Happy Tday and Things I am Thankful for This Year

Happy Tday all!  I love Thanksgiving because I love family, pie, and wine, but I am not actually a fan of turkey.  Somewhere across the country, Crush gets to eat fried chicken at his Thanksgiving table, so lucky he is!  One day, I hope to be there with a drumstick hanging out of my own mouth!  Yum!

This year has been one of the best and worst of my life.  Bittersweet in every sense of the word.  I hit my lowest lows, but now, that light at the end of the tunnel I have mentioned, I can actually see it!  It will all be okay, I just know it.  I think I have found the peace and love I was always seeking in myself.  I know I have the skill set to find my way out of darkness.  This is a huge revelation for me.

I am not perfect.  I am still struggling with the eating each and every day.  This is my real demon.  My food issues are at the core of who I really am.  I am still so all or nothing.  I don't want to deceive you, I am doing okay because I am finally acknowledging it, but I am addicted to food, more specifically the comfort food brings and I eat mindlessly on a daily basis.  My recent acceptance of my situation is huge for me.  The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it.  I have a problem.  I love eating alone, in the comfort of my bed, without judgement, where calories don't count.  It is not glamorous or fun.  It is an addiction I realize and my goal for 2013 is to overcome it, one day at a time, one bite at a time.

Here is what I am thankful for this year:

1.  I am thankful that I have a family that loves and supports me.  They took me in when I needed to come home, when I had left my job to create my own business.  They have been my safety net this year, my comfort.

2.  I am thankful for my best friends.  I believe in quality, not quantity.  I have a few VERY best friends and they are my soul sisters.  We have all been through a lot.  New love, new life, fatal tragedies, and great accomplishments and milestones.  I am blessed that my friends love me enough to support me through all of my ups and downs.  Through my tears, my selfish ways, my jealousy, my depression, my want of something that seemed so impossible at the time.  I think they know that at the very root of my soul, I would do do ANYTHING for them, ANYTHING!  I would literally stand in front of a moving bus for them to protect them, I love them all so much.  Real friends, the kind you can sob to at 2:30 am, there is no price you can put on the value of them.  I am very blessed for the people I have in my life.

3.  I am thankful that I took a risk to pursue a dream of mine.  I own my own business.  I am doing well.  The only negatives are self inflicted.  My procrastination is my greatest weakness.  I am great at my job and even though it can be emotional, annoying, drama filled, and insanely petty, I love it and I love the role I get to play.  One day I will tell you all it!  My goal for this Tday is to wrap up all unfinished business by Sunday of this week.  I am going to do it!  I feel the wave of motivation cresting inside of me and I am excited!

4.  I am thankful that my sister and I are so close.  Perhaps this should be under point number 1, but I am going to give her, her very own place on the list.  We were super close as little ones all the way through high school.  Then, things fell apart.  She struggled when I was doing well and vice-versa.  7 years we just weren't on the same page.  Living in the same city as your sibling and not being close like you should be, there is nothing quite like that emptiness.  Having your sister close in location, but not close in your heart.  My sister followed her heart and found the perfect life for her.  She is happy and I am happy for her.  We are the closest we ever have been.  I also wrote my brother-in-law a letter and we are in the process of patching up our issues, he doesn't like to share my sister, that has a lot to do with our personal problems.  Sissy and bro-in-law are genuinely happy for me and are super excited about Crush.  They will meet him soon, he is going to come visit when my sister has her baby (in 3 months), we are all so looking forward to it!

5.  I am thankful for Crush.  Well, of course I am!  You all knew that was coming....I gush about him on the regular, but I do truly believe he is my soulmate.  I did a lot of hard and deep emotional work before I was ready for him and now, well, this has been the easiest and most fulfilling relationship I have ever had with a man.  He is quickly becoming one of my best friends, that is what love is all about.

6.  I am thankful for being able to reconnect with many of my old hobbies that make me happy: reading books, long walks, bike rides with my dad, spinning classes, early nights to bed, chatting with my friends on the phone or seeing the local ones for a lunch or dinner.  I miss acting and comedy and do plan to get back to that soon, too, when time allows.

7.  I am thankful that I acknowledged that I have a problem with alcohol.  I do not consider myself an alcoholic.  I just know that my judgement, productivity, depression, and personality are not positively affected by alcohol, so I avoid it most of the time.  I have a few safe people that I like to indulge with, other than them, it is best for me to enjoy some drinks, but not get drunk.

8.  I am thankful that I have started to really love my body.  All of my body.  I am a woman.  A real woman.  I have flaws and I have beautiful curves.   Fuck (sorry Crush, this is the right time for a cuss) all the men that made me feel like my stomach was not flat enough, my stretch marks were something to be questioned, my vagina was ugly because it doesn't look like a mainstream porn star's...FUCK THEM ALL!  I am beautiful.  I am special.  I am ME.  My body functions.  It wakes up, it makes it through 40 mile bike rides, it feels, it gives and receives pleasure, it rests peacefully.  I used to look in the mirror and sob.  I would see my thighs, my cellulite, my "flaws".  I now look and smile.  I am not perfect, I am just a person, but I am a really cute person at that!

9.  I am thankful that I am brave.  I am a late bloomer, but I have a real sense of self.  I have integrity.  I knew Awful wasn't right for me and I found the strength to walk away from a very difficult situation.  I learned once and for all, that I cannot change a man.  It was a lesson I always knew, but couldn't truly grasp.

10.  I am thankful that I am not afraid to be me.  I like preppy clothes.  I like red lipstick.  I like a perfume that I have worn since I was 11.  I like angry girl rock and show tunes.  I like really bad shows on Oxygen, like The Bad Girls Club.  I am me.  A big thing for me this year was that I deactivated my Facebook profile.  I may never get back on.  It was giving me terrible anxiety because I felt so embarrassed....all of my "friends" had it all: the handsome husband, the beautiful babies, the new cars, the big houses, the exotic vacations....AND, well, I was living at home with my parents, feeling jealous, feeling ugly, feeling like a total loser....!  I knew I was being judged for my hardships.  Not by my real friends, but by my virtual "friends."  I know how people get together and look at other people's Facebook profiles and laugh and judge.  "So and so is such a loser!  Look at her wedding dress, OMG, so ugly!  He got so fat!  I can't believe they named their daughter that!  So and so is now divorced!"  I find it all to be so mean and I am guilty myself of the "Facebook stalk" and the feeling good by comparing myself to others when I am doing better than them.  I have been the mean girl finding great satisfaction is other people's pain and failure.  Karma is a total bitch.  Look at me, I totally fell from grace this year and I had to deal with the pain of knowing that some found great joy and satisfaction in my hardships.  What goes around comes around.  The truth is that I am me, only me, and if I am not mature enough to look at Facebook as a social connecting tool for business and positive life purposes, well then I shouldn't be on it and I'm not.  I don't want to invite negativity into my life, I came too far to allow myself to be the person I never want to be again.

Time for me to come down off of my soapbox!  I wish you all a beautiful, safe, loving, and delicious Tday!  THANK YOU for reading, for commenting, and for offering me daily inspiration! My very best  to you on this wonderful holiday!