We can not start over but we can create a new beginning.

For the last decade perhaps longer, I've felt overwhelmed and out of control. It's felt as if I was one of those balls tumbling around erratically in the lottery cage with very slim odds that I'd end up on top of the pile. I've written before about how I spend half my time yearning for the days when my life seemed perfect, when I felt in control and as if I was nearing the top of that mountain called success. Then my mom died and the life I thought I was so in control of the path I thought I'd mapped so perfectly began to crumble. I think my life probably still appeared to be running smoothly and I looked like I had it all together but I felt as if I was just treading water in a vast, endless ocean full of sharks and other dark and unknown threats. It took another decade before I stopped trying to climb up. I was tired, emotionally exhausted by my silent battle with an enemy no one else could see but me. Another decade and my tumble down that mountain finally ended with me crashing to the bottom, broken and struggling to piece myself back together.

The saddest part is, I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way. I think we all tend to think everyone else has their life pulled together especially in these days of social media providing us a picture perfect view of others lives but I doubt reality lives up to the edited view we're given. Everything is filtered now, photoshopped and perfectly lit with all the bad parts cropped out but everyone's life has flaws and there is probably no one who has a life that lives up to their expectations.

I think that's one reason I started this blog. Sure, reason number one was to help myself to improve myself and get my life back in order but I also wanted to let others know, they are not alone in this struggle we call life. My niece once asked me why I was always telling stories on myself where I came up short or did dumb things. Well, for one thing, you have to learn to laugh at yourself but also, I want people to know, it's okay to mess up because we all do it. True, some like me seem to do it more than others, lol, but I do provide a nice cautionary tale.

I apologize for being all over the place with this. I'm just trying to work it out in my own head. I've realized lately that I'm never going to regain either the body or the life that I had twenty or so years ago and I have to accept that before I can move forward. But I've also realized that, just because I'm past sixty, my life isn't over. Yes, for the past year as I attempted to gain a foothold on this new climb, I've either been spending my time looking back to what was or imagining how things could be if I'd just get my life together. Perhaps my stalemate with this challenge comes from knowing, in the back of my mind, that I will never achieve either of these "perfect" goals. My past is a lot like those perfect pictures of people's lives on Instagram and Facebook, the memories are heavily edited. Sure there were good times, new adventures and experiences and I was in good shape with a body whose skin didn't sag but there were struggles then, too. I just gave the appearance to others that everything was okay. In our memories and our expectations we live in airbrushed perfection. But perfection is unattainable because it is a myth, it doesn't exist.

So, where does that leave me? Learning to appreciate the here and now no matter how scruffy or dirty or flawed it is. If we can't love ourselves or our lives or homes or jobs in all of their broken beauty, how will we love them once we piece them back together? It's like my house, which is in dire need of repair and renovation (a tree fell through the roof for heaven's sake, I haven't had a real working kitchen for over ten years and the foundation problems have been repaired but the front porch still needs to be rebuilt and what about that ten year old leak under my kitchen sink that Steve keeps promising to get to?), we can fix all of the problems but the scars are still going to be there. I can lose weight, firm up those muscles and be stronger and healthier but it's still a sixty-three year old body and the wear and tear and abuse I've put it through, for all of those years, is going to still show.

That brings me back to where I started this novella, we can't start over but we can create a new beginning. And the first step is accepting where you're starting from. We can still appreciate the past and all of the joy and heartaches that brought us to this point but we have to stop grasping for it. We can still have our dreams but we can't reach them if we spend all of our time fantasizing about what might be, what could be. To begin again, we have to have a starting point and that is the now and with each step forward, we will still be in the now. This moment in time is all we have. It is not infinite. It will be gone in a moment so don't waste it trying to live in the past or the future. Live for now, do what is at hand and then take a step forward and repeat. Who knows how far we can go. We really have no control over life and all of the planning in the world can't guarantee success or progress. The only chance we have to change our future is to live in the now and make the most of what's right in front of you.

On the Keto Diet Again

Nothing else has been working so I'm trying keto once again. Brad, one of the trainers at the gym, told me that I shouldn't be concerned that the scale refuses to drop (I did go below 170 one day but it went right back up the next and I haven't seen 169 again :( ). He told me that I'm gaining muscle and slimming down and those should be my measure....even though my BMI still has me obese at 29%, I am just one % away from Normal/Healthy. But you know I have to keep those darn lists even though my diet is the only place that the lists actually keep me on track. So, my plate now looks like this:

Anytime Fitness Loudon (1987 Highway 72, Loudon, TN)

