on letting go and getting back

We were married, went on a 5 night honeymoon to Mexico, and as soon as we landed in JFK a text came in from Mike's sister about selling their mom's house and next steps--the honeymoon, quite literally, was over.    Mike started teaching a few days later, his first time in front of a classroom as a student teacher and was responsible for three freshman global history classes.  The pressure was overwhelming, the expectations the supervising teachers had for him were unrealistic, and no one seemed to care that he was a student, not getting paid to teach, and outside of work was being forced to handle one of the hardest things life would ever throw at him. 

I took if all on with him, and it showed.  I started cooking only comfort food and baking cookies on random weeknights for no apparent reason, pretending that I would bring in the leftovers to work, but then there never were any leftovers.  I made excuses for us to not have to go to the gym and instead did everything I could to wrap Mike up in safety and goodness, even if it meant we became the laziest, heaviest versions of ourselves. With our hair turning grayer by the day (not an exaggeration) and our bellies pouring out over our waistbands, we let ourselves go.

And now we need to find a way back. It has been too many months; we ache and are tired of being out of breath at the top of the subway stairs and tired of not feeling like ourselves.  So enough is enough.  Now to figure out how to begin.