Forgiveness

It’s officially been a full week in 2013! How are your resolutions going? Mine? Some are great! Others, like working on my blog more, ha, not so great. Note the typo that still exists in my title. (As an English major this is driving me up the wall!) The hubs and I made a sort of goal list for 2013. It’s long and intimidating, so we decided to also layout time frames for when we hope to accomplish/do the things on our list. This seemed to make it less daunting. Of course, I still came out of the gate full steam and had all these grand plans and ideas for how I was going to change and be better in every way! So, when I found myself falling back into old habits or not having worked on some things that were on my long list I suddenly realized I needed to gain a bit of perspective, IT’S ONLY BEEN A WEEK!!!! I also realized that I maybe needed to add something to my resolutions list: FORGIVENESS. It’s so easy to get down on ourselves when we set out to start something new and then struggle with it. I know I’m not the only one out there, maybe some of you are finding that you may need to add forgiveness to your resolutions as well. In my head it’s easy to be logical and recognize that I’m not perfect, nor will I ever be, as well as, change takes time and routines aren’t formed in a day. Of course than this nagging voice comes in and I start comparing myself with others, which makes me feel bad about myself and the fact that I haven’t fixed that stupid typo. As I’m in bed typing all this, that right, I’m writing a post at night and not at work like a responsible person (point for me!), I actually find myself laughing at my personal criticisms and what things I struggle with. I know a lot of people whose biggest struggle is with their weight and dieting. Once upon a time, I was one of those people, but then in 2008 I reached my heaviest and found out that not only was I a little over 30% body fat, but at 23 years old I was just south of the high cholesterol border! It was a wake-up call for me, so I joined Weight Watchers and made a lifestyle change. I’m still no stick, far from it, and honestly, I just don’t have the mental drive to ever work hard enough to have rock hard abs, but I’m healthy. What does this story really have to do with anything? Its part of what I’m finding so funny about myself right now. It took me almost 2 years to reach my goal weight and be happy with whom I was physically. And I became the kind of person that, when it came to food and making the right choices, I was able to take it one week, one day, and one meal at a time. I didn’t get down on myself when I had that piece of candy, and I certainly didn’t say “screw it” and eat three boxes of candy. I learned to not get down on myself or deny myself something I wanted that wasn’t the best for me. It was an amazing feeling when I realized how I had changed. Now, as I work to take off the extra 15lbs I put on during me emotional downhill spiral of 2012, I find I still have that mentality and my food and weight resolutions are the ones I’m sticking to the most. Yet here I am laughing at myself because I still have that wrong mentality when it comes to things that are not nearly as important as my health. But, in writing this, I’m hoping that I can start to forgive myself for not done, or even started on, every single thing on my great big list. Again I say to myself, IT’S ONLY BEEN A WEEK!!!! I actually struggled with myself to even write this post, not because I was afraid that I would expose some weakness to strangers, I didn’t really care about that, but because was this close to saying “f*** it” because I didn’t really have anything exciting to share or fixed that damn typo. But then I found myself reaching for the remote to watch an hour or so of TV before falling asleep and instead decided I could send that time aimlessly rambling on my blog instead, and you know what? I’m glad I did! Because, while there was no real direction or goal for this post, I find myself at the end here feeling slightly renewed in my energy to be better and the knowledge that tomorrow is a new day and another chance to get back on the new routine horse. I find myself, forgiving, and it’s made me happy, which is the whole reason I even started blogging; because it made me happy to do so. I hope you all are not giving up easily on your resolutions. Is there something that you resolved to do that you haven’t started on this week? If so, don’t worry, there’s always tomorrow.

FYI: I haven’t fixed the stupid typo yet because I haven’t quite decided on where I want to go with my blog facelift, as well as, I usually make my title with Photoshop, which I only have on my computer at work, and I have not found the time at the office to work on it. Sorry if it’s been bothering you. If you can’t tell it’s been driving me crazy too. Hopefully that’ll be a project I can take care of this weekend.