It's MY Journey, and I'm Taking My Time

Yesterday my daughter was snubbed a little by some of her friends.   They were busy doing “middle schooler” things and she wasn’t included and it hurt her feelings a little.   I saw her sitting outside on the driveway by herself, and IMMEDIATELY my stomach tied itself in knots and I felt like crying.   I was certain she was miserable, and that her pain must be excrutiating. I called her inside and talked to her about what was going on, and she responded calmly that she knew they were her friends, and that sometimes it isn’t cool to hang out with younger kids, but she was fine.   She knew they’d be back together soon. I was dumbfounded.  Seriously kid?   Isn’t your heart breaking?   Isn’t your world ending?    Don’t you feel like crying?   I’M HERE FOR YOU! She was okay.    A little hurt, but not broken.   Not devastated.  I sat ...

If you read my last blog, you know that there have been some things in my life that I “wished” would change, and one somewhat insignificant one was that I wished I wouldn’t sweat so much when I was at the gym.   I know….weird, but as a girl who has always had a tendency to “pit out” it’s something I have worried about for a long time. Anyway….I was talking about it with some ladies at the gym, and we were laughing a bit, and then one gal who is relatively new to our group said something to me that I can’t get out of my head.   She said, and I’m paraphrasing here…             “You need to go back in your memory and find the moment when you started telling yourself the story that this is a BAD thing and see why you’ve carried it with you for so long.” Now this struck me, and I actually looked her up on Facebook to message her a thank you for inspiring me to think differently. ...

 I wish I could wake up in the morning and not obsess about how I was going to face my day with exercise and food. I wish that I loved my body the way that it was, so that when change happened I could look at it and go “huh, that’s new” instead of “it’s about time!” I wish that exercise was always joyful, and that I never had to haul my ass to the gym when I didn’t feel like it. I wish I didn’t always leave my workout looking like a sweaty mess. I wish that I had found the strength when I was younger to tell all the people who fed my issues to go to he**, and leave me alone. I wish that the world wasn’t so focused on appearance, and was MORE focused on how we treat one another. I wish candy and chips were free food in Weight Watchers instead of fruits and vegetables. I wish…. But that’s not getting me anywhere, so here’s another approach. I HOPE that tomorrow when I get up tomorrow I can be a little nicer to myse...

Sometimes looking back on things makes you especially thankful for what you have. Today is Jason and my anniversary, and over the years we have made it a tradition to watch our wedding video to remember that day.   We watched it with the kids tonight, and after that they begged us to watch more videos of them as babies.   It was a lot of laughs, and some very poignant tears as well.  We were glad to see the happiness, yet sad to see those faces of those who are no longer with us. We wrapped it up and moved on with our night, but I have to say, I have been left with a feeling in my chest that is somehow a cross of sadness and extreme gratitude.   I know I have written about gratitude before, but tonight, it just feels like something I have to do. I know that on that day 12 years ago, I had so many thoughts about where my life was heading.   Jason and I had mapped out so much of what we THOUGHT would happen, and...