Becoming a Princess....one year later.
This bracelet isn't fashionable, or expensive. It didn't come in a fancy box....but it means more to me than a lot of my other possessions. It is a physical reminder to me of the year I faced, the challenges I overcame, and the progress that I made. I look at it every day, and it is there to remind me not of what I can't do, but of what I CAN.
I have to be careful at this time of the NEW year, not to make resolutions I can't keep, not to set unattainable goals. They gyms are filled to the brim with people who are determined that "this will be the year" and the tv is loaded with commercials about diet plans, pills, magic bullets. It's a time that the media uses to try to get us to focus on how fat, out of shape, and pathetic we've become. They want us to think that we have to completely reinvent ourselves to become acceptable, loveable, and successful. Well....they are wrong. Sometimes all we need to see our New Year clearly is a healthy dose of perspective. And I think finally....that perhaps in a small way the bracelet has helped me find it.
I still haven't signed up for my race. Not because I don't want to, but because another really GREAT opportunity has come up for Jason that might take place the week of the race. It would prevent me from being able to go to Florida to do the half marathon, but would give me a once in a lifetime opportunity to take a swanky trip with my husband for FREE! The battle I had to fight with myself is that this race is my GOAL! This race is what the bracelet was about! This race was the reason I had spent all of this time and energy last year enduring injury, setback, and sweating! I had to sign up before January 1 to get my name on the bib, and so everyone wouldn't think I had failed on my goal. I couldn't wrap my mind around the possibility of NOT doing this. The bracelet was reminding me daily that THIS WAS MY GOAL.
But you know what. I don't believe that this is what the bracelet was telling me at all. Who cares if my name is on a bib, if I run in Florida or Missouri. If Jason is honored by his work, this Princess should be standing beside her husband who she loves more than anything and honoring his accomplishment. I love him, how could I NOT wait to see if this comes through for him. There will be other races, and if he doesn't win the trip, then I will go to Florida and write my name on my bib with a sharpie pen. I don't have to have Walt Disney tell me that I am a princess to know it to be true. Sometimes being the Princess is acknowledging the accomplishments of others, being flexible, and taking life as it comes.
So, as I looked at my bracelet this morning, I realized that although my outward goal was the race, (and whether that gets done at Disney is yet to be seen, but trust me....there WILL be a half marathon for me in the very near future) but the true meaning of what it brought me was so much more. It represents the way I want to live my life. Happy. Healthy. Strong. And of course standing next to my Prince Charming.
It seems the bracelet did change my life.
So...with that I wish you all a Happy New Year. Happy beginnings to wherever this year will lead you. My princess is still evolving and I hope yours is too. Be realistic with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Try to show yourself understanding.
I'll keep you posted on the race progress. I'm still training, and getting ready like I'm going, but honestly, given the outside chance at a free week in Hawaii with the person you love, wouldn't you take the chance that you might have to alter your goals? I'm glad that I am.
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