Well.............

Would you believe me if I said I did start running and I just got back?? No?? Didn't think so.

I didn't get up the nerve. I feel like a failure....

My sisters ran in the Run for the Cure in September, and I feel awful that I didn't do it with them. Next year, I will....

In 12 days, I will have my inspiration and support team. The love of my life is coming to live with me. He has promised to get me out, to keep me company, to help me be the best I can be. I will keep you informed.

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life.........

I have been trying for a few months now to psych myself up to start a new fitness program. I find excuse after excuse after excuse to NOT do it. I had it all set in my head that I was going to start when I went on vacation to my mom's cabin. Well my mom's sister has turned a corner in her illness and my mom had to go to spend the rest of the time my aunt has left with her. So my vacation to the cabin had to be put aside for this year. Just another good excuse for me to not leap forward and get started. I already have in mind what I want to do.....

I want to run

My sisters both started running and have touted to me the wonderful feelings it invokes. I want to feel those wonderful things. I want to expend all this energy I feel building up inside me, manifesting itself into a restlessness, a nervousness that makes me almost feel like jello inside. I want to feel spent and feel my heart pounding in my chest, getting stronger and healthier with each beat. I want to feel good. I want to be healthy of body, mind and soul. I have a new life starting soon, with an amazingly wonderful man, and I want to be healthy and live a long time with him. I need to be healthy.

I am not unhealthy, I am overweight. I have no chronic health problems.....yet. There is a family history of diabetes, cancer, and even some heart disease. I need to make some physical changes and take control of my own health. I don't want to end up being 50 and needing to take handfuls of medications every day. I have overcome so many of the mental things. I no longer need medications for depression. I have found my self worth, and I think it is in finding this self worth that I have this need to take care of my body. Only one problem....

I have a fear of being outside alone.

It is not gripping fear. It isn't as though I can't go outside. But it does seem, the longer I am outside alone, the more the panic and the need to get INSIDE gets. I go places alone. I can easily go from the house to the car to work or wherever I need to go. As long as I have a clear path and know where I am headed. If I go outside to do anything, I am constantly looking over my shoulder and feeling increasingly nervous, until I just go inside. I need to figure out where this is coming from. I have been like this for over 20 years.

So, tomorrow, I am going to just try to suck it up, and go out and do it. I need to start small with the running anyway, so, I am just going to go out, run until I start to feel nervous, then run home, and then hopefully increase my running time and my tolerance for being outside. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love the help and some encouragement as well.

I have been neglecting this forum lately.....

And I am happy to say that I believe it is because my feelings of self worth have been elevated as of late. I noticed that the focus of this blog had shifted from my own journey to a focus on relationships. I have been in a healthy relationship now for a while. A truly healthy relationship where there is wonderful, meaningful communication, mutual respect, unconditional love, a degree of give and take that is unparalleled. Where we tell each other every day, several times a day, "I love you, you are important to me and I am so very lucky to have you"...and we both truly believe it.

Unlike the past relationships we have both endured, there is no, "I don't sleep with you often because then when I do, you appreciate it more", there is no, "Didn't we already do that?" when trying to kiss the other. There is no waiting for the other shoe to fall, walking on eggshells, feelings of impending doom. There is no wondering, "Is this the day the relationship is over?"

My man, and I have both been through some stuff in the past. We both carry baggage. We are both well aware of our baggage, we are aware of each others baggage and are willing to help carry that baggage. Isn't that is what a relationship should be all about? Accepting the person just as they are, and loving them for only that??

I once read something that really rings true to me.....in all my relationships, and is something I must remember in this new one, and something I must share with my man so he understands it too....

"A woman marries a man
thinking she can change him
but she can't

A man marries a woman
thinking she will never change
but she does"

I have changed so much over the years. I will continue to change. I hope always for the better. I will also never look at my man like a "work in progress"....I can only see him as an evolving masterpiece, a vision of perfection, no matter what metamorphosis takes place.

Relationships.....when to stay, when to go..

It is always such a difficult question when faced with pain, tension, stress in a relationship. To know what road to take. To even acknowledge that one has a choice. We all have choices, free will. When there is pain, the choices are hard to make. The thought processes become muddied. The emotions overtake the logical mind and people make choices and decisions that perhaps are not the best ones for them.

The thing to remember is, the decision to leave can be made unilaterally. If one person decides to leave, there is really nothing the other can or even should do, to try to stop it. The person making that choice may or may not have entered into it with eyes wide open, but there is really nothing the other person can do to open their eyes. It is something that just needs to be accepted. The person who is struggling with that decision should, in all actuality, step back and make sure that it is really and truly the road they want to take, since once started down it, it is really difficult to turn around and go back. The path becomes so littered with broken dreams, broken promises, broken hearts, that navigating your way back is almost impossible. You may make it part way back....you may even make it all the way back, but you will be so battle scarred and changed that what you find when you get back, is not at all what you expected. It is a treacherous road.

The decision to stay and work it out has to be made by both. One cannot decide to work on the relationship and the other just be passive. It takes hard work to stay. It takes being able to look into yourself and into your relationship and come out with a new understanding of each other. A lot of pain has to be re-visited and dealt with. It isn't easy, and it doesn't always work out. Sometimes, at the end of all that work, the decision to leave still has to be made.

It is wonderful when even through the difficulties that a relationship can bring, the underlying reasons that brought the two people together in the first place are still there, and both people can still see them as worth fighting for. I have found someone like that.....finally.

A Sad Day in My History

Stop by my other blog today to see my post about this day....

Did I Just Say That OUT LOUD????

Still searching for peace and enlightenment.....

I have been away a while. I took a small vacation away from the children and went to visit the most amazing man in my world. I always feel so wonderful when I am with him. He looks at me in a way that makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. He loves me so unconditionally. He lifts my spirit and lightens my heart in ways that I have not experienced since he and I were together many years ago. It is good to be with him.

I have some good friends as well. Friends who will tell me exactly what they are thinking, feeling....they will tell me when I have my head up my butt and actually help me pull it out. I cherish those friends. Even though it has been years since I have actually had the fortune to sit down with either of them face to face over a bottle of tequila. We keep up a friendship online through email and chat programs.

My family is a few hours away from me. I miss them and try to spend time with them when I can. My mother was just here for a few days, helping with the kids while I was away, and stayed on to visit. I love her dearly, but I find our time together can be so strained. I feel like she still thinks I am twelve years old. She comes in and takes over my home, rather than just being here and enjoying the time together. I find it difficult to have her in my home, and that makes me sad.

I am fortunate to have wonderful people in my life. My life is full. I have four healthy children and I, myself, have my health. Yet.....I am still searching for that inner peace and enlightenment.....

Will be away for a few days........

Go check out my other blog, Did I Just Say That OUT LOUD???? Post a comment on my 100th post there, and go ahead and ask me some questions on my Open Forum.

Will see you back here after April 24th!