A Chocolate Walk of Shame

Well it started off innocently enough, at least that is what I told myself.

Be organized, beat the rush, gather your goodies now blah blah blah.  

In essence, this is what really happened.

It was a glorious Wednesday afternoon, and I, in all my glory, sauntered down on my lunch hour to the town's chocolatier to gather up what would be some yummy delectable goodies for my better half and my mother.  I roamed around the shelves for what seemed like an eternity picking this treat and that treat and this goody and that goody and then dropped a substantial amount of money on the custom made treats for my beloved and my amazing mother.

I told myself that with Valentine's day less than a week away, that it would be best if I hid the chocolate at my office in order to avoid the prying and overly attentive eyes of that man that I call my better half.  Like the nose of a bloodhound, I could foresee my Valentine's Surprise going sideways if those gooey delish items were somehow hidden at home, as in all likelihood they would be snuffed out instantly with that ancestral Lebanese nose that my better half sports upon his handsome face.

This was, as it turns out, my biggest mistake.

By Thursday at lunch, those glorious chocolate were calling my name, beckoning me with their sweetness, taunting me with their rich flavour and I thought to myself (or perhaps justified to myself) that I had bought so much, how could one simple chocolate be missed.  I would soon use that excuse again an hour later, and again, a half hour later.  

By Friday, the first signs of my impending doom would be fully noticeable upon my chin where a now volcano sized eruption had appear.  You would think, or better yet you would hope, that the zit upon my face would have deterred me from ravishing the remaining chocolates, but no, sadly no, I would reach for another chocolate the moment I walked into the office come Friday morning, and again by mid morning. And by lunch time, the evidence of my devouring nature was circled around my lips like a glorious halo of oooey gooey velvety brown goodness.

It was obvious to myself and the multitude of empty wrappers by Friday afternoon, that I would have to somehow muster up my courage and open up my wallet to replace what I had so willingly sucked back in a mere few days.

By the time I returned to the office, I felt safe in the notion that the chocolate would be locked up and away from me for two solid days.  A sufficient enough time frame for me to forget those teasers, to get on with my life, and to devour apples in the same glorious way that I sucked the filling out of those damn chocolate filled treats.  But alas, I was tormented.  Tormented I say.  Tormented for two full days, dreaming and craving and dreaming and craving those stinking zit making gloriously filled treat temptations.

By Monday morning, I was nearly running up the stairs and drooling at the corners of my mouth as I burst thru my office doors like a crazy woman shedding her clothing off during a menopausal hot flash.  "Come to momma!!!!" the words popped out of my mouth!  And with no will power whatsoever, I downed every last piece within an one hour sitting.

As I sat there moaning and groaning partly over my stupidity, partly over my gluttony, and mostly over my serious lack of self control, it dawned on me, Valentines was the next day and I had eaten the gifts of love for the ones that I loved.

And as lunch hour approached, I grabbed my wallet, and with what little self respect I had, waddled my way down once again to the chocolatier.  And with a look of disgust upon the sales clerk's face (or just my guilty conscious taking over), I picked out the replacement items, and then did what every respectable woman does, I held my head high, handed over my money, grabbed not one but two pieces of free chocolate from the tray at the cash register, gave the clerk a wink and did the Chocolate walk of shame right out of her store.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

...the art of casting stones

I got to thinking today about the art of casting stones.  It struck me how judgmental we the human race are, especially since we are all essentially born with some type of characters flaws.

I had been reading earlier the different articles over the early demise of the now late Whitney Houston.  Far be it for me to ever write about the death of a celebrity, but I had made the mistake of scanning the comment sections of a few articles that were written.  I have to say I was horrified by the amount of sarcastic comments oozing off the screen.

I personally have never really been affected by the death of a celebrity, well with the exception of Elvis Presley and only because I was the same age as his daughter, Lisa Marie, and in my astute nine years of age, I wondered how she would fair in life without the guidance of a male figure.  Oh hell, I was just upset that she had lost her dad.

Often, when the latest celebrity death hits the net, or social media, or the media in general, I am one of the last to be shocked.  It's almost like I knew it was coming.  I, along with the majority of the population, could see the train wreck approaching and was just waiting for the moment when the actual collision, followed by the carnage, would occur.

So the death of Whitney Houston was for me, no shock at all.  

But what shocks me the most and saddens me to the core, is how we as humans are quick to step up on our soap boxes and bring out our almighty sword of judgment and withdraw our gift of compassion.

