2013: A Year in Review

We are who we are for a reason. This is a simple truth. Each of us are intricately shaped to be the person we currently are. Sometimes, we are hard-wired to act or behave in a certain manner---while other times we've had experiences that affect our state of being, and ultimately who we are today.

It's funny how people change in life.  This is something I have definitely referenced before.  Things change us, life changes us---and we just sort of go along with it.  That's part of what makes us human. Sometimes, we fully embrace the change, and other times we fight it tooth and nail in order to maintain what we currently have going for us.  I used to be that person....because change scared me a great deal.  However, if there's one thing I've learned this year, it's one simple fact of life:

Sometimes, you can't fight change.  

Change is inevitable, and that is what makes this world really beautiful and really ugly all at once.  As I sit here, thinking about what I am going to say about 2013 in its entirety---I am sort of at a loss for words.

**Shocking, I know**

Here's the way I'd like to look at it.  Someone very wise told me, that life itself is like a road---and we're just driving down that road. In a car, there are many ways that you can see what's going on around you---but one of the most interesting and crucial pieces of equipment in the car is, in fact, the rear view mirror.  Yet, what happens if you keep looking back in the rear view mirror? You fail to see everything that is right in front of you---and you fail to see what's ahead.  It's valuable to occasionally glance back at where you're going---but you must always focus on the windshield.

This past year (and even now sometimes) I have spent so much time looking back.  For me, the gift of a good memory seems to have been both a blessing and a curse all at once. Yet, the past is the past, and that's where it should stay.  I've learned so many valuable lessons, however, and have gained so much by evaluating the past.  Which, at times can be both a melancholy and taxing process. So, in the spirit of going through all of the bad this year (which is something I normally focus on), I would like share all of the valuable things I have learned.....

More BULLETS! YAY!!!!

• Creating positive habits, isn't as hard as I anticipated---especially when you begin to reap the benefits of the positive habits created.
• Love is a funny thing, and it comes in many forms.  Just because you don't have romantic love in your life, doesn't mean you're unloved.  It means you have probably the most honest and unfaltering love known to man.  
• Some friendships come and go. You might even waver from one group of friends to another--then back again.  Friends who can accept and love you--even when you're at your lowest point--are the best you can ever have. 
• Even if you haven't lost someone in your life, there is always, always someone looking out for you.  You might not believe it--but too much as happened in this world for me not to believe it.
• YOU have the power to make your own success. It all depends on how badly you want it.
• No matter how annoyed you get at your parents sometimes, love and cherish them.  They just might be your saving grace.
• As hard as it is, and as badly as you don't want to---always try to see life from an optimistic perspective.  The more negativity you project, the more negative infests your life.  Believe me, this is something I still work on.  Glass. Half. FULL.
• Love yourself. Even if you can't see the beauty in you, someone else sure as hell does.  If you don't, people will stop telling you---because what's the point?  They know you won't believe it anyway. 
• Do what you love, and love what you do.  If you don't, chances are that you're likely going to suffer from apathy. Apathy creates carelessness, and carelessness just causes you to suck. Period.
• Before you say or do something, before you make a big decision----always look in the mirror.  If you can't even look yourself in the eyes--chances are, you're about to make an asshole decision.  If you can live with being an asshole, that's peachy.  Good for you. It might be entertaining for those around you, who know you, and can call you an asshole.  However, if you can't deal with being an asshole, perhaps you should re-think your actions or even your delivery method. 
• Assholes are okay with making asshole decisions.  You see, in their mind they're right.  These people are often self-motivated adult-children.    
• People are going to think what they want to think about you.  There's no doubt about it.  Since this is true--at least make them jealous of how awesome you are.
• If you show people your strength, it's the sexiest thing in the world. I'm slowly learning (not that I am sexy), that confidence means everything.  It will help to guide you along the road to greatness....even if deep down inside you're a bit unsure of yourself.  Make em' look twice!

