Will, Strength, Courage and Grace.

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I have been going through so many changes lately, it is hard to stop and think about just what has lead me to be so driven to do them. Granted, I could say things like it will be good for my family, for my son, for blah blah blah blah...


In all honesty, it's because it's good for me. For once in my life, I am making efforts to do things for myself and for no other reason. I haven't been happy -- and I don't mean with life in general. In general, I love my life, but their are aspects of it that bring me down. Parts of it that I wish were different somehow.


I know I have the will, the strength, the courage to accomplish everything I have set myself up towards. I know there will be times that I will stumble on the cracks in the way. I just truly hope that those I love and have supported through hard times in the past will be there to do the same for me now.


Most of all... I hope I have the grace to be able to accept the ups and downs that will come over the next few years. In the short term, there will be times where I will not feel like I lost the weight I need to, or that I slacked in areas that I shouldn't have. I hope I have that grace to forgive myself for the stumbling here and there. In the long term, I hope I will see that it was through my own will that I will gave the Grace to love and appreciate myself in a new way. 


It's time... before the kids get older... before I want to be to every football game, every spelling bee, every school play... before I want to sit beside them as they work on their algebra homework, to do all of the things I feel like I was somehow left out from. Now is the time... so that then I can be the Mother and Wife I have always been meant to be. 

Change

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."~ Anatole France

It seems like this is a recent topic in my life, like somewhere in the lapse of time there has been a switch clicked that tells me I must move forward, not looking behind. In some (rare) cases, it's not too troublesome, but I find in others it becomes harder, as if tearing that safety net away makes it hard to even breath. This isn't like the t-shirt... no... this one is entirely different, this one is like removing a tattoo.

It comes from knowing that in order to move somewhere in life you have to surround yourself with positivity that in other circumstances might be impossible to find. It's difficult, extremely to say the least, to find a place where you can both be yourself and who you will be. Too often it seems as if those things or people stay the same, they keep dragging you down, instead of lifting you up.

But... there are changes I want to make, big changes, life changes -- huge events that are the centerfold to where my life will be in 10, 20, 30 years from now. If you opened your life open like a brochure to show your future self, what would be listed? Would their be a list of pros and cons for the choices you made? Would it have averages of how many times you fell down, picked yourself up against how many times you were able to gracefully move through the motions? 

This is me choosing grace, because grace is all I know. I don't know how to do anything but move forward -- my therapist called it "steam rolling" through issues, I can't say that she's incorrect. But, hasn't this worked before? Sure, it absolutely has. But, isn't it time to change? I guess it is also time to pick my battles -- this is one I choose not to fight. Because if I'm the only one fighting for the common goal, what is the point? There is no war to win, there simply is. I don't want it... but then again... change is absolute.

So instead, I'll work on the fights that get me somewhere. The fight with my self esteem, the fight with my weight (and ultimately my health), and the fight to improve my life.

I suppose this is where the idea came into my head... I'm going back to school. It isn't that I'm unhappy with my lot in life, in fact, I have a great deal of things I am thankful for. I have a great job, a great life, and I am overall happy. But, life is change... and my priorities and what I want out of life is slowly evolving to something more than it used to be. So, I'm going back to school. And not even an easy major... I'm going to take everything I am good at and finally apply it to my life. Why? Change.

It is time to change... it is time to evolve... it is time to move forward. Because I'm not a kid anymore, I'm not a school girl who is easily moved from one thing to the next. It is time to change. And hopefully, just maybe, out of the end of it... I'll be a butterfly. Or at least a pretty moth... either way... I'm choosing my fight.

Growing Up

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise” ~ Alden Nowlan

 There are a million things a person can say about the simplicities of life but the resent struggle for me has been acknowledging the fact that I have to forgive myself for changing. We would all like to think the moment we start making choices for ourselves, deciding what our interests are or aren't, that we would magically just be who we will always be. Like *poof* a magic fairy just twaps you on the head with her wand, "You are who you are meant to be." 


The fact is, that people are much like time, every flowing and ever changing. We move forward like the stream and, most of the time without realizing it, are changing right along with the currents. Maybe it is the choices we have made that guide us; perhaps it is the people that we choose to surround ourselves with that help us evolve into something more or at least different.


I have changed. I never thought for a moment that getting married changes a person, I think you should be able to be who you were without the marriage when you walk into it, no one should have to ask another person to change for something like that. You should know right from the words "I do" what cards your partner is holding, and hopefully it's a damn good hand. 


For me, marriage changed a lot. Granted, it was a conscious choice I made, I knew I was making it when I did it. But because of that choice -- I have noticed a lot changing in myself. Sure, it could be because I got married and suddenly became a Mother of 3 overnight. It could be because a hurled head long into a situation I knew was going to be difficult. Or perhaps, it was because when faced with the choice I took a good hard look at the two roads laid out before me, and I picked the one that I knew I could be proud of myself for making down the line. 


And so, I threw myself into this whirlwind of a life, and here I am, changed. Keep in mind, I hardly think this change is bad. Rather, I think it is just simply fact. A recent event triggered the realization that I had out-grown things that were once just... there. Kind of like when you realize you still have that t-shirt from high school that you never wear, you don't even like, is busted up and well loved... but it's still sitting in your drawer. Why is it even there? It's not your style anymore, not that it was ever actually in style in the first place. Why not let it go? Well... now that triggers the memories of why you kept the shirt in the first place. Maybe it was your first concert, maybe it was your first kiss, maybe it was the shirt that you and your BFF at the time bought matching! Well... now it's the memories, isn't it? But is it enough? 


My answer, profoundly, was no. No, it wasn't enough. Because when you have things in your life you have to make room for, like when I cleaned out my entire closet when Frank and I got married, because I needed to make a significant room for his things, because it was no longer "his and mine". I found I needed to clean out my heart and my life... for things of positivity and true growth to grow. Because I'm not who I was back then, and I certainly am not who I was a year ago. 


As I look at the rest of my life though, I now question if there is more that I should be "de-cluttering". Have I changed out of necessity or want? Does that mean I am no longer who I once was? Does it mean I never really knew myself? Is it because I'm now 26-years old with 3 kids, a husband, a dog, and and aunt who lives with us? Or does it simply mean I have evolved? 


Only time will tell... but I think, maybe for a moment, I saw a flash of my future self. And I'm not upset at that, not at all. I am simply an adult moving past the idea of what once was, accepting the change that is in place, and acknowledging that it opens doors for the future. I am who I am and who I will always be. I just have to see it.