Room for Growth

In January of this year, before I even knew I was going to move, I decided to focus more on my present and do some decluttering. I decided that I would take out everything in my closets and put it on the floor. I would purge, organize and if took me a month, then so be it. Well, it took about a month, but I did it.

Then I found out about the renovations at my building and how they were raising the rents and kicking people out, etc. and the process of getting this new place started. I was happy at my old place, but this new place is a different level of a fresh start for me.

What I'm finding out is that the more I focus on being in the moment and being present, the more I'm enjoying my life and the more I'm open to possibilities that I didn't expect.

In March, after years and then more recently months of thinking about losing weight and denial about losing weight, I considered Jenny Craig.  I knew that Jenny Craig was supposed to have good tasting food (Nutrisystem is horrible). I also knew that it was my diet that was the key. I had tried losing weight with exercise and it doesn't work that way.

I decided on a Sunday that I was going to do it and I knew that it was one of those decisions that was a done deal. I had decided. I made an appointment for Monday. I'm still doing the program and I know how to adjust when I don't eat the food and I'm confident that I will lose even more than the 32 that I've lost. I feel good about it. It has taught me portion control and that it's not deprivation, it's freedom.

I used to connect food with love. Food with excitement. Food with fun. Now I connect food with hunger. I connect too much food with heaviness and feeling yucky. I find love, fun and excitement in other places.

Once I started my dieting, I started going back to yoga. Yoga is magic. Yoga is also expensive. But with my Fibro, I don't need to be a yoga rock star. I don't need to go 7 days a week. I started going 2 days a week. I bathed in the calm and the energy of studio. The gorgeousness of the now when you are in a pose or just breathing. I opened myself to the lessons of the mat.

In April, after season 7 of The Walking Dead ended, I decided to stop writing for Undead Walking. I loved UW for many reasons when I did it. I never knew I liked writing. I'm not a journalist, but I do enjoy writing about the characters in the show. I also met so many people through UW. It was a great experience.

But one Sunday night it dawned on me that I'd be writing about Fear, which I don't really love and I'd be tethered to Twitter and writing without new episodes of The Walking Dead until October. I thought of that on the Sunday following the end of Season 7 and I quit that night.

Now that I'm in my new place and the unbalanced time of packing and moving is behind me. Now that the chaos of the boxes and the garbage has made way for the serenity of the empty sink and the made bed, I look around and I am in awe of the space that has opened up in front of me.

I have space now to read. To go back to yoga. To go to the pool. To go shopping. To nap. To Tweet with my Twitter pals. To give myself a facial. To think. To daydream.

All because I started the year deciding to focus on the now and to give myself room to grow.