Looking back

I love this time of year, but I didn't always. See, when I was a teenager, our family took turns hosting a New Year's party for our immediate family and those that were close friends from church. My mom went on this stint for a few years where she made us, as part of the nightly festivities, write down a resolution on three separate pieces of paper. We'd seal them in three separate envelopes with our address on it. She'd mail one letter to us after a month, after 4 months, and after 8 months.

I never kept my resolution past month one and, as a teenager, it was ALWAYS weight related. Somehow I think I got the resolution writing down business confused with letters to Santa when I was younger. For the most part, I was lucky as a kid - I usually got what I wrote Santa for. Not so much the case when it came to writing down a resolution to lose weight.

The first envelope came and I'd resolve to do better the next month - no matter what! Inevitably, I'd hear chocolate chip cookies call or the lure of fast food and I'd never keep my resolution past the next week.

But then letter number two came and I found fresh new resolve. I'd do it so that I could succeed by the end of the year - I just knew it! Only then I'd get stressed about my home life and comfort myself via food.

I never bothered to open the third letter.

I'm looking back on 2009. I started the year 16 pounds heavier than what I was at this past Monday's weigh in. I lost 40 pounds in the last four months of 2008. A part of me is somehow sad that I don't have more to show for 2009, weight wise.

And then I remember...

Not only did I keep off the 40 pounds that I had lost in 2008, I lost another 16 pounds.

I faced some real demons regarding my family's history.

I started dating someone - someone who loves to eat out, thereby facing a host of new challenges.

I actually started dating someone - I let myself be open to the possibility of a love of my lifetime or a pile of hurt at the end of the relationship. I don't know which way it's going to end...but I do know that being vulnerable again isn't as comfortable as I'd like for it to be.

I started seeing a therapist. One that's helping me deal with past traumas in a helpful way. She is helping me get back in touch with my emotions, ones that I've stuffed so far down with food that they're almost foreign to me. She is helping me to cope with life's stresses without food.

As I write this, my income is uncertain. My love life is uncertain. The traumas of my life have not met closure yet...

BUT...

I'm in a better place - emotionally and physically - than what I was at this time last year..

So yeah, I've only lost 16 pounds in 2009. But my resolution last year to be healthier in mind, body, and spirit DID get met.

What are you most proud of in 2009?