Lessons Learned

It wasn't a pretty picture here in ChunkyMonkeyMamaland as I took stock of what I'd hoped to accomplish in 2012 versus what I really did.  Since this is a weight loss blog and one of my goals was to lose weight, I must admit, red face and all, that I lost a total of...drum roll please....0.2 pounds!

There were various ups and downs all year.  I learned a lot about my behavior but haven't yet modified it to generate a meaningful weight loss - and after my most recent blood test coming back "pre-diabetic" for the third straight time - I know I can't keep kicking the can down the road.  I learned that it takes very little chaos to throw me off track.  What can I say?  I'm a spaz.

I've also learned that preparation can take an awful lot of the anxiety out of the chaos.  But I still shop haphazardly for groceries and when the munchies hit me mid-afternoon or my husband asks what's for dinner, I'm usually scrambling for a solution - and it usually isn't a good choice.  It is a fast choice, but not a good one.  My idea of throwing together a dinner is some variation of opening a couple of cans and a bag of noodles.  This needs to change as well.

Mostly, though, I find it difficult to focus and shut off all the other outside noise when it comes time to decide what plan I'm going to follow.  I am so easily distracted and overwhelmed with the choices around me that I often try something for a few days, get knocked off track by some chaotic event, and then begin again with a different plan.  Rinse and repeat.  I'm seriously starting to wonder if I have some form of adult ADD.

At my age, New Year's is a time of reckoning, and when I look back to see how far I've come, I often find I've either been in neutral or reverse the entire year; always thinking there will be a second chance to do the right thing.  I will be the first to admit that I'm my own harshest critic - I tend to accentuate the negative.  But there have been all kinds of instances of me coming close to completing something and then putting on the brakes just before the finish line.  Hello self-sabotage, my old friend.

I would like at this time next year to feel some pride in my accomplishments - whatever I decide them to be.  This year did have its good moments:  most important of which is that my teen finally found the help he so desperately needed and is now flourishing.  It was a hellish 10 years of tracking down one specialist after another and weeding out the good from the bad, battling a constant onslaught of complaints from the schools and neighbors about his problems and my competency as a mother, and almost complete isolation from "regular" folks throughout.  Compassion in these parts is hard to come by.  The teen had many labels pinned on him by so-called experts, one more extreme than the other, but I knew there was more good in him than they ever gave him credit for.  And this past March we finally landed in the very good hands of some very good people who knew just what to do, and he is now a very happy, healthy, high-achieving child that I always knew he could be.  It took it's toll though, wreaking havoc with my emotions, relationships and ability to work outside the home. 

Hopefully, the worst is behind us and we can leave all that wreckage in the past.  Now, maybe, I can devote the same effort and intensity to getting me back to a good place.