Ahhh, midnight came and went – with just enough fanfare at our home. Kisses all around, a few Filo spinach puffs, and a glass of champagne! It was quiet and controlled, yet honest and lovely. Just the way I like it!
I fell asleep before 1am to news chatter. E.N.O.U.G.H. with the Fiscal Cliff already!! Do the jobs you were elected to do in Washington! Oh and, you have the NERVE to take a pay increase. Just so you know…those of us in real jobs d.i.d.n.’t. get pay increases this year! Just sayin’!
But I digress….
I was up before 8am — ready, no maybe anxious, to start 2013. LOL, not sure why. We didn’t have any plans for today. Work was closed. It was a rest day from running. Yet, I was w.i.d.e. a.w.a.k.e. Ready. For Something. On Facebook I noticed there would be a 10am Weight Watcher’s Meeting in town. Well! How about that! Weight Watchers on New Year’s Day. Just seemed pretty perfect. So I started moving around, and planned to go.
It was a good meeting. Only about 8 or 9 people. The quiet types. Plus a few of us Saturday and Sunday party crashers. LOL Loved the hour spent with “my people”, as Denise La Magna would say. Everyone in the room had something to say about the year behind them, and hopes, no, actions for the year ahead. As I listened — I couldn’t help but reflect on the year behind me. It was the best thing I ever did, counting my miles. 900 miles. D@mn. That’s Respectable! The meeting leader, Annalisa, and I got into a conversation before folks started to arrive. She is a runner too and so we chatted about the upcoming Disney Marathon. People are so lovely. They are as genuinely excited for me, as I am. I hope they realize how profoundly grateful I am for that. I hope so. Anyway, Annalisa was feeling kinda low yesterday — and after seeing my post on FB about my miles — she went out and counted hers. Something over 1080 miles. Holy Moly!! BRAVO, girl! Run those glum emotions into the dirt. You are amazing Annalisa! Never forget!
The rest of our chat was about how amazing the human body is. How forgiving it is…of ALLLLLL the disrespect and mistreatment we leveled upon it for years and years. Jokingly, I made this comparison. If you bought a new car — and drove it into the ground, and never took care of it, or maintained it — after years of grinding it into the dirt — you’d have to trash the thing. It would be a goner — even if you finally wised up and started washing it, and treating it well. The damage was done. No going back. No forgiveness! Get a new one, and do better next time. That’s your only option.
Now think of your body as that car. If you are anything like me — we’ve spent 30, 40 years abusing it. Eating way too much, of all the wrong things. Gaining weight. Losing some. Then gaining more. Spending too many hours being very sedentary on the couch. Not raising the heart rate often enough. Not sweating…with purpose, anyway. Our bodies were showing all the same wear and tear as the car. Yet. Something. Is. Different.
Our bodies are soooo forgiving.
After all those years of mistreatment and ignorant denial of our behavior, you can (on any given Sunday, or Monday, or…. Oneday) begin to change. Begin to begin. Your body has an amazing ability to recover, to rebound. You C.A.N. turn this car around. No matter how far you have driven it into the ground. In our Weight Watchers meeting, we hear these stories all the time. One man off his blood pressure medicine. Another woman cured of diabetes for the first time in her life. A third man, free from the sleep apnea machine that became his mandatory companion e.v.e.r.y. night as he slept…just to ensure he would wake the next morning. (Hi R!) Think about it. Because these stories aren’t just stories. They are people. Real people. People with families, and children and husbands and wives….who depend on tomorrow coming and including their loved ones in it.
Something happens in a Weight Watchers Meeting. All of a sudden….it clicks. Any one person can never know when it will happen to them. For them. But one day, they show up, and sit in “their” seat….and (without realizing it) today is THEIR day. Someone starts to tell their story. Maybe it’s about how they shuffled their breathless body to the mailbox for the first time and how that became a running habit. All 1080 miles of it! (Hi A!) Or maybe it’s about their heart attack. And how they survived. About being Air-Vac’d in a helicopter to the hospital because…..this time, well…..this time…there was no time to waste. And then this person reaches Lifetime, and you get to celebrate their survival AND watch them create their new life. (Hey S!) Something happens in a Weight Watchers Meeting when it stops being about how many ppvs are in an Oreo, or which Skinny Cow ice cream tastes most real. It’s Re-Birth! You never know when it’s going to strike your heart. You never know WHICH day, is going to be YOUR day. So…..you gotta show up….E.v.e.r.y. Day.
Because… when IT happens for YOU….When It’s YOUR Day…..you WON’T want to miss it. Promise!
Happy New Year friends…..may 2013 bring you all your hearts’ desire.
Ciao for now…….Diane