity to have had some great conversations with people and to build very meaningful, true and lasting friendships, and connect to those who I am friends with on a deeper level. It has helped me to be a dreamer who has the push to turn her dreams into action. It has prompted me to spend time focusing on the human experience and learn how to feel empathy. It has helped me build a very stable and positive emotional mindset, to pursue a well-balanced and healthy life, and it has encouraged me to be in constant reflection of myself, which has helped me to grow.

Any fellow INFJ's out there? Do you feel that your Myers-Brigg helps explain your personality type? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts!

Two More Semesters.

Monday marked the start of my last fall semester of school - ever. It also marks two years since I began my Doctor of Physical Therapy program.

Uhh... where to begin?! I can't even begin to describe how changed I feel. Part of me looks back on my clueless 20 year old, 1st-year self and cringes. Was I really that bad at answering those questions? How did that subject matter not make sense? Why was I so bad at practicing and applying myself? Things that used to seem like Greek to me now seem so much simpler. I can rattle off transfer skills and how to treat different joint arthroplasties and perform a Tinetti from memory - things that would blow the mind of first year me. Shy, tepid, super unsure - I went into this program not knowing what to expect. And, admittedly, struggling a good bit. It took a lot of tired, sleepless nights, tears, and anxiety to get to where I am today. It took a couple of kicks in the rear for me to realize what was at stake, and how much I needed to step up my game. I came out of undergrad tired and worn out - and, what's more, used to coasting in a lot of my classes - and arrived to Grad School grossly underprepared for what was to come. Looking back, I don't feel proud about that. But, all you can do with the past is reflect and learn... right? Learn I have.
I cannot believe I'm finally almost there. All the competencies, exams and practicals... the comprehensive exams - some days, most days, it felt as though it was all too much. It felt like an impossibly long road, to traverse the 5 academic semesters to clinic.

I remember seeing the third years coming back from clinic as a first year, and they seemed as though they knew so much! Now, I don't feel like I know half as much as I thought people in my position would know, but I know I've come a long way. I still have so much to learn as I begin my internship in Outpatient physical therapy next week, but I am excited. I really feel as though clinic prepares us to make the transition from student mindset to professional mindset. There's something different about gaining real life experience as opposed to learning in a classroom. The lecture on G Codes, severity modifiers and function limitations actually made sense today since I had experience billing and coding in the hospital this summer. Last spring, I would have been lost. Furthermore, it has been actually fun to go to work, get my busywork done and then go home and enjoy life. Sure, some days I have school to do - but it's nothing like juggling 18 some-odd credit hours while, staying at school all day and then studying and practicing skills and doing assignments the remainder of my free time. For the first time in a long time during my career as a student - I have the joy of being able to learn in school, but to freely enjoy my life. Enjoy life with my new husband. Exercise after work. Make plans with friends. Go out for a drink. It's such a new, novel concept to me - to be able to have a little free time to throw around as I please. And I am looking forward to spending my life like this.

I am excited to see these changes in me that have taken place. I went into my first clinic struggling for communication skills and confidence. I still have work to go, but I feel so much more comfortable with my ability to interact with people and I am starting to feel like I know what I am doing in this huge, wide world of physical therapy. I grew to love the patient interactions I experienced - hearing their stories, feeling empathy for them, troubleshooting problems.

I am excited to see how these semesters are changing me out of a student mindset that I've built from starting college at age 15 - to the mindset of someone who is going to enter the workforce in less than a year now. The long, stretching road before me that seemed as though it would last forever in undergraduate - the counting down, but having so many semesters to go - they are drawing to a close soon. And I feel like I am a runner who has hit their runners' high at this point, because I can't express to you how long I've fought and how hard I've sought to get here. Ever since I was a girl, I have dreamed of the day I can support myself. I have dreamed of it as I have gone through school, struggling to obtain medications for diabetes, not being able to afford a Doctor, struggling for a better life for myself. Sacrificing my weekends to work to save up money instead of partying or sleeping in. Striving for the day when I could finally finish this race and be successful. For the day that I could be Doctor Mason: PT, DPT.

I know that the next two semesters - and the boards - and, of course, post-graduate life - will be tough, and have their own challenges. But this semester, at least right now, it's nice to revel in the fact that my school years are starting to wind down to a close.

91.

