Choices

In my "DAY" job I am often in a place of providing counsel or advice. It is a place I feel I fit - not because I have done it all right but because experience has provided me with a lot of "doing it not-right" situations.  You know - those times when you disappear from the journey on the right path and veer off on one that is full of  manholes - deep pits just waiting for you to fall into them.  It is a strange wisdom that comes from falling - one part embarrassment and one part illumination.

Since I am old, or so my grandson says, I have had my share of falls - in every stage from teenage angst and puppy love to adult choices like education, marriage and divorce.  I have to say the map is so obvious from this viewpoint!  But back there - in my twenty's and thirty's and forty's and fifty's - the trek was uphill, the curves were often hidden and the signs that said "Falling Hazard - Slow Down!" just didn't jump out at me until I was looking back over my shoulder.  By that time the embarrassment or pain or sheer terror had taken hold and the lesson needed to be learned.


Well, here I am - in a fabulous relationship with 60 lbs gone - but wait, I just found 15 of them hiding behind the Christmas chocolate boxes in the office - well five or so anyway.  The other ten kind of latched on to me in tiny ounces sort of like little leeches or sticky burrs - barely noticeable until you pile ten of them in one place - on my gut!  Disgusted - you bet! Angry - yeah, a little.  Frustrated - BIG TIME!  Lesson time - sigh - yes.

Each time I think I am finally on the RIGHT path I manage to take a little detour.  Sometimes a big detour.  It usually means I need to re-balance, re-focus, re-think and revise!  I have lost my mojo, my driving force, my dream - well, maybe not lost it but I misplaced it when I picked up that big bag of anxiety last fall right along with the 4 cubic foot box full of deprivation disease.  But, the dream is still there - that ending to my story I wrote so many months ago.  Wide brush strokes of gold and crimson and deep turquoise; pale pink edges with dribbles of aqua and lilac - a life full of colour and faith in the best health I can muster, a strong determination to make it to the top for that one last view of my story before I relax into my next journey.

It comes down to choices - my choices.  I can go on with this pity party a little longer, pining for what I can't have and scoffing poor substitutions down after midnight like it doesn't count in the dark or I can take charge and find another path to my dream.  Get serious about practicing meditation, yoga, and just plain walking - yes, practice.  Even the walking - fitting it into my schedule again, driving myself out into the cold, crisp winter air to crunch through a winter landscape of ice and snow.  It is time to choose to NOT do it alone; to quit isolating and start sharing - with you, my friends and family, and back to the Weight Watcher community.  Time to choose a new eating plan - make a choice.  After all, it is my dream!