Create the change you want to be

Why do we put off what we know we need to do, what we should do, what will make us happy? I want to write, I love to write, I never write. My excuses are many, too little time, too much going on with my daughter, my sisters, my relationship, my friends, my mom, too much yard work, housework, too many home improvement projects. And on and on and on.

Why? Am I so afraid of failure that I won't even try? No one has to see what I write, I don't have to send it out into the big world all alone, I can keep it safely locked in my computer, like I have for the past ten years.

I've started three novels, written twenty short stories. What do I do with them? Nothing. I dont' even reread them after I finish writing them. I hit save and move on.

It has been said by someone much wiser than I, find a way to get paid to do what you love and you will never work again. I love to write. I dream of sitting at my computer, with a cup of coffee, listening to the birds sing, watching the flowers grow while I write and write and write.

Instead, I find reasons not to do what I love and fill my days with things I don't love, laundry and vacuuming and sanding walls and grocery shopping. Yes, all of those things have to be done, but so does my writing. I feel like it sits inside of me, waiting for me to bring it out.

So, new goal. I will write for an hour a day, everyday, no excuses. I will start researching and learning everything I can about getting published. I will start submitting my short stories to contests. I will live my dream.

Here we go again.................really?

Weak, weak, weak! Why do I do this to myself over and over and over again? Why do I think it will be different this time? Why do I even care? I know when he calls I shouldn't talk to him, but I think, this time it will be different, this time we can really be friends and thats it. Fat chance.
I'm exhausted, I'm getting on my own nerves and I am willingly, climbing right back on the bus that leads to my own personal hell. Talk about no self control, when I hear myself say " But I love him" I sound like a silly little teenager with her first crush.
Who says older is wiser? I call bullshit, I'm dumb as a stump. Here we go again!

Exercise

I work out everyday, nothing strenuous, I walk and jog the track for an hour and then do some weights. Just enough to keep my girlish figure. I have two sisters, one who couldn't gain weight if you held her down and force fed her, and one who has struggled with her weight forever.
My heavy sister is a beautiful woman but you can see the toll it's taken on her being the "fat" sister- by the way, that's her reference, not ours. Not only is my sister heavier she is much taller than we are, so she is just a bigger person all around.
Our whole lives she has joked about her weight, always making sure that she makes fun of herself before anyone else does. I remember once when the doctor was trying to stick a needle in her spine for a test and he couldn't get it in so he told my sister that they would have to do it under ultrasound guidance because sometimes when people have muscular backs its hard to get the needle where you want it. My sister, naked from the waist up, leaning over this table gripping my hands till I thought my fingers would break, looked at me with those big brown eyes of hers and said " Does he think I don't know I"m fat?" And we laughed our asses off.
Now that we are getting older and more prone to the breakdown of our bodies, my sister's weight is starting to cause health problems for her. Forever our other sister and I have tried to get Terri to do things with us, more active things, so she would lose weight, but she was never interested.
Last week she said she wanted to go to the gym with me and this week she bought a membership. We've only gone twice but she already feels a difference in her energy level and is so happy she is doing this. I'm so proud of her, I know it can't be easy to go to the gym everyday after not exercising for years, I know she has aches and pains from working out that I've never experienced, I know she has to work twice as hard as I do. But she is doing it!
It has only just started but already she is watching what she eats because she doesn't want to ruin all her hard work at the gym, and we are both looking forward to when she has to go back to the doctors in three months to have some blood tests redone.
I am so proud of my sister for taking care of herself, for setting a better example for my neice and for spending that hour and a half a day with me, everyday, our sister time. I've missed her, life gets busy and you don't always make time for each other. Now, I get to see my sister everyday, talk about the things that we are worried about, gossip a ittle and reduce each other to laughter, just like when we were little girls.
My sisters are the greatest gift I ever recieved and I'm so fortunate to have them in my life.