I don't know about you, but I can safely say that I am not without an addiction.  Hence my chubby little body and my love for fatty foods.  I see addiction in everyone.  Whether it's shopping your life away (and what could be considered my second weakness), exercising to the point of depriving your body of nutrients, drinking, drugs, hoarding, compulsively counting your life away, frugality, gambling, or counting bottles, whatever it is, we all have some form of weakness that we fight throughout our entire lives.  Unfortunately, in the case of Ms. Houston, some addictions are more harmful than others.

It's amazing to me how quickly we do things like jump on the band wagon to find a way to blame someone else for our own problems, or in this case Ms. Houston's problems.  But the fact remains, that in the end, we are the only ones responsible for ourselves, no one holds a gun to our heads and forces us to smoke weed, eat another doughnut, drink another beer, buy another pair of shoes, save every single penny, throw money away on a game of poker.  Nobody does that but us.

It makes me wonder sometimes, when will we learn to take responsibilities for our actions, but more importantly, when will we learn that passing judgment on others is only a meager disguise for what ails ourselves.

Hopefully, someday, we will learn that nothing good comes from the art of casting the first stone.  Sadly tho, I highly doubt it.

Now if you would excuse me, *ahem cough* I think its time for me to step down from my own soapbox.

Until Next Time.

Cheers

Tracy

...and then she was gone

It was December of 1995, just a mere nine days before Christmas that my mom, a neighbour and myself would trot out to nowhere to see what would become one of the most beautiful blessings of our lives.

Tucked away in the woods, in deplorable conditions was the most disgusting house that contained the most flea ridden, docile ball of fluff that would eventually widdle her way into our hearts and leave a loss so significant, that even now as I sit here typing, the tears roll down my cheeks like raindrops from the sky.

She would be called Maggie Mae and would become one of the greatest love stories of my life.

With hearing so intense and eyes so sharp, high strung to her inner chord, hater of most men and felines, scared of abrupt noises such as her own farts, where kisses were plentiful, and cuddles were memorable, from paw slapping you when she was hungry, to shoving her tiny butt into you when she craved affection, to jumping heights that would revel Superman, she was a wild child at heart and a contradiction on many levels. She was such a gift, our beautiful brown eyed girl, and a complicated sweet soul.

And while she was technically my mom’s little girl, I would spend the greater part of her life being blessed with the kindness of my mother in sharing custody. I would eventually move 20 minutes away and grieve the loss of being a part of her daily life. I would spend the next several years visiting her on Saturday’s and looking forward to hearing words like “Maggie Mae, Auntie Tracy’s here” where she would run excitedly at me and bounce back in a pounce position waiting for her treat followed by love.

Years would go by and time would move on, and she would live what people would deem a long life. But for me, it was not long enough. It would never be long enough. We often made bets that she would outlive us all, or at least until the age of 20, as there was no slowing down for the little girl with the speed and long legs to match.

We would spend her final year watching in sadness as her heart weakened and her health deteriorated. One by one, her usual habits of happiness started disappearing, from rolling on the ground, to barking at me when I went to leave, to pouncing in excitement. Her tail would wag less and her body slept more. It would eventually become apparent, that she was no longer well and a heart wrenching decision would have to be made...

Last Thursday, would be our last time with sweet Maggie. The last time I would kiss her. The last time I would hug her. The last time I would tell her that I loved her. The last time I would tell her what a good girl she was. The last time she would look me in the face. The last time she would kiss me. The last time I would hold her little adorable face in my hands. It would be the last time my heart would feel whole.

And as we reluctantly entered into the vets, she snuggled deep into my mother’s arms, and I stroked her failing body. I watched in agony, as she tried with all her might to keep eye contact with me after the sedative was administered. With my heart bursting into a million pieces, I gave her one more kiss, and shed a million tears. And just before the vet gave her the final shot that would take her from this life into another, I saw a small tear roll down from her eye onto her soft sweet sweet face, and then in quiet peacefulness she was gone. Our beautiful girl... And with her went a huge, irreplaceable part of my heart.

Oh Maggie, how I love you. Thank you for everything little girl.

Maggie Mae
October 22, 1995 to February 2, 2012

Living in Fiber Hell

Last year, one of my more brighter ideas was to cleanse my body of all toxins. I, after all was said done, quite successful in my, let’s say, cleaning house endeavours. My body, by all accounts, was feeling quite chipper. In fact, I would even go so far as to say elated with joy. Inflammation had dramatically dropped, poundage on my body melted off, my energy level soared, I could run up and down the stairs with narry an ache, and above all, my happiness quotient over the situation peaked me into an orgasmic state.

