A brand new view...

There is something powerful about letting go of the familiar and opening up to something new.  I knew when I decided to get new glasses back in December 2011 that I was ready to change things up.  I had no idea what sort of changes would be on the way when I gave away my red glasses.  Life became more complicated and significantly harder...I was balancing my job and my family...looking back...I was crisis mode.  I was looking through new lenses only to see the last days of my Grandma while trying not to miss a beat at work.  I saw food...lots of food...that was my comfort and my calm.  Well, food and endless conversations with my Mom and Sister. 

The views of readjusting to a life without care taking responsibilities was harder than one would think.  From mid-March until August 2011, I had no idea how to fill to the time...so there was food...more food...and work.  There is always work.  There is a picture of me on the beach that is seared into my memory from an early August vacation...it was me but it wasn't me.  It wasn't the me that I wanted to be.  I was hiding, completely invisible.

By early September after the winds of a hurricane swept through and cleared my mind, I was ready to start filling my time differently.  I was going to get my calm in new ways...going to the gym, watching soccer, having fun, and eating less.  And work...of course...there is always work.  I fell into a new routine...my sanity time with gym after work.  Watching soccer games on Friday nights and the occasional Tuesday or Thursday...it was motivation to work hard physically, not just mentally.  There were things I had to do outside of my job...I had plans.  Suddenly I didn't feel so invisible and was getting back to me. 

By November, once my routine was set in terms of clocking time with gym, I was ready for another change.  While my new specs had seen me through the hardest of days and the beginning of a transformation, I no longer wanted to hide behind them.  The hour and half at the eye doctor's office while I struggled to put contacts in my eyes for the first time was a landmark in all that was still to come.  In the past, when something didn't come naturally to me, I would just quit.  I would stop and just move on to something else.

This time, it was different, I was going to push through.  I was going to put tiny new lenses in my eyes.  I was going to step up my workouts at the gym.  I was not going to eat bad things to feel better.  I was not going to give up on something just because it was hard.  It was a whole new everything with no limitations or blinders or spectacles in my way.  A new brand new view...