post-holiday blues & reflections

2005 is past. it is now the year that was. what a year it has been!

> major issues last year included my health. had two minor operations (on the same part of the body). discovered i was a bordeline diabetic. and was overweight by a couple of pounds at the start of the year.

happy to say, i've lost around 10 lbs (which about half of it i probably gained over the holidays...oh well). i like myself better now. physically, that is. i could look at the mirror and smile, just like i used to. i may never be the woman i used to be (pre-pregnancy, that is...) but i don't mind. it doesn't matter, as long as i know i'm healthy. maybe, the change started inside. inside my head. i stopped believing the lies i tell myself: you look horrible, you're so fat, you're ugly (yup, it was terrible self-loathing).

who was that who said "your body is a temple"? yes, it is. so i have to treat it with respect & love. it is a sacred place.

> another issue i had to wrestle with was finding my place in the grand scheme of things...my place under the sun...the "me" in the "we"...the other side of being a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend...the one true thing...

writing about it helped...talking to someone about it helped...solitude & silence helped...

i longed for some hours spent alone...with a book, with a pen & paper, with just my thoughts...and life has been kind enough to have given that to me this past year...

> honoring the creative artist inside was another. re-started the artist's way around november. still doing it, thank God! was brave enough to send one of my work to a publisher. didn't get published, though. of course, i was crushed. i wanted it so badly. began to have doubts. maybe i am a lousy writer. but then, one does lose some battles to win the war. lost this one, got to move on to the next. write, write, write. that's the mantra.

> letting go. it was one of the major lessons this year. surrendering the fight. knowing when to quit and let God do the rest. most of the time, i push the issue up to its breaking point. quitting was out of the question. but i learned that sometimes, one must just let go of the struggle, thus, let go of the pain. i watched my kids fight with me with all their might. and i found myself telling them, "honey, just let go. don't struggle too much. it's going to be okay." and i wonder where did that wisdom come from? i wasn't only talking to my kids; i was talking to myself. the person inside that writhes in pain, cries in agony, the one who refuses to believe that when she lets go, Someone is going to catch her fall.

> "do not be afraid of goodbyes." said goodbye to some people this past year. there were some farewells that were much more painful than others. probably, the ones whom i dearly loved and had difficulty letting go were the more unbearable. but i learned that even when you have said goodbye a thousand times, sometimes they do come back...in some form or another...memories, mostly. they remain in some closet drawer in our brains...unattended...in a slumber...until a song, a passage from a book, a voice opens the drawer and an outpouring of memories flood your mind until the memory is drowned once more by new ones.

so goodbye 2005, thanks for the memories!