However, the downside was that I nearly gave myself an aneurysm half a dozen times whilst I struggled with the delicate topic of expelling my lady like bowels. Yes, I was painfully constipated and constantly concerned, as I said in a previous post, that my better half would find me on the floor of our bathroom with half a poop sticking out.

Somewhere during this process, I had made a dramatic discovery between the correlation of the pain in my body and the food that laid within the confines of my colon. When my colon was so clean that it was whistling dixie, my pain was virtually non existent. However, should my engine get a bit of a back up or plugged with sludge, well, let’s put it this way, the little engine that could, would start to suffer some serious internal combustion problems!

I knew that wheat had become my enemy, or better yet the little protein gluten contained within the wheat was a major contributing factor, and still is, to the pain that I suffered. I was at a quandary, or impasse to say the least. Without gluten, I felt wonderful, but plugged up. Without eating gluten, I was seeing stars on my toilet.

In order to save myself any further harm or brain damage, I spent the greater part of December and a bit of this month, traversing the aisles at the different local grocery stores on my quest to fill my fibre need sans gluten.

Surprising, it really has not been such a difficult transition from gluten to rice flour or almond flour. I have enjoyed my excursion to the sprouted wheat bread section of the local grocery store and have thoroughly enjoyed it instead of the genetically modified ground version. I have found the most gawd awful rice crackers and the best raspberry cookies ever, I have eaten bread that tastes like cardboard, and then ahhhed and ooohed over amazing pizza crust and tortillas shells, all in the name of living a gluten free lifestyle. What I can tell you is that living without gluten has forced me to try and enjoy the offerings of other grains, ancient grains, grains I have never heard of, grains that are impacting my life.

What I have also learned is that those grains work like a hot damn. No longer singing the constipated blues in the toilette, there are days that those bloody grains work a little too well. Now the food in my body is squealing in high delight as it exits my nether region like water on a slide.

In any event, I am definitely prepared to do what it takes to make my body happier, and well, let's face it, anything is better than living in fiber hell.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Ink to Paper: An Uncommited Story

As long as I can remember, I have always carried some sort of calendar with me, pocket sized, day planner sized or hang on your wall size. And within the pages and small daily squares, contained the abridged version of my life at a twelve month glance.

In my twenties, I prided myself on recording pretty much my every moment, much like facebook, with the exception that it was only for my eyes, my review and a reminder of my memories. Come the end of the year, I would flip thru those pages and re-read the highlights, often smiling and giggling and saying things out loud to myself like “oh yea, I forgot I did that” or “wow, that was such a blast, gotta do that again” or quite often “gawd what was I thinking, so embarrassing!” Whatever the moment was, it was recorded there on the pages of my free Hallmark Calendar in bright bold blue ink. Yes, there were many big gashes and slashes thru things that I actually didn’t get to do, but the fact remained that I did so many wonderfully, soul and heart enriching things and that I committed to those moments using ink to permanently mark my time in history. And sometimes if the moment was so amazing, it would be highlighted in a rainbow of colours followed by several exclamation marks. They were the joyful, memory making moments of my youth.

Sometime during this time frame, my parents went thru a very nasty and devastating divorce, one which lasted for many years, one which would have made a Lifetime movie on some sorry network, one which should have put me into counselling for years and one that scarred me immensely. The details are not mine to share, as they are my parents story. I was only a side player with an emotional outcome that would have been a best selling novel, had I written for all to see. And it was during this emotional and stressful time that my once committed pen strokes started to disappear only to be replaced with a more subtle version of what would eventually become my uncommited pencil scribblings.

The word “yes” was no longer in my vocab as it was replaced with words like “perhaps”, “I’ll have to see”, “ummm... I think I have something already that night” and my very favourite and over used phrase “I am pretty tired and sore, maybe next time.” My pencil notations in my calendar were often marked with question marks, like “hang out with Charmaine?”, “go to Cathy and David’s for the weekend?”, “Melrose night with Deanna?” I could no longer commit and what is worse is that I didn’t really want too. I played everything by ear, used my parents divorce as an avoidance, missed dinners and parties, clubs and outing. I had in fact excused myself from life. I had in actuality stepped out of my life.

Year after year, my calendar entries became more sparse, less exciting, virtually uninteresting till finally the only thing that marked my calendars were birthdays, my semi monthly massages and waxing treatments and the numerous doctors appointments for the never ending chronic pain.

