Today Is A New Day - Just Like Tomorrow

Today is the first day of the new year. Three hundred and sixty-six days (leap year guys) from the day we collectively looked at 2012 as a new beginning and celebrated the possibilities of that new beginning. Taken on its own, it is no different than tomorrow or the next day. Today’s significance is arbitrary; based solely on our current system of measuring the earth’s trip around the sun.

There is nothing magical about this day. Nothing about today will make me a better person. That better person has to be created inside of me; I cannot rely on the day itself.

Besides, that is a lot of pressure for one day. Just like that, I am supposed to change into this idealistic version of myself. A few hours ago I was a disappointing version that was inexcusably flawed, but now I am going to be perfect from today on!

Not that I don’t see the benefit of having a day like today in our culture. It is good to have a tangible starting line. But it might be beneficial to look at each day as a new beginning; a chance to inch toward that person you eventually wish to become so that it becomes more like a process and less like an ultimatum.

I do like to use today as a starting line though. It is convenient, even if it is arbitrary.

Last year, like the past seven years, I made a series of goals to be achieved in 2012 in an effort to inch toward the person I wish to become. Today is the day for me to reflect on the progress toward those goals and set new goals for the possibility that is 2013.

Last year’s goals were to:

• Not have any energy drinks – Done. I did not have a single energy drink last year and I feel really good about that.
• Only have one soda a week – Well I made it to June on this one, but slipped when I needed a little extra caffeine to work through a four day leadership seminar with only five hours sleep in four nights. An understandable slip. I tried a few times to start over with it, but I gave up after several slips in the following months and decided to wait for the new starting line and asses the goal at this time.  It may come down to an all or nothing attitude with these kinds of items.
• Lose the 20 pounds I’ve gained since I broke my knee – I actually lost 30 pounds by June!  Grant it I have since gained 10 pounds, but that puts me at 20 pounds and a success in my book.
• Write a blog once a week – I managed to pen 36 entries here last year. Given that there are 52 weeks in a year, I ended up being 8 shy of my goal. But the idea behind the goal was to write more and get my thoughts, memories and experiences on paper (so to speak) so that I would always have them. I took a stroll through some of them over the last couple days and came across several items that I had already forgotten had happened. However mundane some of them might have been, they would have been lost forever but now I will always be able to remember this time in my life . . . so I consider 36 entries a success.
• Write a Novel in November – As November crept up on me, I found myself stressing about this item a lot. I didn’t like that pressure so as other items that I wanted to do built up around me, I decided to back off that goal.  Maybe one day I will write a novel and maybe I won’t.  Right now it is just not a priority and if it does become a priority, I don’t believe setting such a stringent deadline will be appropriate for me.  But I did get a few ideas for a story out of it and I did get to share a couple shorter stories with you all.

It certainly was not my most successful year in terms of reaching the goals that I have set out for myself, but it was forward momentum. That forward momentum is always a success in my book.

Now I must evaluate my progress and decide what my goals for this year should be. After careful thought throughout the year, I have decided on the following.

• One soda a week – I have a new approach that I wish to try to see if I can make this happen or determine if moderation just is not an option for me when it comes to soda
•  No beer – I am not nixing all alcohol from my life this year. But I recently found out I had an allergy to baker’s yeast. Apparently there is a difference between baker’s yeast and brewer’s yeast and I did not test positive for a brewer’s yeast allergy. But I am still having issues that I believe are allergy related that I have yet to get under control. So this is an experiment to see if I feel better with no brewer’s yeast in my system too.
• Visit my grandparents in Colorado at least once – It is really bad that it has come down to making this an actual goal. But I have created quite a busy life for me and that has led to me taking for granted that they are there.  I need to make more of an effort to spend time with my family and this is part of that determination.
• Visit my grandma at least 6 times – I envision an every other month sort of deal here for the same reasons stated previously
• Visit my sister in Australia – My sister is taking a year to study in Australia!  I had a friend working over there for awhile and was to slow to take advantage of that opportunity to see a new place. I will not make that mistake twice.
• Catalog my music - I am to the point where having a list of all the music I have and the mediums I have them in would be convenient - and it sounds like a lot of fun!  

And that is that. I made no goals to continue in any manner with this blog.  It is my hope that I will continue to use this medium, but maybe it won’t be as often. Certainly I would like to do the same semi-daily updates for my trip to Australia that I did with my European adventure. I guess time will tell.

Either way, I don’t think I will be posting the links to each post on my social media feed.  I got a little uncomfortable with the ‘hey look at me’ perception that I felt from doing that. Those that are interested know it is here. It has been a worthy adventure and I thank you all for sharing it with me.

Until next we meet

Amazing what a year can bring!

It has been a while since I made it on here to do one of these.  Life got a little hectic there for a while.  It can get a little hard to get back into the swing of things once you have taken time off of something.  I had the time to do one of these for the last week or two, but couldn’t get motivated.  It isn’t like I didn’t have enough material to write about – I just had no desire to do it.

. . . so what if it messes up one of my goals for this year.

But now I am back and I have to decide which topic, of the many topics I could write on, do I choose?  I could talk about the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday.  But whose mind am I really going to change? And I fear all it will do is serve to further divide – that is the last thing this country needs. I’ve spent the last month or two entrenched in HOBY, I could write more than a couple blogs on that.  But I fear that I already talk way too much about HOBY to my non-HOBY friends and readers.  I believe I have lost at least 30 pounds since December/January by eating more often, but healthier, and exercising more.  And I feel better than I have in a long time, now that I have healed from all of my injuries.

