Last day of August-summer has flown by eh? One minute we are getting some rays at the beach or the pool, and the next school starts and temps lessen a bit. Getting my house back as my sons get back into school is a good thing!
Maybe it is because I am 40 something and not 20 or 30 something-but it seems like spring and fall over the past year have been a time for reflection.

Am I where I want to be? mentally? emotionally? physically? Evaluation without quilt attached-just checking in on myself, my family, my goals, my efforts. August 22nd marked five years since my brother was abruptly taken from me. I miss him so much, yet I appreciate the love of my family, it seems, so much more. The grief process is different to some extent, for everyone. I feel like I finally do not have to suppress the sadness nor do I have to over eat about it.

I was raised in a baptist environment and there was talk of being "a backsliding Christian" not that God loved you less, just that your ways may not be a blessing to yourself and others. I would feel guilty and that guilt would perpetuate the cycle or "be good, feel good, I am good--be bad, feel bad, I am bad. After my brother died, I think I was in a sort of alive-awake coma, I was hanging on by a thread emotionally and so I did back-slide in some ways. Did it reuslt in fat back? Yes--did I gain all the fat back? NO! Did I quit exercising?? NEVER!

I am thinking on the other side (somewhat) of this grieving process, that is what I had to do/ what I did--and that was survival for me--so why heap quilt on top? I honestly thought prior to my brother's death that no other horrendous things would come my way. I had a hard enough life in the past so the rest of my life could just NOT be TRAGIC----the same year my life long dream to write a book happens--the truly greatest tragedy in my life happens-I loose my only brother. Was it a trade off? Did one thing have anything to do with another? The lessons to learn--will I? have I? Am I?

Now I realize, for me, there is no backsliding, there is living your life, making choices, taking what comes and making the best of it...Saying a prayer and letting go. Problems, pain, negativity they are not going to magically disappear. Just about when you think you have had your quota, look out!

Maybe I value HOPE much more than I ever have before. Hope is letting me see my only surviving sibling stay sober for nearly 90 days after years of let downs. Hope is allowing me to do wonderful things with my extended family in fitness, Hope is healing me and helping get back to my own revelations founded and written about in my book. Hope IS! It lives and thrives if we choose it.

Maya Angelou really does this topic justice, I hope YOU find inspiration from her wonderful words like I have:
" HOPE does not take away your problems...It can lift YOU above them!"
I HOPE you have a wonderful holiday and I hope my ramblings help (in even a small way)!
Happy Labor Day! Love, Dee