When I was younger I never really cared or even thought about health. But then again what kid wouldn't choose double chocolate cake and playing video games all day over celery sticks and running around the gym. Maybe it was the dance workouts with barbie in middle school that lead to my quick and unprepared decision to run track as a high school sport. Running in a sport for four consecutive years could have slightly been a factor in my path to health, even though right after high school I sat at a job for five more consecutive years just to get up and sit somewhere else. Though fitness, athletics, or calisthenicish was kind of wedged in my past, it just wasn’t something I was, interested in.
Rewind to the beginning of my highbrow subjective beginnings. I grew up the oldest of five. Two sisters, two brothers and me. All biracial but the youngest. Being biracial and growing up in a single parent home, for me, caused a bit of strain on my identity, so inevitably soul searching became something I took very serious. On top of digging into my soul and searching for my identity, around the age of thirteen my siblings and I were placed in foster care until my mother could get back on her feet. Fast forward through punk rock head banging and surfer crushes to pink Birdman (Rap Obsession) shoes and cornrows. I, Angela A Reed, mixed kid from the “projects” of Bangor Maine, finally realized that I am not made to rinse and repeat because I am destined to be my own edition. It was the summer of 2001 that I was reminded of a jagged non removable label that was out of my grasp. Not just girl, foster child, or sister. I was black. Being denied a foster home for days that turned into weeks until someone was ready to take in four black children, as a teenager, definitely tarnished my emotions.
It took pain to realize that the color of my skin is out of my potential control to be seen for the passionately caring human that I am so I needed a controllable rebound. I finally realized what I do have control over. My newly awakened identity as of age eeeeeh 25…, is healthy equality. It was a long and bumpy journey finding what image fits me. Turning the pain of Family, identity crisis, and logical placement of my surrounding into wellness and self determination to reclaim what I CAN take control of. Life is about making a better today for a stronger tomorrow weather it's getting strength internally or physically. Making goals and taking off with new ones. Take hold of the things that you can control and forget about what is out of your control because you are exclusively written. So chocolate cake or celery sticks, I'll let the gym decide. Let the pain end and the breakthrough begin one flex at a time.
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