Vacation

I am having a great vacation. I have already spent 6 fantastic days with my family- immediate and extended and I have loved almost every minute of it! We had  mini family reunions on both of my parents sides of the family. All of my siblings and their children were here at the same time–and it wasn’t even for a wedding or holiday. We have spent days at the beach, lounging around and even some tubing with my brother’s boat. There have been a few nights that we ate out, but a few that we stayed in and had cookouts and bonfires. Today we floated down the river on inflatable rafts for 2 1/2 hours! Lots of pink cheeks and bodies, but so much fun. What a relaxing time it has been.  Relaxing and exhausting all at the same time! But I have tan lines–and that is saying a lot for this Irish skin I have. I usually kid about having two shades of skin, albino and lobster, but today I have tan lines! Who would’ve thought I’d have to go 1000 miles NORTH where it has been a very cold summer to get the tan I should have 9 months of the year at minimum at my home in the South?! Oh well, at least I have lines, even if it is the end of July and they are just starting to show. I have two more days here with my family before we head out to visit my husband’s relatives for a few days on the way home. I am looking forward to spending time with my grandma, visiting the lighthouse my youngest so desperately wants to see, and spending those last few precious moments with my family that I miss so much when I’m home in the south. I hope they all know just how much I love each one of them.

Love

I love my husband. To a fault, some might say. I just shake that off. I knew from the first time I talked to him that we would be married one day. He has this incredible sense of adventure and a drive to succeed that would put many to shame. Sometimes that drives me nuts or makes me angry, but it also a big part of why I fell in love with him. He is always striving for more, to better himself and the life we are making for our family. We met in an online chat room and talked online a few times before our first phone call. When he finally did call, we spent 3 hours on the phone! I felt as if I had known him forever. It was so easy and comfortable talking to him and by the time we hung up, I knew he was The One. Sure enough, we were married 6 months later. We were only 20 years old and I had 2 kids, so he had an instant family. Yes, we’ve had our ups and downs over the past 10 years, I don’t deny that, but my love for my husband has kept me moving forward toward creating a great marriage for us. Sure, it might have been easier or less painful at times to give up and walk away. I would’ve been justified in that. But it wasn’t the right thing to do. My faith and my heart told me to keep praying and moving in a forward direction and God would work out all the details. It’s true. He does. Our marriage has been all but over twice and he has brought us back from the brink both times. He has created within us a desire to have the strong, joyful marriage we both wanted but didn’t know how to fix once it was broken so long ago. We could temporarily mend the problems, but we needed God to work within both of us and show us what he He wanted for us as a husband and wife and as a family. I can say now, without a shadow of doubt, that our marriage is stronger now that it has ever been. We are both fully commited to each other and our family. To working together, being a team…forever.

Journey Home

Don’t stop believing. The song by Journey was playing in the car radio while we were driving through the mountains and I was daydreaming. I kept hearing the line “Don’t stop believing, Hold on to the feeling. ” My mind would drift to my sprinting days or other times when I knew I could achieve anything I set out to do. It was a huge encouragement to keep pushing forward. I am improving my health with each passing day. Right now, I have to admit, I’m becoming a bit apprehensive about the health and fitness aspects of the vacation we are taking. My family is headed north to visit my family for 10 days. I know the majority of my family is also trying to eat well and exercise more. Bt I also know that for the most part, when we all get together, for some reason that all goes out the window. And the junk food and visits to the ice cream sop come waltzing in with ease. Yes, I know the key is moderation-but sometimes that is easier said than done. I got the encouragement through that simple line from Journey to keep believing. I can continue to eat well and keep up my fitness routine-I brought my running shoes. My dad has already mapped out a few different 5k courses that he and my step mom run. My family will be supportive of me efforts, I’m sure, it’s just about me and my fight with temptation. Temptation to be lazy. Temptation to have too many ice cream treats from Bardon’s- the best ice cream place on earth, for purely sentimental reasons, and ice cream from Moomer’s- which was actually voted the Best Ice Cream Shop in America. But I am believing I have this under control and I will go home a healthier person in 10 days than I was when I hopped in the car yesterday morning.

Energized

Today’s workout was at the gym. My oldest daughter and I worked out on the ellipticals and the lifted weights. It felt good being able to show her how to properly use the different machines and explaining to her what muscles she was working. Ha! I never would have thought I’d be helping someone else in the gym! Saw a few familiar faces, too. Geez, I’ve really missed being there. I love the energy that flows through that place. Even when I am not the slightest bit motivated to be there, I can always get that energy once I get in the building. I have to admit, I really didn’t feel like working out today. It was rainy, stormy day and I have been trying to get my family packed for our upcoming vacation. The stress that I have been trying to let go of has slowly been creeping back in as I try to get everything organized and ready to go. I am the queen of list-making and I get seriously stressed if I can’t get everything crossed off quickly. But I have 5 kids running around here each day and as much as they want to go visit family, they would much rather play than help mom get organized and pack. So I really needed to get to the gym to work off the stress, as much as I didn’t want to go. But once I got going, I hit a rhythm and was surprised when my daughter told me it was time to lift weights. I almost didn’t want to get off the elliptical machine. That is a feeling I need to cling to. Next time I feel like  I’m in a funk and don’t really want to go workout, I will remember that feeling I had today and hopefully, that will be enough to get motivated.

