Bloom where you are planted

Going through some of these posts, it's seems unreal in a way.   I'm not even the same person who wrote this blog, for the most part.  There are bits of me I recognize,  yet our life is so different today from when I started blogging.  My children are all grown up!  One is 23, an RN and married with a little boy on the way.  One is a sophomore in college for Illustration here in WNY.  The 4 babies are ages 11, 12, 14 and 17.  It's just unreal to think about how my life used to be when I was writing these posts.

Some things are similar, I am still at home.  Every time I think about perhaps going to college and starting a career I realize how much I am actually needed.  I mean I am kept busy!  I am constantly driving my daughter to college now that she is commuting this year.  That alone is ridiculous, especially when her classes are hours apart from each other.

Sometimes a boy will miss the bus and I am able to solve it easily, or someone is sick and needs to be picked up.  Imagine having to be late to, or miss work over it.  ugh...I don't have to imagine that hard.  I was a single mom to two tiny girls,  and everyday just to make it on time to work within the lousy 30 minute allowance and back to the daycare after work was so difficult.  I didn't work in town after all but a good ways away in North Hatfield (day care in Holyoke).

All I ever wanted in those days was to be able to take care of my babies and not leave them with strangers, or anyone else for that matter.  To take care of my home.  To have a God-loving man to share my life with.  I have been blessed with all of these hearts desires.  In some ways I grieve, knowing my failings and wishing I had done better with all I've been given.  I wonder why I still struggle with self-worth and loneliness, why I feel so stuck, instead of just being able to settle into my role and this life I've been given.

I very carelessly and hurriedly took this photo this past August right in our driveway.  A flower doesn't strive or struggle it just does what it was meant to do, even in the unlikeliest of places and sometimes hostile environments.  It doesn't over-analyze, question and doubt itself to death.  It simply blooms.  It was an inspiring message to me and I'm glad I didn't miss it.

Sometimes looking forward requires a look behind, to remember from whence we've come.  I'm extremely grateful to my mom for lending me her car in order to work back in 1997.   She's always been a sacrificial giver.  I don't know anyone else like her.  Her generosity to me, helped me to help myself and my girls.  It was also what allowed me to meet Mike in the first place, at work.

I am forever grateful to Mike as well, for everything he's done for me.  For loving me so well, and believing in me.  For believing in my value enough to want me for himself and his children at home. It makes me want to do and be better.  

Time to get real.

I am kind of devestated.  It's a kind of feeling that may just wake one up from their status quo slumber.  Today I began looking at my posts here at my long neglected blog.  It was fun to see some of our old memories, some of which I would not have even remembered had they not been documented here, which totally reminds me that I need to get back to doing this as the memory maker I aspire to be for our family.  I digress....

I came upon a post from 2012 where I had finally fit into this dress I adored for my 14th wedding anniversary.  I was elated, glowing, healthy and alive!  Yes I still had a way to go, but I was doing it!!!  I was meeting goals!!!  I was newly pain-free!  My world was widening as I was able to finally go horse back riding.  It gave me a focus and much needed community at a time when I was in a new place, with no family or friends around me, attempting to make a home.

It brought me deep sadness to see how I have backslid since that time.  I had been a fitness coach.  I know, I was one of those positive thinking coaches that just knew it best to begin my coaching at the beginning of my journey so others could watch my transformation in real time and be inspired regarding their own.

These pics from just 3 years ago seem like a lifetime away as I look at them right now.
This past Summer we had my daughter's wedding.  Not only did I gain 50 pounds since my celebratory dress picture in 2012, but I had to have the dress I was measured for actually taken out 7 months after I had purchased it.  I was not my best at this monumental moment in my family's life, and in fact, even though I am normally a photoholic, I haven't even asked, begged or cajoled for a portrait of my daughter and I, or of the family shot the photographer snapped.  I am highly embarrassed over these remembrances that can never be changed.

How did I let depression, lonliness and who-knows-what-else do this to me?!  I am the one who suffers.  I am the one whose world gets smaller once again.  I am the one who pays the price.  Why did I let this happen?

I will tell one thing in my own observation.  I need social support in my life, be it in person or online. I need to be around other healthy people on a regular basis.  I need something to focus on that will bring good.  Another really cool concept is that when you are helping others, you are reinforcing your own journey.  I found myself in a really good place and felt really accountable when I had others counting on me.  When I was a fitness coach I had all of that.  Then I quit.  I quit because I had an issue that the company wasn't able to solve for me.  You see my coach became inactive, and so I was coachless myself.  There was a broken link and it bothered me.  I wanted to switch to another high profile coach that was very successful, active, positive, and actually running her coaching as a business.  I was not allowed  to do so as it would screw up the people over and under me.  So I quit. Figured I'd join back in 6 months when I could re-join under the super awesome coach I had began following.  Only I never did.  It was easy to just keep on keeping on, and not start paying the small monthly business dues again.  Then it became easy to just stop paying for and drinking my nutritionals which had benefited my husband and I so much.

Was the savings worth the cost?  Definitely not!  Look where it has gotten me.   I went from an unhealthy sedentary lifestyle, weight and diagnosis of MS to where I was just 3 years ago.  And now I am right back where I started.  The work to do it again from scratch seems so daunting.  And yet.....

How many more monumental weddings do I want to attend and cringe at the pictures of?  How many more activities do I want to turn down?  Do I want to be the grandma (first time grandma this coming February!) that sits on the sidelines or that can actually be physically active with her grandbaby? This is just reality.  This is not me beating or shaming myself.  I am mentally healthier than that.  I have become very good at finally being loving toward myself and appreciative of my life.  Because of that reason I have decided to get back to it.  It's the obvious choice for me.  The alternative is not good for me in any way, shape or form.

I will get back within a framework that supports me with my goals, motivation and socially.  I will get back to pushing play on our living room TV and to heck with anything that may make me think twice.  I don't care about those silly things any more, I care about me.  I care about my husband.  I want him to be around a great many years to come.  I don't want his body to cave while under pressure or stress because he's not healthy.  Although many things are not in our direct control, being good steward with what we've been given sure is.  Someone once said to me that it can be done without being a coach, or using a coach and proven framework.  Sure, and for those people maybe their social needs are met because they are deep into a fulfilling career, or are surrounded by family and friends.  Maybe they are naturally driven physically. For those who are not in those shoes, like myself, I am grateful for the online and local support of this organization, and I'm eager to get back to it.  I will do it the right way, the healthy and loving way.  I will feed myself nourishing food to help my body heal.  How would I treat a small child in my life that I want to nourish and help gain to fitness?  I will treat myself accordingly.

Please join me at my newest blog which I am building from scratch at the moment:

Remaking Me

Don't forget to bookmark it!
xoxo
Jenn