There was a time in my life in high school when I thought I weighed too much. That's so silly, really - I weighed less than than I do now. But summer of my Junior year of high school, I decided enough was enough. I became obsessed with the thought of losing weight: getting back to my gymnastics weight, fitting in all my old size 00's. I think a lot of ex-gymnasts struggle with this - one day, you wake up and realize you aren't all muscle anymore, and on top of that, you don't burn food like you used to. It started off harmlessly enough: living at my friend's house that spring. I started shrinking my food portions. I'd go biking every morning and follow it with a swim. Go for a walk in the afternoon. Physically, I was healthy enough. Mentally, maybe not so much - I wrote in my journal every day. Sad, angry entries, expressing frustration over my life. Angst over a boy. Hurt over family and divorce, my belongings in a storage unit with my mom's. Some was teenage angsty stuff, normal enough - but a lot of it expressed a heap of sorrow and hurt that I didn't realize had such a great impact on me. I lost some weight.  5 pounds. I felt like people didnt take me seriously when I told them that - just a high schooler on a fad. I'd show them. I moved into my mom and I's new home. It was quiet there; a little secluded from a lot of my friends. I lived my life in that little room in that house. And I decided I still weighed too much, even though my size 2's and a lot of my size 0's finally fit comfortably. I, depressed ex-gymnast living in near isolation, was a prime candidate for an eating disorder.

My diet shrank, still harmlessly enough, perhaps. 1500 calories. I found a track behind the local middle school I could walk or bike to. I began to visit it 5 days a week. I'd run 10 laps, setting up an interval schedule. I was still self conscious about my body. I'd wear one piece swimsuits. I reduced my diet even more - 1200 calories. There was no one around to tell me otherwise, so I kept on. My mom was out of the house working majority of the time, and I couldn't drive. Isolation was easy... and key to eating healthy and running regularly. When I ate out, I chose salads. Snacks were fresh fruit. I felt guilty if I ate pizza or ice cream. I bought two bikinis. "You'll look great in them, with a body like that," the sales rep told me. I didn't believe her, but I smiled politely.

It wasn't enough. Eventually, my diet shrank to 600-800 calories a day. It was easy to do that, being homeschooled with a two day a week college schedule. Oatmeal in the morning. A 40 calorie ice cream bar in between breakfast and lunch. A sandwich and apple for lunch. Chicken and some green vegetables for dinner. If I wanted something sweet, I'd have another ice cream bar... or a single M&M. I didn't recognize that I had a problem, not really. People commented on my weight loss. Some told me.not to lose any more weight. I'd covet those statements. I didn't want to go out and hang with my friends because then I'd mess up my diet because they'd want to go out to eat. I didn't want to do that. It morphed into the need for control of my life - control I felt I didn't have elsewhere. It morphed into a way to take my frustration and depression out on me in what I could skew as a "healthy" outlet, even though I knew deep down it was hurting me. And me, being depressed, kind of liked that it hurt me. Even though I still told myself it was "healthy". "Lacy will never be fat," one of my friends told me one day. I smiled with inner satisfaction. My size 0's were getting loose. I lost 10 pounds during summer camp; hiking 10 miles in the woods, swimming all day, cutting down on carbs in the meantime; I relished it simply for the weight loss aspect.

By the end of the summer, I'd lost 25 pounds. At 16, I fit the same clothes I had worn at 12. People couldn't believe I'd had 25 pounds to lose in the first place. My size 0's were big on me. I wore a belt and put them in the dryer after washing them so that they'd fit on me. Finally, I was stick thin. 100 pounds. Finally, I was happy. School started, and my diet remained the same. I'd still run. Fall came around. One month, I didn't have my period. Couldn't that happen if you lost too much weight? I checked the scale at Publix. 91 pounds. I got a little scared. I guess I can't really lose any more weight. I thought. I never let myself lose any more weight than that. But the impact of that summer has followed me. A love-hate relationship with food; being picky about eating out. Not choosing the unhealthy options. I've calorie counted every day since I was 15, just like I carb count now. I pick at food, just move it around, subtly throw it away if I think it's too unhealthy.

Eating disorders come in all different shapes and sizes. For post-athletes, they can hit hard; it's hard to have once had a great body, and been able to eat anything you wanted, and then gradually realize that you can't eat whatever you want anymore when you aren't working out 4 hours a day 6 days a week. It can cause you to feel like you've lost part of your identity. It can lead you to desperation to maintain who you once were. That's certainly a component of this story.

