Sometimes things happen and you go down a hole so deep you don’t even know where you are. I would like to say that was me after the last 5 years of insanity, but the truth is I was already down there before it all began. The craziness only forced me to realize what I had been avoiding.
It’s unbelievably easy to go through life on auto-pilot. The things we need to get done, the sameness of our day-to-day rituals, until one day we get a reminder…but, we choose to ignore it. Then there’s another reminder, but again ignored and so on …until finally there are so many reminders that ignoring them is no longer possible. You wake up and realize just how much time has past and wonder, what was I thinking that I let all those years of life, love and happiness slip by unnoticed for so long.
That is what happened to me. I thought after my aunt and cousin died within a 5 month period that that REMINDER would change everything… since, as I had learned, you never know when it will end. But, after the hardest parts of the grief became a memory I went back to my routines and habits and forgot all the promises I had made to myself of how I would be and what I would do.
Fast-forward many years and many more, smaller reminders…until the day they became so big and frequent that ignoring them was no longer an option. It began with my mother’s cancer diagnosis; then my unexpected hip replacements; though, it literally took getting hit by the car and needing a rather big neck surgery to get my attention; but, just in case that wasn’t enough, my father passed away soon after (didn’t I say it was crazy).
And yet, some days I still feel that stuck-ness pulling me down and now, with some very concrete (or should I say titanium) excuses… the truth is, I know the only thing stopping me from doing/being more is me. Excuses are just that…real change isn’t easy, but it begins with acknowledging what you want. So, I ask you, what reminders are you ignoring …and, more importantly, what are you willing to change to create the life you want?