Feeling the Winds of Change

Today is the day, I go see two new apartments. The reality of moving and what is about to be is setting in. The overwhelming fear of being told no, the overwhelming task of moving and getting settled in the new place before the school year kicks back off after Christmas. The overwhelming task of explaining to a toddler she has to ride a different bus, possibly go to a different school. The overwhelming thought of what are we going to do for jobs....but there is change in the way I am dealing with it. There is definitely a change in one major thing...I am facing these fears, challenges, and days one at a time and with a calmness that is new to me.

The old me from just a short time ago would have ignored it and pretended it did not exist. Would have run from the impending challenging days. I would have hid in the food and acted as if nothing was changing. That old me was delusional. I am glad she is gone, she created more issues for me than facing the issues has ever brought! I also have been thinking a lot about my current season of self discovery.

 I discovered in this past year, I truly am my own worst enemy. I dwell on things that I can not change, I spend hours trying to avoid work that if I would just start it would be over, I think about the wrong things way to much and way to long. There is an easier way if I would only just do it, let it go, and hit my knees every time I start feeling overwhelmed. This year has brought such a clarity and a vision to where I want to go and to what I feel I was put here to do. What I have a strong passion and calling for, I have a story that needs to be told. A few blog posts are not enough, but it is a start and an outlet when my head gets full.

So, while we still have five weeks in 2016, I am starting my year in review and wrap up. The reason I am starting now is due to the impending move that will happen before the first of the year and during that I typically do the review and set the next year's goals.






My year took a very different direction this year. I opened 2016 as the year I would let Jesus take the wheel. I turned this whole year over to God and said mold me, use me for your good. I adopted Philippians 4:13 as the theme verse for the year. I started the year at  my heaviest and have lost and kept off about forty five pounds this year. If I lose roughly another ten to twenty pounds I will have dropped fifteen to twenty percent of my body weight this year. I have One year, three months, and three days food sober, and I have dropped several clothes sizes and mental blocks. I did not do any of this on my own. I had a driving force, my faith, my circle of friends and my family as well as God on my side. As they say, if God is for me, who can be against me?

 I am living in a life that I once used to fantasize about. Not the kiddo, the husband, and the cat...not the friends and the schooling, but Free of a driving need to eat. I know I need to eat to live, but I no longer live to eat. There is so much more beyond the couch and netflix. There is a whole world outside my front door that I am ready to take by storm!

For the first time in my life....I believed in me. I did not wait for ANYONE else to tell me I can do it. I did not wait for that magical sign. I pushed, I cried, I did get discouraged a few times. Things were not moving fast enough, but when I slowed down and enjoyed MY journey, I discovered there was so much more to it besides that number on the scale moving. I discovered I love me. I have a personality that just matches crazy Lula roe Prints, polka dot glasses, and funky hair colors. I am a crazy combination of NCIS' Abby, Criminal Minds Penelope, and Lorelai Gilmore. This is just me...I am so looking forward to seeing what 2017 holds for me!

This year was about repairing friendships, strengthening older ones, and developing new ones...I did find the Sammy to my Dean which is fitting since I already have my person, and I have my lobster....but seriously, if there is a relationship worth saving do it! While it takes time, while the two of you may drive each other batty, having female friends that not only empower you, but challenge you is a gift. When you look back it, it will not be all sunny dispositions but it will be worth it. When you need them the most, even in a message they will come through. Can not wait to see what new additions to my tribe are coming up in 2017.

 This year, brought a change I was not ready for. The loss of my dad shook me, and it still hurts. But, I have a family that needs me and I have a life that will not stop for me to take a few months off. I also do not have two years to shut down and go through the motions. It took a long time to fight back after I lost my Mom seven years ago...What I can do is stay in my faith, cry when I need to, and then make it happen. I know this is another area in my life without my faith, family, and friends, I would still be an angry, bitter, ball of emotions....I would be the dragon you would not want to poke.

 Yes, I wanted to eat my way through the rest of 2016, I did pick up the cigarettes again, but no amount of food would have changed what happen. No amount of sitting on my couch would have fixed the sadness and in that realization I discovered the winds of change had really hit my life. My heart and my head no longer at war, my bitterness no longer the lead emotion in my life...My God and my sobriety delivered me from all of that. (Let me pause here, I do still get angry...I live with a fierce little girl who is growing up to be a head strong, strong willed, force of nature and a husband that I love dearly and he does what he can, but alas he is still a male and proves it at times...I just don't stay there anymore)

 I finally feel as I if I am enough. I no longer must act as if I am enough, that I am not angry at life, as if I am firmly planted in faith, as if I know who I am. The more I acted as if...The more I was able to see it, to feel it. I found out, I missed me. I hated who I had become. I did not know who that was in the mirror looking back at me. No amount of makeup, hair dye, or hair cuts could make me recognize me. My eyes don't lie....and finally after all this time....I see me. The sadness, anger, longing is no longer in my eyes and in its place is a unexplained happiness because I did something I had never done before....I did not settle.

 I waited and I worked through all the issues that prevented me from accepting my husband's love. I adore that man, he gave me something that I have never had...acceptance and pure love. There is a such a desire in his eyes and a lack of wanting to fix me. He never made me feel as if I HAD to do this. He never made me feel as I was less of a person and he loved me when I couldn't love me. He waited patiently for me to find me and the drive to do this. That is a definition of a life partner and a help mate...He is my lobster.

Because I did not settle five years ago...because I fought back...I have a happiness that can not be explained...it must be felt!

So as I wrap up the first of my year in review posts....The heavy one. I want to leave you with this....

Those that settle in and get comfortable, stop growing and living....NEVER GET COMFORTABLE! I will never fully settle into a job, a situation, even my marriage....there is always a new position, a new place to serve God and to answer your calling, and a closer state to be in with my spouse...something new to learn, a new season of what is our normal....Now that I am alive and feeling...I want to feel it all I have a lot of lost years to take back one day at a time!