Strength

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

A customer called me today, because she could not walk in to the bank. She had a rare and bizarre disease where her calf muscles had slowly disintegrated. She was now confined to a wheelchair, but was far too proud to call it that; she would say "assisted transportation chair". She was calling to order checks, but was unable to because her deceased husband was still on her account and legally we are unable to issue checks without removing him from the account.

"Listen here honey," she said. "We were married for 58 years, it'll be 59 in February. We were high school sweethearts; I was a cheerleader and he was a football player, can you imagine that? The American dream and baby we had it. If you think I'm taking his name off this account, you've got another thing coming. You know, at the end of his life he was diagnosed with Parkinsons. He'd see people. He'd ask me 'who are those children sitting at the coffee table, where did they come from?' and I'd play along, 'oh those are just the neighbor kids, you know how they are'. I could never play along for too long though, and I'd have to slip away to the bedroom. After he died my disease became worse, and the doctors are saying that soon I won't be able to walk. It's still hard to say," her voice started to quiver, "I'll never be able to walk again."

I told her, "I know you don't want to hear it, but it really could be worse. Think about how long you were able to walk, some people are born without that luxury."

She laughed a little, "I know a lady who just had twins conjoined at the head, and here I am complaining about these dumb legs of mine. Let me give you some advice: Use your legs while you got 'em, and love your man while you have him. Everything you love, everything you take for granted, will be gone before you know it."

Smoking hookah, thinking thoughts.

Listening to Minus the Bear, Mike's making dinner. I had such a wonderful day off today; I got absolutely nothing done, and there's so much to fucking do. Packing is on the very bottom of my priority list at the moment, and making tea is at the very top. I'm extremely anxious about all of this and so thankful for yoga right now. Above all else, I'm thankful for Mike. He's held my hand throughout all of this, and I don't think I could ask for anyone more supportive. I'm the luckiest person in the world to have someone so completely amazing to me.

I talked to a financial adviser yesterday and he practically planned the next 3 years of my life. New car, new house, school loans, everything. As overwhelming as it was, I couldn't help but be excited. I have SO much opportunity just sitting right in front of me, and I forget that far too often. Taking life one day at a time has worked alright, but this really opened my eyes and encouraged me. I may have experienced my fair share of bad luck this month; however I have nothing but good karma coming to me in the months to come.

Take control

I read through my old posts on here, and then deleted them; fuck that. I thought to myself, what a whiny little bitch. I can not believe how much I've grown since I started posting on this thing. I've taken control of my life: mind, body, and soul.

I'm at the gym almost every night, perfecting and sculpting. It's not that I'm insecure, I'm just incredibly aware of what little control I have in my world. Father in and out of the hospital, Mike's unsteady job, the demands at my own job; everything is so chaotic. But as of lately I've found complete peace with knowing I have the most control over my body. I'm not just going to get skinny, fuck being some thin little twig, I want to get strong. I'm working out with navy seals, I'm waking up at 5 am for spin classes. I've never been so committed to anything in my life.

Life won't get magically better on it's own, it never will. I'm learning that you truly do reap what you sow. I'm desperately trying to make sure the future I am creating is going to be something I can be proud of. For 30 mins each day I sit down and read the teachings of the Buddha and drink some tea, think about what's wrong and what power I have to improve those things. Don't be angry, don't be sad. We have such little time to spend alive, there's no point in wasting it not being happy.