So sad and pathetic my calendar had become that I no longer reviewed my previous year, I just quietly tucked it away into my filing system never to be seen again by the light of day. That was until this past year when I sat quietly down and flipped the pages over and over and over again. I sighed long and hard as the flipped pages revealed a year devoid of anything interesting with one exception. I could only account for one meager highlight. One moment to remember when I knew I must have had more moments than that, that I should have had more moments than that, when I should have celebrated more, remembered more, smiled more, giggled more and shrugged more. But I didn’t. I had only one moment in that entire calendar year that I thought was worthy enough to jot down in ink.

I sat for sometime thinking that day. I reviewed moments I passed up, moments I sat with ice packs, moments I watched the same tv show week after week, moments going to bed early, unexciting, brain numbing, emotionless moments.

And I knew that it was enough, life was passing me by. I could no longer use the excuse that I would do all I wanted to do when my pain became more manageable, because the fact is the pain was not going to get any better, and my parents divorce was far behind me and I had risen past the emotional times and I had grown significantly stronger as person. And that mostly, I just needed to live.

So with pen in hand I wrote the following into my calendar:

Three weeks of art classes; and

18 Days in Italy.

Yes, they are there in bold blue ink surrounded with happy faces. What’s more is they are not just pipe dreams, they are dreams that have been bought and paid for and dreams that are about to be fulfilled, and I sense, that they are just two of the many highlights I foresee for myself in 2012.

And you know what? All it took was:

Ink to Paper.

Who knew?


Until Next Time.

Tracy

GOODBYE DIGNITY!!!

I have the Public Washroom woes.

Horrified by the site of a public piddling station since I was wee tall, I have done my best over the years to visit as few as possible.

Not in anyway designed for comfort, the effort to maintain any sense of dignity is all but non existent for me the moment I enter one of these torture contraptions.

To wit: last evening, my better half and I had taken my lovely sister in law and her hubby out for a pre-birthday dinner in her honour. Knowing my distaste for the public washroom, I usually refrain from drinking anything of an abundance in order to take the pressure off my bladder until I can safely use my own bathroom at home. However, with it being a cold night, the bistro we were at had upped their heating bill by cranking it to an almost uncomfortable temperature. Hot and parched, I removed clothing piece upon clothing piece to the point where I was one more clothing piece away from being charged with indecent exposure. With my throat parched and dry and my body as clothes free as humanly decent, my last resort was to suck back copious amounts of liquid to assist in my rather dry and soon to be hoarse voice.

It didn’t take long for my wee wee to be quite full of potential pee pee! In my stubbornness, I sat there fidgeting and wiggling and crossing my rather short stubby legs in order to avoid a potential catastrophe. Thirty agonizing minutes later, and trying to eat my salad in a calm collective manner, I started moving my butt around whilst I did my own version of a happy pee dance.

Mental telepathy and willing my faithful entourage who were blindly enjoying their meals to suck back their food quickly in order for me to get home to my faithful bathroom companion, was to no avail. The only process that was speeding up was the pressure that was pushing upon my rather weak bladder.

Finally, I gave up the fight and myself and my dignity trotted our way off to the despicable door that would ultimately lead to my relief.

It was only then as I entered into that dubious room, that I realized that they had squished in three very petite bathrooms stalls into what was obviously a two bathroom stall square footage.

Squeezing my big old butt around, I twisted and turned and cranked into position, steadied myself up onto my tip toes and precariously squatted several inches above the toilet in what could be described as an acrobatic pose. With my pants around my knees and slowly slipping towards my ankles, I did my business and reached for the rather large, space consuming toilet paper dispenser and yanked out nothing but a inch by inch square of single ply paper. Knowing that this would not be sufficient, I desperately grabbed and ripped and ripped and ripped one teeny piece after another teeny piece of toilet paper that would not have even wiped a mouse’s butt, let alone mine! Frustrated by the fact that the single sheeted toilet paper was not strong enough to pull around the enormous roll of toilet paper, I continued to rock back and fourth trying to maintain my acrobatic pose when, with one great big tug on the toilet paper, I found myself losing my balance and heading straight towards the bathroom stall door!

And with what could only be described as the most gawd awful sight known too man, I fell head first into the door stall, forcing the door stall right open, straight into the vanity, with my pants now around my ankles, my ass to the wind, still clutching nothing but a single sheet of single ply stinking toilet paper!!!

