2nd Time's a Charm

When I left you this time last year, my last words were asking you to try and pick something you could achieve in the New Year that was ahead of us, and to concentrate on just accomplishing that one thing. I asked you to stop making lists, or setting the bar too high, to not set yourself up for failure right off the bat; but instead give yourself a chance to achieve success and be proud of reaching your goals.

My personal goal was to get healthier, rekindle my walking program, and to hopefully lose some weight during my attempt. I wasn’t as successful as I would have liked; I stalled out a couple of different times because of fractured/sprained ankles that ended up in two months of boot wearing and I sure don’t mean those pretty fancy kind that women wear, and then there was the cold/cough that would take me down for about a month; but I did walk for long stretches of time and I ended up losing right at about twenty pounds.

Now twenty pounds is but a chip off the boulder that needs to go, but the point is, I was working on it, was dedicated to it, and was somewhat successful at it, no matter what happened in between to slow me down.

So do you know what all that means? Well, mostly it means, a goal not completed must be continued. The walks must resume, the stamina re-booted, and the dedication to success re-fueled. The craving for things I shouldn’t be eating derailed, and a healthier food diet followed. And I can do all of those things, I know I can; I just have to put my mind to it.

However, I am going to go against what I already said to you, the advice I already tried to instill in your thought processes; I am going to add one more goal to my New Year’s resolution list. It may not seem like such a big deal to most, but I am terrified to stay alone at night by myself. I just recently had to experience that and although I survived it, it was far from easy and my house was lit up like the Fourth of July all night long. Both my husband and my son just happened to be out of town at the same time, and as rare as that happens, it won’t be long before my youngest son empties the nest and those occurrences may be a lot more often than I like, as my husband’s job takes him out of town on a pretty regular basis.

I come by it honest; my mother tells me her mother was also a “scaredy-cat” all of her grown life. But I’m determined to get control of my paralyzing fears, and gain better comfort in being able to close my eyes in the darkness without the need for a lit-up airport runway in the middle of my home.

Happy New Year folks; make the goals simple and achievable, then make them happen.