June 17 at 11:06 AM · 

Take a moment to read Loudon ATF member Sande Jones Elkins’ Monday Motivation story. Our Ageless Fitness program not only can strengthen you physically, 💪🏼but strengthen you emotionally 😊as well. When is the last time someone has noticed your positivity? ✨
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When I started working out with Josh Hensley, my trainer at AF in Loudon, I had hardly exercised at all for at least twenty years and I had been progressively putting on weight that entire time. I'd also suffered some major losses and had life changes that had left me lethargic and depressed. I had lost my enthusiasm for life and the things, people and activities that once brought me joy. I basically felt as if I'd been hiding out more than l had lived for at least the last five years or so. When I turned 63 back in November of last year, I decided that it was time for a change. It was time to get my life back. I decided to join the gym on the recommendation of my neighbor, Leesa. She'd been going there for almost a year and had made tremendous progress. I didn't hold out much hope that I would show that much improvement since she was already a much more active person than I was but I signed up for the Ageless Fitness program in January and decided to give it my all. Now, it is five months later and even I'm astounded by how far Josh has brought me. I'm leaner, I'm stronger, I'm more flexible. I have more energy and endurance. My health has improved, my blood pressure, which had been rocket high in the beginning, is now perfect. My confidence and self esteem is bolstered every time I run into someone I haven't seen in six months and they express amazement at how much I've slimmed up and how much healthier and happier I appear. But best of all, I have regained my life. I'm finding myself not just happier but actively participating in life again. The photo is of me hiking with my best bud, Bodie, this past weekend. I'm loving my life and loving myself and I have to thank Josh and the structured and personal workouts he's provided for the last five months for most of that. Thank you, Josh and thank you, Anytime Fitness-Loudon. I'm so happy that I made that decision to join your Ageless Fitness program; the results have been only positive and I keep improving every day.

It's epiphany time again. Perhaps the reason I'm so tired is my brain keeps looking for solutions to my problems while I'm trying to sleep. Sometimes, that actually works in my favor. Various professionals over the years have been telling me I need to set out a plan to reach my goals. That doesn't always work for me. It's not that I'm not a planner. I spend more time making a plan than I actually do trying to execute those steps I've laid out. Even though I'm many months of work away....if not years, let's be honest.....from getting this house back in order, I not only know where how I'm going to arrange the furniture, I know where I'm hanging art and placing accessories. I've sketched out each room numerous times. It seems to give me some satisfaction just to imagine what our home will look like once all this work is done but, at the end of the day, I'm never any closer to getting the rooms cleaned out in order to just start the first step of painting. I lay out plans on how I'm going to do this and it isn't just a filled calendar by days, I work it out to the hour! Yes, we've already established over the past few months that I tend to be a wee (cough-cough) bit obsessive. It's just that, years of piling up boxes, however orderly, is still clutter and clutter tends to clog up your mind as well as obstruct actual tasks. I have admitted to being overwhelmed but I don't think that is the only problem. I admit to having a problem with time management no matter how many daily schedules I compose. So, what is my problem? I need a job. That may sound like an odd statement considering that one of my goals when I started this year (actually it's been a goal for the past two or three years if not longer) was getting back to work by clearing out my long neglected workshop and turning the room we are currently using as our bedroom into a beautifully sunlit studio space. How much progress have I made toward those goals? If I have to answer that, you are either new to this blog/journal or you haven't been paying attention. Even though I've been committed to the task of getting fitter and healthier since January and I thought that might lead to discipline and progress in other areas of my life, it hasn't. So, all of those afore mentioned professionals who gave me that "make a list" advice also keep telling me to be patient but patience ain't paying the bills nor getting me moving any earlier in the mornings. So, after another late start thanks to another sleepless night (I did everything right this time, took my magnesium and an OTC pain med, didn't drink more than a sip of water, put down my book early and got comfortable, a good nights sleep was not to be. I was woken up in the middle of the night by an elderly friend calling in a panic to ask me why it was so dark outside. I had to assure her that it was not the middle of the day and the end of time had arrived but rather the middle of the night and she'd simply dozed off in front of the TV. Then, I had to try and get back to sleep after our long conversation finally ended an hour later.), I had my epiphany. I realized my life had no direction. I have no problem getting to appointments or the gym on time because I know I have to be there promptly but the rest of my life is aimless. I knew I needed to haul water to the horses this morning and start cleaning up my wrecked kitchen but now, it is noon (and daylight this time) and I've accomplished nothing. I haven't even been back to sleep, since Steve woke me up at 4AM, except for a fitful thirty minute nap I practically forced myself into. So, I asked myself why it seems impossible for me to actually accomplish the tasks I set out for myself at the beginning of my day? The answer is simple, so simple that I don't know why it's taken me this long to realize it, I simply DON'T HAVE TO DO THOSE THINGS. I don't have a deadline hanging over my head, I don't have an appointed hour that I have to show up, I don't have anyone but myself to be accountable to. Yes, the tasks at hand are often overwhelming but there are days, I don't even do what is required of me....leading to a lot of eating out. So, even though I've made getting this house back in order my top priority, I think perhaps, I need to get back to work instead. The studio space does not need to be done for that to happen. Yes, the basement has to be sorted out but I've heard this is going to be a rainy weekend so chances are I'll have help getting that done from Steve. Considering how much time I'm now wasting, requiring myself to put in even a few hours of actual (hopefully paying unless all my collectors have grown weary of my empty promises and given up on me) work might just be the catalyst I need to start work on other projects. So, that is the new plan. I will let you know how it goes. I'm hoping that by the end of summer, I can report that I've accomplished a lot more with all of my life goals. Remember my new mantra, "She thought she could and so, SHE DID!"