And there I stood, and there she stood, the older lady who just came threw the door.

And all I could say whilst she stared horrified at my exposed bottom half was: “Yup, goodbye Dignity!”

Until Next Time.

Tracy

A Splinter of a different kind...

I have always been on the fence in my life fighting a battle between happiness and unhappiness, positive and negative, joy and sorrow.

Cursed with equal parts of my mother's optimism and my father's pessimism, life has been a bit of a challenge for me in my efforts to remain more closely linked to the rose coloured glasses version of the world.  And it gets tiring I have to tell you.

Why is it that being negative seems so much easier than being positive?  Why can't you be optimistic every day with little to no effort?

I have found throughout the years that my father's pessimism wins far too frequently in my every day life. Of course, things like the world news, my local news, facebook links of abuse to animals, abuse to people, abuse to children seem to run rampant and fuel this part of my soul. 

I often wished I lived on an island surrounded only by the ones that I love, beautiful music and art, animals that wouldn't eat me, nature in general and all the colours of the rainbow.  Of course, somewhere in my perfect version of life, I would be the proverbial Dorothy living with the munchkins in munchkin land sucking on lollipops until my teeth fell out, without the wicked witch who would still be stuck flying around in Kansas giving some other poor soul a run for their money. In other words, I would be happiest with my head crammed up my ass.

But really, how dreadful is my life (*que violin music please)...  Well let's see, even though I work in a dead-end, uncreative job, I do make a fairly decent wage, have benefits and receive four weeks paid holidays every year.  And though this dead end job is not what I dreamed I would be doing, financially it allows me to have a pretty decent personal life. And even though my better half and my relationship was not the passionate love affairs that movies are made from (damn those stinking movies), it was a love affair that grew over time and now has established into an amazing relationship filled with kindness, thoughtfulness and consideration. And even though I live in a fairly unattractive city, it seems to sit in the middle of a beautiful landscape of rolling hills, mountains, trees as far as the eyes can see, with lakes and the pounding lyrical song of the ocean's crashing waves.

So what's my problem?

And why do I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to find that elusive happiness?  

And why do I have moments throughout my life where I feel unfilled?

I think that somewhere in my brain, I have short circuited and told myself that life is always about being happy, with no turbulence, no strife, no effort. And, if I was truthful with myself, I would have to admit that it is a mindset that needs to be corrected. The question is how...

The question has always been how.

And whilst I sit on this proverbial fence trying to figure out what will make my heart tick in happiness, I can tell you that sitting here for too long not only leaves a fence railing imprint on your big old butt, but also overtime, your ass gets full of splinters. Yup, painful annoying splinters that keep reminding me that at some point, I must step down from that fence and get on with life because if I don't, that splinter will become permanent. And as the years go by, I fear it will fester into a splinter of a different kind. And I can tell you, that is one splinter I could do without.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Lost in a cluttered soul...

As I was lounging like the lump of lard I can be on New Years day with my eyes bulging out of their sockets from the hours of mindless television I was punishing myself with, I over-exerted my toneless arm and reached for my plush new copy of a girly magazine. I told my less than desirable body that I was just pampering myself with a lazy day and taking advantage of the fact that the man and the pooch had left me alone for several hours to wallow in chocolate leftovers and slovenly behaviour.  What's worse, is that I sadly told myself I deserved it.  And as I flipped from page to page in what could be described as sheer boredom, I halted at an article that caught my eye when it started off by stating that a new year, so they say, was the time to start fresh with a clean slate and a new perspective.

I sat there for what felt like an eternity staring at that line and trying to comprehend what that meant for me.  What was I bringing into the new year? I still had the intense chronic pain from last year, I still preferred to enhance the chubby bum print on my couch, my hair was still fuzzy and unmanageable, I had a few more new nose hairs and chin hairs that I was more than happy to leave behind in 2011 and I was sporting a rather large pimple on my chin that I swear was not only talking back at me but was giving me attitude to boot.

My drawers were still full of panties with saggy asses or gawd forbid holes in them.  My socks and pants were faded due to the multiple times they had been washed, and my bras were no longer holding the girls in place.  In fact my poor bras, once brave and strong, that had forced my girls into permanent saluting submission, had now weakened so much that my girls were now happily hanging their heads cross-eyed whilst they surveyed the distance between themselves and my knee caps.