…and NOT believing

So, now that I am finally believing in myself again, maybe we should spend some time talking about why I stopped believing in myself.  One might think that it was before I became pregnant with my oldest at 16. But that’s not the case. Strangely enough, it was a while after her birth. But finding out I was pregnant was what actually inspired me to be a better person. Not that I wasn’t a good person before that, but I just wanted to be the best I could be for my child. I was only a sophomore in high school the night I took the home test. It was prom night. On the way home we stopped at a park so I could take the test, and waited in silence and darkness for an agonizing 3 minutes. When we flipped the light on to check the test, I think I stopped breathing for a minute. I couldn’t be pregnant. My parents would be so disappointed. And I was only 16. Barely 16. And I had a life planned for myself. But deep down I already loved that little baby growing inside of me. And I already knew that it had changed my life forever. But not for one second did I think that my life was screwed up, or that I would never amount to anything because of this bump in the road I had created. No, I just knew I would have to work harder than I was. Finishing school was a no-brainer. I had  a baby to provide for now and I needed to give that child the best I could. I could’ve gone to the special classes for pregnant teens and teen moms, but when I went to look into that, I was surprised to see that curriculum would’ve been nearly the equivalent of what I had taken in 7th and 8th grade. Not really what a girl in Advanced Placement and Honors classes wants to go back to. So I opted to stay in my high school, and deal with the looks, comments and judgements of others. I believed I could finish high school with a respectable GPA regardless of my situation. My parents and I met with my guidance counselor and my teachers for my junior year and discussed that I would be missing some classes but that I didn’t want any special treatment or sympathy. I wanted my grades to reflect my work, not my “situation.”  I had my daughter in December and missed 4 weeks of school surrounding her birth. But I picked work up from my teachers and stayed as caught up as I could, still believing in myself. Even when my daughter was born with a birth defect, and the doctors swooped her away immediately after she was born without telling me what was happening, I knew I could handle whatever it was. When the nurse finally explained the situation to me, my only question was “Is it correctable?’ When she said yes,I knew it would all be ok. When her father and I parted ways when she was 3 months old, I believed I was making the best choice. It was. I graduated high school in the top 10% of my class of nearly 900, all while raising a baby who was now 18 months old. All because I believed in myself. But that was all about to change. I got caught up with the wrong guy and found myself in a very bad predicament. Details of that aren’t necessary, but as a result of my poor choices, I found myself pregnant again, single again, and raising a toddler at 18. Now here is where I really started to question what I was doing with my life. Who had I become? When did I stop loving myself? And what kind of a role model was I to my daughter and the little one on the way? It was hard enough with one baby, how could I handle two and still go to college and make a life for myself and my babies?  Should I keep this second baby? And then the hardest of all….should I even have this baby? Of course I should! I don’t believe in abortion. But no matter what I tried to tell myself, I didn’t believe that I could tell my parents and the rest of my family. I didn’t believe I could raise two babies. I didn’t believe that my family would support me again like they had when I had my daughter. I felt so lost and confused and detached from everything. I was dying inside because of my own stupid, selfish choices, and now I was faced with one of the biggest decisions in my life. Although I didn’t want to do it, I felt there was no other option at that time. I told my parents, and got completely different reactions for both of them. Regardless, an appointment was made at a clinic to terminate my pregnancy. I felt empty. I couldn’t believe that I was actually going through with it. But I went to my appointment. Sat in the dingy, musty waiting area for what seemed like an eternity. I debated leaving, as I sat there silently crying, in complete denial. I kept asking myself, “What are you doing? You don’t even believe in this?!” But I would tell myself over and over, “This is the best thing for this baby. I can’t give it what it needs. I can’t give my daughter what she needs and deserves if I have this baby. No matter how much I love this baby, this is the right thing to do. ” But I didn’t believe that. It was a cop-out. And I knew it. My baby deserved better than what I was about to do to it. And I just sat there crying. Finally, my name was called and they took me to an exam room where they would do an ultrasound to check how far along I was. I turned my head so I wouldn’t be able to see the screen, knowing that I would lose it emotionally if I saw the baby inside of me. But when the tech and the nurse started talking about it, I couldn’t help myself and I peeked at the screen. I saw my baby, kicking it’s little legs , but what got me was seeing it’s tiny heart beating. I took that emotional punch right in the gut. I shed a few silent tears barely managing to keep the wails of emotion inside. The nurse then took me to speak to the psychologist, which was required to have an abortion. Her first question to me was, “Why are you here?” and all I could manage was ” I don’t know!” through an awful lot of sobbing. When I managed to pull myself together, I explained to her about my faith and that I feel abortion is wrong. So I wasn’t quite sure why I was there other than that I felt like I had so massively screwed up that I had no other option. And the words I had been holding inside so I wouldn’t have to deal with them came spilling out and I told her how much I loved my baby already and that I wanted to keep it. I was just so scared and lost. And then I went home, with my baby still growing inside and completely unaware of what had almost happened that day. I went home knowing that I had made the right decision, knowing my baby would have a good life with its mommy, who was already completely in love with it. Home, where I was safe, where my daughter was safe, where my baby was safe.

February 1998

Believing

Woo Hoo!!! I can’t believe it! In just a few short days, I have shaved off 2 min 10 sec off my 5k time! We have some paved trails around here, called greenways, and there are two near my house that my husband and I have mapped out a 5k trail on. So when I finally got my rear back out there after 3 months of sitting on the couch, I certainly didn’t expect to bounce back into this quickly! Man, what a feeling! I am so exhilarated tonight. I was keeping an eye on my watch, certain that I was nearly 5 minutes behind my time from yesterday. I said to my husband, ” This is so frustrating. I’m trying so hard and my body feels like its fighting me every step of the way!” But I kept plugging along the trail, jogging when I could, but walking when I needed to. As we were nearing the end of the greenway, and heading up the road back onto our street, my heart was sinking. Then I glanced down at my watch again and saw that I was still 2 minutes under my time from yesterday so I took off running again…and by the time I made it into the driveway, I had beaten my time from yesterday by just under a minute! It is amazing what actually believing in yourself can do for you!

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