I'm back, writing after months of silence. My blog avoidance was due mostly to laziness. However, there were some significant changes in my life in February that kept me from even considering blogging. My girlfriend, Jessica, was involved in a very serious accident that effectively put the brakes on her career and impacted both of our lives profoundly.
She is unable to fully use her right (dominant) hand and is going through some intensive physical therapy and medical care. I've been trying to maintain balance between work (from home) and doing what I can to help her. It's been a struggle maintaining my sanity because I'm so tired. Still, I know what she's going through is so much worse. We'll both get through it though. She's been making some progress and has encouraged me to get back to blogging. So, here I am, again wondering how to keep this blog going. I still have ideas, but I need to be careful about making this a chore. I think forcing myself to take pictures of all my food made blogging horribly unpleasant, and the outcome of it was that I didn't blog. All I did was post pictures of food. They weren't even good pictures. Once I really started dreading it, they just became big photo dumps of the most boring meals ever.
My whole goal with taking pictures of food was to keep track of what I was eating. It worked, but it became too cumbersome and boring. I'm not going to make that mistake again., I do want to track my habits (food, exercise, etc.), but I am going to ease into it this time. That's my plan anyway.
Friday, April 22, 2011 was my 40th birthday. While this is definitely a milestone, I'm not upset about it like I was about turning 30. At 30, I was busy comparing myself to other people seeing all the ways that I had failed and didn't measure up. Rather than trying to grow as a person, all I could do was compare myself to others and see how my perfectionism had stunted my personal growth. Rather than learn from that, I let it get me down. This has been a struggle in my life, as there are many people who have been more disciplined than I've been at achievement and personal growth.
At 40, I feel like I've reached a point where I can stop putting energy into these comparisons. I am who I am. I will be who I will be. There is a lot that I want to accomplish and now is the time. No more excuses. It's time to do it.
I am setting goals for myself. I am learning to stop caring about what others think about me. I am growing for myself. I am doing things I've never had the courage to do before. It's time for me to be me....not the me that I want others to see but rather the me that I truly want to be. I don't know exactly what that means, but I am going to find out. This is going to be a lesson in finding out who I really am..
