Here it is, the end of 2018. All of us have likely been inundated, by now, with the “Best of” and “Worst of” lists for the past year.
Don’t worry — I’m not going to do that to you. As for me, a year is just a stage in my progress, far from a complete unit. I’ve stopped looking at my journey in units of time, because I’ve discovered that it really doesn’t matter where you start. Because it doesn’t end. Not if you mean it. Not if you’re committed.
It means that change becomes permanent, and when I took that first step in the fall of 2013, I never saw this as a permanent effort — simply because it never had been, before, and I firmly believed I wasn’t capable. Ha! I fooled myself. Good for me!
In 2019, I may well come to the next stage in my health journey, where I learn to adjust and live with the body I now have. I have some post-surgery weight to get back off, but for the first time in 57 years, I find myself in the unique position of knowing where I’ll be. Granted, things often change and life is far from predictable, but I am so certain, now, that the changes I’ve made are permanent, that I can predict with some authority where I’ll be as the new year comes in.
Just add coffee.
Sure, it’s about weight loss. Or it started that way. But what I’ve gained isn’t just power over my health; it’s the understanding that I am capable of being more than I currently am, each and every day. I have the ability to both transform and to return to what I believe my heart is. And as I step into a new year, I am ready to embrace more challenges that bring me closer to where I have always wanted to be.
This doesn’t mean I’m throwing off everything everyone has ever known about me. Nope! More like, returning to center — to the things that are at the heart of me. I have always leaned toward creative expression; through music, through writing, through appreciation of the arts. That doesn’t mean I’m any good at any of those things, but I don’t have to be.
So as I step into 2019, knowing where I’m heading already, I want very much to work on that creative side. I want to reinvest myself in my love of music and of writing, things I haven’t had much time for over the past couple of years, between being fortunate enough to be tremendously busy in my work life as well as dealing with a total of four surgeries (between my surgeries this year and my husband’s surgeries last year).
I find just the thought of exploring these things tremendously exciting, especially as I push my body into better health, abilities, and experiences. These are the reasons to never stop pushing; never stop striving for those things that enrich life. Six years ago, I never imagined myself here, from such a distance; in all fairness to myself, I shouldn’t restrict where I just might up in another six years. It’s time to find out what else I can do, and defy the rules.
(YouTube function currently down.)