So there you have it, ladies and gents.  13 sentiments for 2013.  There's been good and bad this year, but hey--what's life without both the good and the bad?  I've learned so much about myself and others, and in that sense I've grown into a completely different person.  A better one, I think.  However, I don't feel as though that's for me to judge. 

There's so much I want to do for 2014---and I don't want to set myself up for disappointment, so I am not sure I am going to share them here yet.You might get bits and pieces of my desires for this year through my blogs.  I mean, hey, I don't want to spoil the fun for all of you readers!   In all seriousness, though, I wish everyone reading a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014.

That's what I'm planning for....

A.

Little White Lies

This will be the last I write of this specific situation.  I'll close the chapter after this.

About an hour ago, I was informed that He Who Must Not Be Named is now engaged to the woman that he started dating 2 months after he broke my heart.

Good. 

My reaction?  First I said some really inappropriate, really mean things that I won't repeat.  Then? Well, I stood in the shower for about 20 minutes and cried. I'm now sitting here---and after a few deep breaths, I'm okay.  Man, it stings, but I am okay.  As I've been told---everyone has to get their heart broken at least once in life.  It's something we all have to endure.  Maybe some people are lucky....maybe they don't have to get their heart(s) broken.  Either way, when mine was broken, it was based on the fact that the specific person involved didn't want to get married, and didn't want to have children.

I guess we all tell little white lies every once and a while.

I've got this.  I'll run a little faster tomorrow---and my skin will be a little bit thicker---because I deserve so much more than little white lies.

A.

 

There's Always a Story Behind the Picture.....

Life is a funny thing. We age, we grow and we change. These changes are often coined by our parents as ‘phases’—which is an easier way for them to explain and tolerate all of the weird things their kids end up doing. For example, when I was 8 or 9, my best friend Amy and I were convinced that we had super powers. We'd spend our days trying to convince each other that we made our teacher's strand of hair stand up when she was talking to the class. At this time, we also believed that we were given these special powers in order to defeat an evil man named Kahn (perhaps we watched too much Star Trek). Lastly, we often stared into this iridescent ring that Amy had---and chanted 'Show us Kahn.' Throughout the years we spent our time honing our powers, creating a two man band and writing one hit wonders such as 'Forever Friends' and 'Why Do You Love Me' (which oddly enough sounded exactly like 'That Thing You Do!'). Probably one of the oddest things we did was go 'bird watching' which consisted of walking around with binoculars, looking around, sometimes focusing in people's windows and making notes about our neighbors.



*I hope Amy doesn't care that I'm telling everyone about our philarious childhood antics**



These phases make me laugh when I think back on them now---and I am so glad I have these memories. Throughout my lifetime, I feel like I've worn so many faces: Dancer, Speech Team Member and Drama Queen. In the last weeks of my Senior Year of High School, I sort of morphed into someone else. I became someone to lean on, a jack of all trades, in all places at once, dependable. Infallible. Selfless. I cared about two people in my life, and all I wanted was to take their pain away. A pain caused by a sudden and tragic accident. The day that changed me forever.

 

This isn't about that, though. This is about my metamorphosis into someone I consider to be very interesting.  Interesting, yet very complicated. When I look at me now, I see a very different person than the girl who graduated from Warren Township High School.  I’m a bit meaner, more selfish, a bit scarred and leery of people.  I don’t really like giving second chances, and I feel like I’m always calling bullshit on people---even when they might be telling the truth.  I’m still the same girl that loves with her whole heart---and truly does feel for the people she cares for.  I still let people take advantage of me, for fear that they might become angry or upset if I don’t cater to their need(s). Dealing with someone being mad at me is way worse than inconveniencing myself for them.  I’m still a thinker—and mostly reserved but wildly inappropriate at times.  I laugh at stupid things—and am overly sarcastic.  I wash my hands perhaps too many times a day.  I’m me. Trying to smile about 85% if the time and then wearing my thinking face for the other 15% of the time.