I stood up determined to find the positive in what was increasingly becoming a negative situation.  I opened this door and that door, this drawer and that drawer, and all that stared back at me were piles, piles of old clothes, receipts, shoes, mismatched dishes, old spices, canned food from gawd knows when, stale crackers and expired salad dressings.  My heart started to beat wildly in my chest as I saw half made crafts, and half written journals, half assed photographs in half assed matting, pickles jars with only brine, ketchup bottles with no ketchup, what was I doing to myself?

Was I unable to let go of my past years, was I holding onto something I feared I would loose, something so intangible that I had to hang onto the tangible?  Was I lost, lost deep within my cluttered soul?

My breath became shallower, my chest tighter, sweat was pouring from my temples, my hands were clammy and I swear I was ready to pass out by the enormity of the situation!

It was then, as I spent the next two hours trying to calm myself down and figure out what was haunting me, that I realized that while my soul was cluttered, it was actually cluttered with good things, with soon to be done art projects, and almost completed written posts, articles that were almost perfect and ready to be submitted to the newspaper, photographs that only needed to be developed, and projects that I could not wait to start.  Oh yes, my soul was actually happily cluttered.

Sadly, what I really was, was just a lazy slob.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

SO EXCITING.....!!!!

Yesterday, I got up all stuffy in my nose and an achy stomach (most likely from all the cabbage I put in my homemade chicken chowmein the night before) and thought to myself "Oh great!!! Here's how I am entering into a new year with a runny nose and a runny butt!  Yikes!"

And then I opened my email and......

I was nominated in three categories for Best Written, Humour and Life for the 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards!

And I was doing a happy dance all over the place, well specifically I did a happy dance straight to the bathroom, apparently cabbage could not hold back it's excitement either!

In any event, there are a gazillion amazing blogs that have been nominated, so quite frankly I am betting the buck stops here especially with the fantastic competition out there.  But in the meantime, I have to say that I do not know who or whom nominated me and I wanted you to know how utterly humbled I am that you would take the time to actually think of me!  Thank you very much.  How you touched my heart.

And thank you for making me smile whilst I spent the entire day yesterday leaking from all my orifices!

Your kindness has overwhelmed me!!! 

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Letting go....

2011 left me like the softness of a lover's caress and 2012 entered just as sweetly and gently, making me wonder what this year will hold.

My Christmas was a typical happy disaster created by the likes of me and my channelling of Lucille Ball.  From almost food poisoning my family with raw poultry, to loosing my turkey skewers and having to truss up the turkey with galvanized nails, to my family finding out about the galvanized nails, to sending them into the garage to eat their dinner where I transformed it into a sorry-ful makeshift dining room, to unthawing my Christmas dessert and having it collapse into mush and offering my family the alternative of whip cream shots from the can, to finally capping it off with laughter so hard that I nearly peed my pants, not once but twice, all over the fact that I was definitely the hostess without the mostess!

I spent the rest of this week either utterly exhausted laying on the couch moping to myself or had crazy like moments of being a furious tasmanian devil whilst I ripped down all the decorations before entering into the New Year. I blame the latter on the fact that I consumed copious amounts of chocolate dipped goodies.  

In all seriousness tho, I have always had this weird sense of wanting to leave the past behind when the New Year begins and open into the future for all that is new, fresh and mistake free.  Of course, eating a bag of chocolate covered almonds and six slices of bacon was not the best way to start the new year, although my stomach begs to differ!

However, for me, I have realized that it is time to let go of those things that are holding me back.

It's time for me to say goodbye to my insecurities, my sadness, my lack of confidence and my failures.

It's time to properly say goodbye to those relationships that are no longer in my life, but to which I hold onto in my heart, though strongly I know that they are gone.

It's time to let go of the past so that I can be open to the here and now.

It's time to close doors and open windows and feel the fresh air upon my face.

It's definitely time to smile and banish my self imposed frown.

It's time to sparkle in my eyes rather than squint (although I have a sneaky suspicious that sunglasses might help this infliction!) 

But mostly, it's time to let go of my fears.

This year, will be the year about growing...  And as I say that, I wish to clarify with the fates above, that I would like to grow metaphorically as a human and not my ever expanding waist line! However, I am open to growing in my height.  Just putting that out there in case you can do something about that! 

This year will be the year to believe in myself and realize that I am worth more than I have ever thought.

This year will be the year to reclaim my creativity and enthusiasm.

This year will be the year I fight thru and conquer those chains that hold me back.

And this year, really this entire year, will finally be the year I let go....

And I will... How do I know that, you say?  Well, I have already started...

Until Next Time.

Tracy