Motivation

Yeah, it's been a while... I don't really have any good excuse, just procrastination and laziness. Basically a general lack of motivation.
But.... Found my motivation in the strangest thing last night. A mole.
I have a lot of  moles, but I have three that are roughly dime sized on my belly that I've had since birth. They were all flat most of my life, but when I got pregnant with my first son the top one started growing. It grew a little more with each of my 4 pregnancies, not wider but taller... Like a disgustingly lumpy brown squishy cauliflower looking third nipple, if in gonna be honest.
No, seriously. It's dead center about 2 inches below where my bra sits, and regardless of shirts i have looked like I'm smuggling a small gumball for years now.
Got it checked out, it's not cancerous but it grew due to hormones. My insurance didn't cover it, since it was "cosmetic surgery", despite the fact that it also became increasingly sensitive and at least daily became painfully snagged on stuff to the point where I have legitimately feared that one day I might just accidentally rip the damn thing off.  No joke, I once got it caught in a metal latch of a cross body purse, through my shirt! (not to mention its constantly pinched and pulled by my kids... Ow!)
It made me sad. I used to love my birthmarks, but if I had to name the thing I -hate- the most about my body it's not cellulite, loose skin, fat rolls or stretch marks... It's that damn disgusting mole that even I don't wanna look at. It hurt me physically and possibly even more so mentally, because -what's the point of getting healthy or losing weight when no matter how good of shape you get in or how hard you work your body will always be disgusting because of a poop nipple"
Anyway... I came across something online a few weeks ago, how to remove moles with apple cider vinegar... Straightforward enough, just drop off a cotton ball to be same size as mole, saturate it with the vinegar, and stick it on that puppy with tape or a bandaid overnight.
Well... My mole was bigger than any in the many articles I read, and I read a lot. Read a few horror stories about scarring, skin damage around the site and even infection, but in the end I decided to go for it. The risk was more than worth getting rid of this thing, and worst case scenario I'll have to go into the doctor if something goes tragically wrong and it'll no longer be cosmetic surgery.
I actually wrapped the cotton ball around my mole -because I could and also because I didn't just want the very top gone. I wanted the cotton and vinegar to touch every bit of it. It stung for the first minute, just like I read it would. So far so good.
After the first 12 hours I took it off and kinda freaked out... It was a sickly pale grey/brown and had swollen. Significantly. The mole had at least doubled in size, and like some kind of sick joke it was also at least doubled in sensitivity so much that just my shirt resting on it hurt.  The stuff I read said 12 hours on, 12 hours uncovered, but I had to put a bandaid over it, and that first day I wondered if maybe this had been a bad idea....
By evening all doubts were gone though. It had shrunk back down as the day went on. It must have just sponged up all that vinegar, because as it shrunk the surface dried out and then turned kinda blackened like I had read it should.
Soaked it again overnight, next morning it was not swollen, but it had that sickly grey/brown color. Oh yeah, and some of the black bits had fallen off and stuck in the cotton... Gross? Hell yeah. But it made me happy too, because it was definitely working.
I did this for about a week straight. Much longer than any of the stuff I read recommended, but again my mole was not some wimpy little thing, it was a warrior determined to stand is ground. It was an epic battle.
After the first few days progress slowed. Apparently the deeper layers of mole just didn't feel like absorbing as much vinegar so I decided to stop falling asleep to the smell of vinegar and give it a rest.
That was a week ago. I haven't decided if I will do it again or not yet. This past week the mole scabbed over and the surface is now almost completely healed. I kinda like it how it is honestly....
It is still raised, but it's just barely there. Pain and sensitivity are totally gone, and there is no longer any issue with snagging or catching on anything. Oh... And you can't see it through my shirt!!
Anyway, I'm on cloud nine over this. I actually really looked at myself in the mirror last night before I got in the shower, and for the first time in a very, very long time I liked what I saw. Yeah, I've got a lot of work to do on my body, but I actually want to do it now. Instead of something gross I saw me.