Why else am I telling this story? I guess because diabetes has been an interesting experience for me because of my past history with food. I grew used to denying myself the food I wanted. Skipping the dessert, hard as it was. Eating low carb on my self-inflicted Atkin's diet that I'd basically began 2 years before I was ever even diagnosed with Diabetes. Watching my food like a hawk. Unfortunately - once you get used to doing those things - old habits die hard. I'm still dealing with a lot of residual issues when it comes to food and weight. Yes, being diagnosed with Diabetes was hard. It's hard to follow a diet by choice, but then have to follow a diet not by choice - the loss is still real, and I was bitter towards my disease because of that for a long time. I'd never had to physically count carbs before, just kind of "guesstimate". With Diabetes, if you're on a food to insulin ratio like me, it affords you a lot more freedom that giving insulin for a specific amount of carbs and specifically planning your meals to have that amount of carbs at specific times of the day doesn't, as you can imagine. I basically eat what I want - within reason, because it's easier to manage diabetes on a low carb diet and uses less insulin - and then I give insulin in a ratio that is 1 unit of insulin per every 5 grams of carbs. As you can imagine, this makes being precise very important. So, I've had to learn that. In hindsight, I wish I'd treasured my freedom more leading up to my illness. Wish I'd treasured food more than hating it. The reason I didn't notice I'd shrunk from 110 to 89 at the same of my.diagnosis was because I was on another dirt - granted, a more controlled one- and I assumed the diet was working. Not that I was losing weight from illness.

But frankly... some days, I'm thankful for diabetes, and that's old high school me coming out. Because sometimes I like an excuse to have to eat healthy. To not feel like I have to justify myself for getting the diet soda or the salad, like I had to do in high school. There are plenty of more reasons to hate diabetes - insulin makes you gain weight, and losing weight can be hard and more complicated with insulin and diabetes. Needles suck. On top of that, as a diabetic privy to the world of social media, I've spent a lot of time researching a condition called Diabulimia - a condition where people will purposefully not take insulin in order to run their blood sugar high to lose weight. Because, you see, Diabetes untreated, in addition to wrecking your organs, ruining your eyesight and sensation, destroying your kidneys and other unpleasant side effects, essentially starves your body of nutrition until it wastes away. Cue photo of me in high school just prior to my diagnosis. I thought I looked nice - but I was also 89 pounds and didn't know it, because I'd stopped weighing myself on a scale long ago because of my unhealthy predisposition to obsess over those numbers.

It's been a hard road, learning to enjoy food again and still manage my Diabetes, and then learn to change my diet around Diabetes again and again, trying to fine tune it. I need some carbs - otherwise my insulin will make my blood sugars too low. I can't eat to many - my blood sugar will get too high. It's been hard to learn how to be healthy and not hate food at the same time. It's been hard to not let myself learn to re-hate food because of how diabetes impacts my diet. I have dreams about my used to being able to eat and not give insulin. And frankly, those dreams make me sad. It's even been hard to occasionally ignore the temptation to not give myself insulin - almost like letting a meal not count.

But I've made a lot of progress, leading up to my wedding this past May and onwards. Working out using Insanity with my then-fiance now husband. Biking instead of driving to the grocery store and restaurants, or even just for an evening outing. Choosing healthy options to eat, but still treating myself out. Exercising portion control. I've dropped a few pant sizes - but I also know I'm never going to be that 89 pound girl again right there, and I'm not going to fit into my 00's anymore. I finally bagged those up and got rid of them this year. Because, eating 600 calories a day while working out isn't healthy, and neither is having your blood sugars run so high that your body starves itself. I'm also not going to be a level 9 competitive gymnast working out 24+ hours per week ever again. These days, I work out - I hydrate - and I'm a healthy, comfortable size 2. High school me would have scoffed at that and considered size 2 next to fat - but high school me was also extremely unhealthy, and I have to remember that. Whether it's biking, hiking, insanity, or simply walking to play Pokemon Go - and eating well without starving myself. I'm good at choosing healthy food options and eating well (I've had years of practice, I've just had to learn to incorporate it into my life in a healthy and balanced way). My blood sugars aren't always perfect, but they are well controlled. Learning to be healthy, mentally and physically, has been an ongoing road since ending my time as a competitive gymnast - and a reinvented one since being diagnosed with Diabetes. Taking care of yourself is work, and it always will be - it's all about making your health a lifestyle. Looking at where high school me was, I'm a lot healthier, mentally and physically, than I once was - and grateful.

