Brand New Day

I still marvel at how much my life has changed in a year. One of the biggest lessons I have learned the past year is to hold on loosely to everything in life. You cannot cling to anything or even deceive yourself to think that ultimately you have any real control. We can all manage how we react and perceive things, but control....that is a self delusion to try to control things or people. The past year has illuminated all of my self delusions and denials that I had been clinging to. I see myself and life so differently now. I remember when I moved into my big house in Connecticut a little over five years ago. The girl born in Inglewood, California had gotten the American dream, granite counter tops and all. Then with each year, the facade started to crumble. I had to slowly acknowledge that I had been unhappy for years. I realized that I had to face my own pretenses and decide if the facade was more important than truly being happy. It was a decision I had to make. My inner self was crying, lonely and struggling with major life decisions. I did not want to cause hurt to anyone else...but in preserving the status quo, I was dying inside. I also realize now, how I had been on a never ending treadmill, not even recognizing how blind I was to the life I had been leading. I buried myself in work, seeing too many clients and avoiding the pain in my home life. I look back now and cannot believe how much I worked....somewhat avoiding facing the real issues in my life. The moment it all caught up with me was when I fell (passed out) on the pavement in front of my office, a little over three years ago. That moment was my awakening. I passed out because of low blood sugar and low blood pressure. The bottom line was that I had been on automatic pilot, taking care of everyone except myself. I vowed to take my life back from that moment on. "Let the chips fall," as they say...because as I began to take care of myself, emotionally and physically, my personal life began to unravel. It is amazing how long we can delude ourselves and keep busy with superficial stuff, just to avoid facing our emotions. I had avoided for way too long. My life is so incredibly different now. My house is a mess, I have tons of boxes to unpack, pictures to hang, piles of laundry and a million errands to run...but it's okay. When I moved in to my previous houses, all I could focus on was how things looked and how to decorate each room. Now I want to live life. The way the house looks is not nearly as important as the quality of how I live my life. Of course I still want things to look nice, but I'm not preoccupied with focusing on the external anymore. The internal me is much more important than whether I need to vacuum or not. It will all get done in the end. The new me bought season passes to Disneyland so that the kids and I can experience magic whenever we want. The heck with a clean house, I'd rather go play. I live life one day at a time now, enjoying whatever life has for me each and every moment. It is truly a new day and with that said, I am grateful for the opportunity to see life and myself from a renewed perspective. "With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts"...(Eleanor Roosevelt).