The Changed Me

Doesn't that sound like I'm suddenly changed and enlightened?

I'm not.

But I did a bit of reflection and realized, without realizing it, how much I've changed, for the better, but they are all, except for the first on the list, internal changes that haven't yet manifested externally.

In other words, I've changed a lot on the inside, and now some of those changes are beginning to affect me 'outside'.

Since moving to Colorado, I've lost about 20 pounds (and we shall not discuss how I managed to put on those 20 pounds without really even noticing it...) going down two and a half sizes in the process... so close to three... That is the biggest internal change that is clear and obvious.

Here are some that are only evident to me, and that's only because it came to me in a moment of sudden insight.

I used to whine I had no friends in close proximity. I still don't, but I realized, I don't need friends in close proximity so much as I need to like me. It wasn't that I didn't like me, it was that I was very unsatisfied with what was me.

I used to obsess about writing... must...be..published... now, I write for the sake of my stories and the love of my tales. I guarantee I will now finish stories. I lost the most important ingredient to successful writing... letting the story be what it is. I would force it to a convention that I didn't like. Writing the story I want to tell, well, much more fun. And in doing that, I realized, the writing that is true to me, not the genre I have been trying to write in. Feel like slapping myself for that I do.

I wanted to do everything right. I wanted the house to be clean, the grades to be A's, the stories published, the dinner a culinary delight and enough time for it all. HA. Now, I realize the grades can be A's, the stories one day potentially published, and well, frankly, we don't have a lot of company and pizza works for us all.

I used to obsess that my kids just weren't like other kids. They aren't. So what? So I will never be a soccer mom because my kids don't do soccer. Nor will I be posting Drama Girl's grades. So my daughter has ADHD and acts a bit immature and needs more hands on parenting. Whatev. Right? She's mine. We'll do our own thing. The boys? Who knows who they'll be. But they're mine.


So, overall, I'm calmer about things. I have an inner confidence I seemed to have misplaced. Exercising has made my brain less cluttered somehow. Oh that didn't happen at first, but it's been about six or seven months of exercising a good hour a day for three days a week, and something has changed. My mind seems, lighter... full of oxygen.... not toxic....

I've almost finished my degree.

And, to be honest, I'm getting bored at home.

Ruh-Roh.