The Throwback Thursday Playlist

I put on Spotify's "Throwback Thursday" playlist this evening and was hit with a surprising wave of nostalgia. I forget how powerful music is; its instant ability to take you back and bring back old emotions, memories, states of mind. I feel too young to be nostalgic about music from 10 years ago, but there it is: I am.

Music from 10 years ago brings me back to hot, sweaty afternoons in the gym as a gymnast. Waking up at 6 for 8 am practice during the summer: 8-1, 5 days a week, all summer. Running miles in the heat for conditioning. The ankle sprains. Being so sore I could hardly climb steps or get out of bed the next day. Roller skate days on Friday. Overcoming fear: learning to backhandspring on the balance beam. To do a roundoff backhandspring back layout with a full twist. Fighting tears over how hard doing 200 pushups was. Listening to Over my Head by the Fray and Kelly Clarkson on the radio. Eating Campbell's microwaveable soup in the front office before gym practice after middle school. Having to make up an entire semester's worth of Biology in 2 weeks my first year of homeschooling because I procrastinated.

Music from 6 years ago brings me back to my high school/community college days. Fresh faced and 15: taking on Valencia community college, now Valencia college, for the first time. Being so nervous my first day. Treating myself to a chocolate chip cookie once a week between class; finishing homework in the library. My distaste for college algebra. Laying in my bed at night as a teenager; daydreaming, looking at my glow in the dark stars. Playing my favourite songs Penelope by Saosin and Syndicate by The Fray before I fell asleep, thinking of all of my hopes and dreams. Counting the years until 18 because my angsty self didn't want to live at home anymore. Spending Saturday afternoons or off-school days researching graduate schools for physical therapy, trying to plan a future that seemed so far away even my imagination couldn't decide what it looked like. I was a kid who hadn't even applied to real college yet. Whose parents still drove her to school. Still hoping for my first boyfriend. Writing in my journal every day, in my impeccable handwriting that has only worsened over time. Pants too big because I didn't eat enough.

This was all pre-diabetes, when I was free to eat what I wanted. Pre insulin shots, pre callused fingertips. There's post-Diabetes too, but I've got a lot of blogs on that.

I remember the day I left home for the last time as someone who lived there. 17 years old. My old white Ford truck was packed to the brim for college with all of my wordly belongings. I remember the brown dress I wore. And I had far too many clothes and T-shirts. I remember my excitement about the road ahead; and surprisingly, almost a lack of understanding over how monumental this event was in my life. I'd never live at home in that little blue house in Apopka, Florida again. Never more see the glow in the dark stars light my ceiling before I closed my eyes. Sleep in my little silver day bed I'd had since 4th grade with my canopy pulled close around me. No more girl: I was growing closer and closer to a woman, the one I wanted to be.

Two years ago? That takes me back to a time that I am now celebrating the anniversary of: It's two years since I've moved to Atlanta. And how life has changed! The song of that August was "Rather Be", and "Cardiac Arrest" by Bad Suns. I remember packing all of my belongings in my stuffy, too-big and too-empty apartment in Macon... thinking about the dreams I had dreamed as a girl at 15 and how I felt like so many of them were broken, expired. Left to dry out. Now, I was packing up the remnant of those dreams in cardboard boxes, waiting for my move to Atlanta like a swimmer longs for a breath of fresh air as he swims to the surface from the deep. I didn't know what I was in for with PT school, or with life.
Young me learned so much those first few months. I discovered my favourite coffee shops, my favourite Kroger, and my favourite spot: a secluded spot in the middle of Glenwood in East Atlanta. I discovered the joy of a glass of wine at night as I turned old enough to drink. Fighting traffic to get to school in the mornings... and the hour long commute to get home. I discovered swing dancing: at first, it was just to impress a guy, but I watched it become so much more through the coming months.

These are parts of my life that are settling; they have cemented themselves into my memory, like bricks on the bottom row of a wall that lay the foundation for something bigger to be laid on top. I'm still young, but I've grown. These 22 years of mine, I feel that they have lived a lot of life in them. I've experienced my share of sadness, of heartbreak, of disappointment. Of joy. They've experienced a lot of forced responsibility. Of struggling to learn how to make it on my own; on struggling with a chronic illness; of struggling with loneliness, and the burden of mistakes I've made. I've seen myself come through dark times and come through them stronger. I forget I have a lot of these memories sometimes, but they are buried in me, deep inside - sometimes, evidently, they only need some songs from 10 years back to awaken them. And I'm glad I have them. I'm glad for where I came from, even if it saddens me sometimes. There's so much joy in where I came from, too. More than enough to balance it all out.