 

Yet, beneath the smile, and the thinking face—are very complicated thoughts.  Most of them these days are about the way I look. I recently read the blog of a girl who made massive life changes in order to become the person that she wanted to be.  She struggled with weight loss for her entire life, and then finally made the choice to become that healthy person she always wanted to be.  I feel like for the past 10 years, I’ve been on a constant mission to change the way I look.  I didn’t always do it the right way, either.  It’s hard for me to admit it, and admit it to the people who I know read this.  I went from being an average person in my freshman year of college—to weighing over 70lbs more than that 6 years later. How does it happen, and what drives us to make those certain decisions that you’ll regret over time?  See, for me, weight gain has been a way that I’ve slowly destroyed myself---and it’s angering to think that I just let it all go.  Without a care in the world…I ate my way to 70lbs of misery. 

 

Since my life was turned upside down last year, I made it my mission early on to try and change the things I didn’t like about myself.  After everything occurred, I blamed myself for most of it.  I blamed the weight gain.  I blamed my attitude towards the weight gain, always saying I was going to lose it, and make different choices…but never following through.  You see, I’ve got a problem, with staying on track.  When the spring came, it’s like something clicked deep inside of that brain of mine.  I started going out with friends more—and I was slowly starting to see that in the group of people I was hanging out with, I was always standing the in back trying to hide what I saw to be ugliness.  Never feeling pretty---always just feeling what I knew I was: fat.

So I slowly started making the change.  I started by going to the gym at least three times a week.  Man, it was tough to get started.  I would find every single excuse in the book not to go.  I was going, but I wasn’t really pushing myself as hard as I knew I could.  I didn’t want to be tired, I didn’t want to be sweaty, I didn’t want to exert myself.  Time went on, and I knew deep down inside, that if I didn’t truly commit to the changes I was trying to make—then nothing was going to change.  Ever.  So I started going more frequently.  1-3 days turned in 1-4 days and then 3-5 days…and then eventually 5-6 days.  I started getting faster, on the elliptical, and I could actually run.  I could actually run.  I went from an 11 minute mile (on the elliptical----don’t judge) to a 7:25 mile.  I saw progress, yet things didn’t seem to physically change.  Until I started making some healthier food choices.  I finally got the courage to get on the scale last month, and found that I had lost 10lbs.  I’m officially at 12.8lbs since August.  I couldn’t feel more on top of the world.  I was finally doing something for me.  My pants feel loser, people are telling me I look like I am losing weight, and I am getting a sense of confidence.

 

Yet, I feel as though there is something holding me back from enjoying it.  It’s my brain.  My mindset.  I feel like one of those people in that credit score commercial where they walk around with a number over their head. I still have 62.2lbs to lose.  I don’t think I am going to be fully happy until I can lose it.  It’s a slow process, this is something I understand---but don’t want to accept.  It’s a lot harder to shed the pounds than put them on.  It’s become an obsession---something I think about all of the time. Someone very close to me told me on Wednesday, that my journey shouldn’t be a burden in the sense that this obsession should not hold me back from what I am trying to achieve.  I should be proud, and I should relish in the fact that I actually, for one time in my life, enjoy going to the gym. 

So this is where I’m at.  I seem to have been in a lot of places these past 54 blogs, haven’t I?  I now need to teach myself how to embrace this phase—and hope that it’s not just that.  This is one of those situations where goals are good---but I shouldn’t be an absolute slave to them.  I know who I am, and who I want to become.  That’s all that needs to matter.  At the end of the day, the things I have accomplished should not be overshadowed by the ideal picture I have swimming around in my head somewhere.   

No matter how perfect a picture looks, there’s always a story behind how it got to be that way. I guess I am writing my own. 

 

A.

 

PS—

To those of you that have supported me on this weight-loss journey….you mean more to me than you’ll ever know.