There was once a time.

This year has me thinking alot about time. It seems I never have enough of it and it is getting less and less all of the time. My life seems to be flying past me quicker than I can even take in. It sometimes feels like I am watching a movie and seeing the clips quickly flip past my eyes, but it’s not a movie, it’s my life whizzing past me at lightning speed.

Time is a funny thing, it is unlike other things in this world as you can’t buy it, borrow it, loan it, keep it, rent it, save it, or give it way and once it’s gone you can never get it back. Time will change you, but you can’t change it.

 It seems the older I get the quicker it goes and I find myself always trying to hold onto moments for as long as I can because once they are gone, they are truly gone.  Life starts off with the first few minutes of your day, then an hour and then several hours, those hours turn into days, which then turn into years and before you know it, its 10 years later and when you reflect, you think when the hell did that happen? Where did the last 10 years just go?

I often think about my children and reflect about when they were small and I sometimes ponder, when did they grow into these young adults, were they not just 2 and 6 years old. When I really think back to their childhood I can’t imagine where the time went, when did they become 9 and then 13 and then 16, 20, when did that happen, now they are going to be 23 and 27, god I feel like time stole these little beings from me, when did this happen?  Sometimes I feel cheated by time. I feel sad that that time has passed and I can never go back to that time, this would be true of other times in my life as well, times that I can never go back to, because they too have passed.

Time in the dictionary is described as this: A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

It is also defined as One's lifetime.

Some days I feel like I need to hold onto time with all my might so that it does not slip away, but no matter how hard I try ,no matter how tight my grasp, time slips away as always. I guess there really is something to this “ Live in the moment” idea, because if you don’t live in every possible moment, relish in it, recognize it and stay in it  as long as you can,  before you can blink your eyes it will be gone, and once it is gone it will be gone forever.

A New Year-Wings and Seatbelts

So, here’s my take on starting this New Year. Like my sister I start reflecting on the year that has swept beneath my feet like a strong ocean under tow around the beginning of December. I go back and check my little book of goals for the year and check off the ones I have fulfilled. Only to realize another busy and precious year has passed.


 In reviewing the past five-ten years of goal lists there I noticed one common thing on my list every year.....”exercise more and lose ten pounds”. I would guess that I have lost and gained those 10 pounds at least 10 to 15 times over the past 10 years all the time living in a constant state of self-hate and loathing over my inability to keep the weight off. I would literally spend the whole year in a love hate relationship with myself depending on my weight.  What a ridiculous thing to do. What a waste of precious time! Now I know I am not alone here. Being in my fifth decade I realized that it was time to put up or shut up- do something long-term about my health and fitness or shut the negative voices in my head down and start being kinder to myself. I needed a kinder gentler philosophy, a shift of mind. Geez, how about if I just treated myself with the kindness, patience and grace I held for others in my life?


I had been reading Jane Fonda’s new book Prime Time. She says “We are not meant to be perfect, we are meant to be whole.” I am sure I already knew this. It was buried somewhere in my subconscious, but it struck me as a news flash! 2011 was a marriage of difficult times and victories both professionally and personally. BUT, were my actions this past year driven by the desire to be perfect or were they enhancing me as a “whole” physically, spiritually and mentally? Confession! I was injected with the “need to be perfect vaccination” at birth I swear! Anyone else want to throw their hand up?


We all have the same twelve months and a clean slate for new opportunities, new chances to jump out of a plane, repel off a cliff or whatever works for us. My past thoughts were every New Year would be the same, predicting ahead of time the lies and impatience I would have for myself. This year, I am going to take advantage of my new learning from last year....about food, my body, my mind and my spirit and how they are all connected and really all make me whole.  I realized I had been doing a lot of things with others in mind and not myself. Over time I had lost my true self and my self-expression. Reviewing last year- What moments were priceless? Did I use my free time productively? Was I pleased with the choices I made? What was my best purchase? When was I the happiest? Some of these I didn't have an answer for.

Funny thing about time- “It is priceless, we can’t own it but we can use it. We can spend it but we can’t keep it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”-Harvey MacKay.  Life moves along regardless of what I am doing. I get to decide the focus. As Leonard Cohen  weighs in on perfection by saying- “Everything has cracks. That’s how the light gets in.” YAY! Time to change it up! To hell with anything, anyone, and any behaviour that does not enhance who I already am! My goal is to slow down, and start living my life in ways that enhance me as a whole. To spend my time wisely focused and present, and being a vibrant total package of ME! I am thinking a half-marathon, a Tough Mudder circuit, leopard and orange lipstick may be involved *wink*- I know, and the sky is the limit, so time to take off-not sure if wings or a seat belt will be the most useful? This should be an interesting year!

Dana

New Year, New me?

So every year as I ring out the old and in the new I reflect on the year past and feel so hopeful about the year to be. I think to myself “this is going to be my year” ( I think that every year) this is going to be a chance to start fresh and do something, really do something, something life changing, something that would make people go “wow” you really did it. I start by making a list of all that I want to accomplish and all of the things that I need to do to accomplish my overall goal, which by the way always has something to do with changing my body for the better.

I write down all of the vitamins I need to buy to promote weight loss, a faster metabolism, or to give me a boost of energy. I buy one sometimes two and I won’t swear that I have not bought three weight loss, weight training, lifestyle changing, workout type books (right now its this one.) to also help me get started on my new year journey of doing something different, something great. Yeah!!  I read and I read and I research and I make more lists. Lists about things I should eat, things I should not, things that are harmful, things that are good for you and things that promote health, things that will damage your health. I arm myself with all of the info that I could possibly need to meet my goals. I watch every possible show (and they all do in January) that talks about health, diet, lifestyle change or exercise that I possibly can. I think about a new sport, hobby or some sort of class that I need to take up for my health and well being. I really put a lot of effort into this and plan on planning to the point where I overwhelm myself completely.

 So then I ask the question, what is it that makes us being able to succeed in reaching our goals? What is it that we have or don’t have intrinsically that makes us just do it, set a goal and achieve it, I think I have only ever achieved a goal when it happened by mistake, or maybe I am just selling myself short, but I have not had that feeling of “ I worked really hard at something and then it was achieved” it has always felt like it happened by default.

What does all this mean? I don’t really know, I guess it means that already I am setting myself up not to succeed. I heard on the radio the other day that by January 10^th most people have already given up on their resolutions. One of these days I just want to set out to achieve this and by god be successful, and before I am 80 please.  But it’s really up to me isn’t it? It’s not like if I put this out there that the New Years gods are going to read it and say “ by god, it’s about time we helped this girl achieve her goals." No, I need to put one foot in front of the other and make it happen myself as I am the only person that is in control of my own mind and body. Drat!! This all means that I have to stop running home, stuffing comfort food in my mouth, laying on the couch and waiting for this miraculous transformation to take place, right? I thought so.