Maybe I will write a little about all of them since they all kind of tie in together . . . except for the Supreme Court’s decision because, let’s face it, I am just plane tired of both sides bashing each other – aren’t you?

Almost a year ago I took my first trip to Chicago to volunteer, for the first time, at the World Leadership Congress (WLC).  It is the culminating event each year for HOBY, which I have been heavily involved with on and off since 1994, when I was a sophomore in high school and had the honor of participating in the local Arizona seminar.  It was an incredible experience and I am pretty sure I got more out of the WLC than the sophomores did.

But there was at least one issue that made me slightly uncomfortable (to say the least). I was the heaviest I have ever been in my life . . .

Let’s back up a little.  In January of 2011, I had an unfortunate kickball accident (Yes, the same sport we all played in second grade – get your laughs out now) where I broke my knee and sprained my ankle really bad.  Two months later I had another unfortunate accident dancing a jig at a Flogging Molly’s concert (again, get your laughs out now) and broke my hand.

Needless to say, I was a little more sedentary than I am used to and, let’s face it, feeling a little sorry for myself about my situation.  Several months passed and I was still unable to do much on my knee; I was beginning to think that my knee would never fully recover . . . and frustration added to my depression.  Well, all the lack of exercise combined with all of the same bad eating habits I learned when I was a young adult added up to the fattest me I have ever been. 

My shorts and pants, which I purposely buy a little loose around the waist, barely fit anymore.  I had to put away many of the smaller large shirts I had because I didn’t like the way they fit on me anymore and replace them with some XL shirts.  This did not make me feel better about my situation.

Now back to WLC, each volunteer and ambassador received three shirts to be worn throughout the eight days (don’t worry they were washed before they had to be worn again).  My application still had me down for a large shirt from previous years and I had not thought to change it (the LSC of the AZ seminar went by what we told her rather than the application so I got an XL there).

Two of the three shirts ran on the small side of large and I did not like wearing them at all!  Each morning, when I put those two shirts on, I would pull on them and stretch them out as best I could (without ripping them) in an effort to keep them from being form fitting and exposing my lack of form . . . it led to more than a few uncomfortable moments.

Fast-forward to a few days after WLC and my facebook account was blowing up with activity from excited and inspired sophomores ready to take on the world and already talking about how much they miss everyone . . . and that is when I saw it. Amidst all the likes, and comments, and tags – I was tagged in a photo with one of the ambassadors from my group.  Tagged for all of the facebook world to see was me . . . and my man-boob.  I was horrified!  I desperately wanted to untag myself.  But she was very happy about the photo and her experience and I didn’t want to send a message that I did not want people to see me with her by untagging myself after she had tagged me.

It is really hard to even post this here.

Alright, let’s make use of the sandalmarks time machine again and head back to 6^th grade.  I was visiting my friends and my uncle at a school I used to go to during my current school’s spring break (yes, I spent my spring break at another school – commence the nerd comments).  I was talking with an old friend of mine and a couple other guys. We were discussing a girl or a female teacher (funny, how now I can’t remember which) and the topic of her small breast size came up.  My friend told me that I should run over there, flash her, and ask if she was jealous . . . everyone laughed at the idea.  And I did too. But inside I became insecure about my chest.

Now I had been insecure about my weight before this, but I cannot think of an earlier time when I was insecure about my chest.  It has since probably become my biggest insecurity (definitely about my body).  It is funny how one small off-handed comment can be so detrimental to a person’s psyche. I am almost positive that he didn’t even mean to insinuate that I had man-boobs.

I bring this up so that you all can get an idea of just how mortified I was to see that photo on the internet with me tagged in it. But I am glad it happened.  That was my catalyst.

Since then I have started to eat healthier and exercise and I have lost around 30 pounds.  In fact, I am less than 5 pounds shy of when I was running marathons 4 years ago, which coincidentally is my high school weight. I feel better than I have in a long time!  And I owe a lot of that to the photo of me on facebook.

I feel a lot better now!

 I am still tagged in that photo. I won’t untag it either. 

On more than one occasion, people have said that I am brave for my willingness to air personal details of my life on such a public forum. I have a feeling people might say so again after reading this entry.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a huge part of me that is telling me to scrap this entire entry right now while there is still time (maybe that is the real reason it has taken me three weeks to sit down and write this entry).  

‘You are just giving people ammunition to hurt you!  What are you thinking?! Protect yourself.’

And yes, there is a chance that some people will see this and use it to hurt me in an effort to bring me down.  But I refuse to dwell on the negatives in people.  I will always believe that we have the capacity to be better.

I mean, shame on me for taking part in a conversation that poked fun of a woman or young lady about the size of her breasts in a moment of weakness; struggling with my own insecurities.  I am better than that. I refuse to let my insecurities keep me from becoming the great person I was created to become anymore.  Instead, I will put them out there, in black and white, for the whole world to see. 

Who knows, maybe I will help just one person struggling with their insecurities move past them toward the person they are meant to become too!  That possibility alone is worth facing all the negative possibilities that the world can throw at me.

Until next we meet.