The New Journey

 

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. A journey back to basics has a total new meaning for me. I still have dreams of being debt free and losing weight and live a healthy lifestyle, but the circumstances of my life have change.

Here I am at the bottom of my life: broken. I'm broken physically, because I’m currently sick. I'm broken emotionally, because I’m heartbroken after losing my husband and being in the middle of a divorce. Broken financially, because my debt has not been cleared but my income had decreased. Broken spiritually in front of my Creator who is the only that can put back the pieces of my broken life.

This will be a true journey of coming out of the ashes and becoming whole. I know this blog has been abandoned, but now that has a different purpose and that now I have more time in my hands I will be able to show the reconstruction that my life will bring. Even my house is broken. I walked around today and it looks like a disaster zone. Even the locksmith that came to change the locks last night thought that I had just moved in. My soon to be ex had packed half of the house to take it with him, but at plans changed, now I have a wreck of boxes half way packed, walls damaged by nights of anger, broken furniture that witness my darkness nights and dirty dishes from his last week of meals.

I’m coming out naked. I will take pictures of everything and post them. I don’t have anything to hide, but more than for my reader’s amusements, I want to able to look back and see where I came from. See the before and after pictures of God’s work in my life and my efforts to make it all new.

Last night I closed a book in my life, the books of sorrows and wills. I want God’s will for me; I know his ways will always be better than my ways. Allow these to be the pages that allow the story of this new book, it will be the book of restoration, the book of real love, the book of Hope!

Baby Steps

The reality is that our budget is still a struggle. My dear husband has been able to secure a second job, but it’s PRN, so now he has two jobs that we never know how many hours a week will represent. It still should be more money, which is good to get us out of this hole. I feel we’re just still catching up, instead of making progress. Just one day at a time.

I’ve lost 15 pounds! I know it’s a good accomplishment, but it’s still not enough for me. The difference between this time and any prior attempts is that, even though I’m not with the same fire I started, I’m really going to do for life and that’s engrained in my life. I’ve done a lot of changes, little ones that can be considered a “back to basics” thing.

I’ve changed my milk. – All my life I use to drink 2%. I adamantly thought that I could not go under that because in my mind it would taste nasty. I heard that it would cut my calories and take 50% of the milk fat. So I tried it and now I’m sold, 1% milk it is
Whole wheat- I have successfully eliminated the “whites”, bread, rice and pasta. For the rice, I though it was going to be a struggle because it’s so hard to cook. I found pre-bagged rice that it’s boiled in 10 minutes… a life saver! Pasta, I’ve been trying to limit them to a minimum. I use bean sprouts for soups instead of noodles. It gives you the impression of noodles, but it’s a vegetable. I make my own muffins and they’re all done with whole wheat flour.
Potatoes- I can’t say they’re totally out of my life, but I’ve been using more sweet potatoes than white ones lately.
I’m working out. I know I need to do more of this, but as of right now I’m doing a minimum of two days a week for 30 minutes. I usually do the 3rd and 4th day, but 2 has been my absolute minimum.

Amongst my accomplishments in this area I have to say:
My sugar levels have normalized.
My hormones have seemed to work better
I sleep better
Since I’m doing a lot of food planning, my food budget has become better
Despite our struggles, this has helped our marriage to be better and make us work more as a team. This has been a big plus. I think we had not realized how far we where from each other until we started this journey, but the gap is closing. Thank you Lord!

Talking about the Lord, this is still our area of weakness. Hubby’s schedules have kept us from being able to be active at church. I think that we can do more on our daily lives to give God more of our individual time and we don’t. To me is sad to say that, I wouldn’t want to “schedule God” like I have scheduled everything else, but I guess that would be better than what I’m doing right now, which is give HIM crumbs of my time. I don’t forget and I do appreciate everything HE does for me, every single day. I talk and sort of pray, my way… but I do feel like I still need to do more and get closer.

As this year unfolds, this is just February, so I guess I’m not doing too badly for what we have though out to be a 2 yr plan of revamping our lives. I know my OCD self thinks, that I have not done enough. I have to remind myself that it will be ok and that if God allows me life, we will be living the basic, peaceful, loving life we desire.

Finding Love

Part of my journey back to basics includes, going back to myself. A self that if I think about it I never had, but I recognize I was supposed to have as a human being. I was born with a purpose and I know that I saw it for a minute, but then I lost it. I was chasing the wrong things and by the time I realized it, I was too far gone.

I’ve never loved myself. I was watching Oprah last night on my computer and she said “it’s not an issue of weight; it’s an issue of love”. She’s absolutely right, the question is do you love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Since I’ve never loved myself before, this is a journey to find that love in me. I use to tell people that you can’t give what you don’t have and right now, I’ve been giving empty love.

Part of this journey has been returning to my spiritual path. I was going for two years, but didn’t join their membership. In December, in a knee jerk reaction my husband spoke for both of us and we joined a small church that we went to visit. Although I have expressed a lot of resistance to that quick decision, in my heart of hearts I know that it was the right decision. We are able to interact with others at a more personal level. My husband feels better, more supported, more committed. Even when I have not joined any committees or groups I feel at home. Now I have to work on my prayer life.

Physically I’ve been doing well. I’m scared that some curve will throw me out of my streak. I’ve been working out 3-4 times a week. I’ve gotten organized with my meals and have been cooking healthy meals on Sunday and then all I have to do is reheat for the rest of the week. Tiredness and stress are no longer an excuse to overeat. I have eliminated alcohol drinking, not that I was an habitual drinker, but I have to admit that whenever I had a stressful day, my first thought was to that glass of wine at home. Not anymore, if I have a special occasion where I wanted to have a drink I will, but I refuse to treat my body like that. Exercise has helped me deal with my stress levels better. My joke is that it’s not due to exercise making me feel better, but because I’m too tired to care about petty things

I keep reminding myself that this is a journey and not a sprint. It’s scary because I’ve had similar goals before and I’ve failed. I think the difference in my commitment is simply that I am better equipped and that I have made the decision to do this for ME.

Basics in Love

At the door of an anniversary, just like at the end of the year, one tends to review what we did during this past time. This was a challenging year for us: emotionally, spiritually and financially. We survived. We’re still here and in love. We grew as individuals and as a couple.

I think for me, is learning to move forward. We have to learn to not repeat the same mistake.

We had a conversation this morning on how our relationship has been transformed. Yes, there have been a lot of positive improvements, but we’ve lost some of the humph.

Our commitment this weekend is to review and remember the good things that have happened this last year and definitely go back to the core values and back to the basics of romance. Re-light that passionate candle that it’s in us, which are not dead; it just has been swamped by the daily routine and the growing process.

I see why people renew their vows. It’s the way to renew the commitment for lifetime to fight the good fight with your life partner.