The time has finally come to rebuild rome.
What? Rome? What are you even talking about, Bonnie?
It all started when I graduated college. I had secured my job as a teacher in a high school local to the college I attended. I graduated college in May, and would begin teaching the following August.
That meant I had three months to completely prepare, plan, pack, move, and adjust before starting my job.
I honestly can’t remember what month I moved in, but I know I had a significant amount of time from the time I moved in, until the time my responsibilities began. I’m talking weeks, 5 maybe? 6?
Those five or six weeks grew me in a lot of different ways. There are a lot of things I did that I wish I wouldn’t have, and other things I didn’t do that I probably should have. I learned a lot. I drank way too much. I would be surprised if I even cooked a meal in that time.
Through those times though, I went home to an empty apartment. It was the first time in my life where I lived totally alone. As an only child, I have a relationship with solitude. I actually welcome it often. But this length of aloneness was uncomfortable, and using my hindsight, I can see that I managed that uncomfortability in a lot of really unhealthy ways. I’ll save those details for a different day. The point is that I spent some time in low places in order to gain perspective.
You can imagine what those low places did to my body.
I wasn’t a spring chicken anymore. Yeah, I get it. I was still very young and as I sit in this chair to write this, I wish this body could bounce back from a hangover like that one could.
But I digress.
I was overweight, unmotivated, anxious and tired. I had horrible eating habits, horrible sleeping habits, and I continued to drink alcohol like a fish on the weekends.
I remember starting my job, being the heaviest I had been (maybe in my life?), so self conscious. I had been in high school once. Honestly, not that long before I was the teacher. So I knew how mean high school students could be.
So I joined a gym.
They offered me a free assessment by a personal trainer. I had a big girl job now with big girl money and not many financial responsibilities yet, so I said yes.
He royally kicked my ass.
I actually hated it. And I remembered just five years previous, all the things my body had been capable of doing – the running, the sports. Anything I had ever wanted to do, my body could do.
Not anymore.
Now, my body had turned into something I couldn’t recognize. I felt nauseous a lot. I felt like some crazy sci-fi shit was happening when I walked in the gym because it’s like my lungs were removed from my body when I came through the door. I could not breathe. I think they were gone. Non-existent. No oxygen. Zero.
It woke me up to a reality I had pretended didn’t exist. So, I did what every person in my situation would do….
I hired one of their personal trainers. We met with twice a month and then he would give me day by day instructions what to do each day between visits.
He was the exact person I needed. He gave the right amount of encouragement with a lot of sarcasm. He knew his craft well. I was getting leaner, stronger, faster, and healthier. I was working almost obsessively to get stronger. I liked pushing my body to see what it could do. I liked being strong. I liked the way my clothes fit and my body felt. He was a very pivotal person in the original building of rome.
rome. Ever heard the saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”? It’s so cliche.
But it’s also so true.
I was in the best shape physically in this season of my life. I was strong, disciplined, and driven. I slept great. I woke up with so much energy. My skin felt good. I took really good care of myself and my body. I dedicated just over a year to this endeavor. In that year, I built rome.
See, when Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven, He sent us the Holy Spirit to some people in the Roman Empire. Then, those people continued to spread it, and soon, much of Rome was filled with the Holy Spirit.
My body is my rome. God sent the Holy Spirit to live in my heart so I can have Him close to me to guide and protect me all my life. (Can I get an amen?!) This body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So I want to build up my rome to be the strongest, healthiest, best, most beautiful version.
Just as in history, my rome collapsed.
It has seen some stuff in the last 7 years – marriage, mental health crisis, grief, a child, a miscarriage, poverty.
Those 7 years have taken its toll.
But it is now time to begin rebuilding rome.