I Resolve

Today's Show Us How You Live topic over at Kelly's Korner is about our New Year's resolutions. Ever since Wednesday when I found my old high school resolutions, I've been thinking about what I wanted/needed to change and improve in myself.  One thing I think about resolutions is that they have to be realistic or else they're easily discarded by the third week in January and never thought about again until the next year.  But they should also be a little challenging, you should have to work for it a little.  One of my favorite quotes is:

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Every time I hear or read those words I'm motivated to become the best version of me.  I think about what I want in the future and what it will take to get me there.  Yes, there are a lot of things that I'd like to become that are completely unrealistic or aren't worth the sacrifice in the long run.  But knowing that it's possible, and not just some pie in the sky dream, to become someone greater than I am today makes me ready and willing to stick to my New Year's Resolutions!

I Resolve to:

1.  Strike a Balance.  I'm more of an all-or-nothing kinda girl and I've found it difficult to correctly balance my school work and "mother work."  I know this was my first year back to school since law school, since becoming a mother, and I knew there would be an adjustment period.  But it's taken a lot more getting used to than I anticipated and I either feel like I'm being a bad mom or being a bad student.  I need to work on this; I want to be a good student and a good mom every day- not a good student one day and bad the next.

2. Maintain my GPA.  I'm hoping that by finding a better way to balance everything in my life, keeping my 4.0 will be easier than getting it.  So much of the first 24 years of my life were centered around making good grades, excelling in school, and being "smart."  I worked for it, but it also came to me easily.  I didn't feel that way this year, and even though I ended up with all A's, it wasn't the easiest of roads to get there.

3. Confidently remember that everything I do is for Spencer.  It sometimes gets me in a funk when I think about how people see me now, as if I'm doing nothing with my life because I've chosen to stay home with Spencer for these first few years. I know differently; this is the most difficult and most rewarding job I'll ever have. Spencer is my most proud accomplishment and being her mother is my greatest privilege.  But I need to remind myself of this more and spend less time thinking about anyone else.  When I'm up late studying for a test and up early in the morning to give her breakfast, I need to remember that I'm doing it for her instead of thinking about how tired I am. 

4. Be Receptive.  I often close my mind to different ways of thinking and fail to really listen to others' perspectives.  I'm polite, but it's more like I'm just hearing the words instead of listening to the idea.  This needs to change.  Even if I don't agree with an opinion, that's no reason to ignore it; at the very least I should be trying to understand it. 

5. Take More Pictures.  You might think that 10,000 pictures is a lot to take in one year, but I want to take more!


And those are my big resolutions!  There are a few more that didn't make it on the list because they're "life" resolutions, things that will never leave the list -exercising more, being more organized, and keeping my car clean.

And those are my 2010 Resolutions! 

Some Things Never Change, Like Pink Ink

One of Spencer's favorite things to do is plunder through things that she shouldn't.  The other day she found a box of my old journals and dumped them all on the floor.  I rarely go back and reread the things I wrote when I was in high school and college- more like never- or else I start feeling haunted by my future.  But as I was putting them away, I flipped through a few pages of one from my sophomore year of high school and I saw a list of my New Year's Resolutions, circa 1998.

And oddly enough, not much has changed.  I was even kinda impressed with the resolutions of my 16 year old self.  Although, I definitely did not need to lose 15 llbs.

These are still the same things I'm trying to do now, 12 years later. (How scary is that?! I was 16 twelve years ago!)  Of course I now write out the word love, instead of a heart, but I'm still writing in the same pink ink with the same Pilot Precise Rollerball pen. But it was nice to be reminded again that the old young Katie and the new old Katie are not so different.  And that's a good thing.

I Never Appreciated It!

For as long as I can remember, I have always struggled with my body image. This is probably due to the fact that I looked like this during my "ugly years." I eventually outgrew my chub, but not before I acquired some pretty serious body issues.


My weight fluctuated over the years, never by too much, but enough that I always thought of myself as having to "watch what I ate." I would not say I had an eating disorder, per se, it was more of eating disorder flare ups. They would occur whenever I gained a few extra pounds and I felt the need to quickly lose some weight.

It didn't help that I was a cheerleader in high school, where everyone is looking at your body. Then I went to a College where it seemed every other person had an eating disorder of some sort, probably because of all the control freak, type A personalities.
Since I've had Spencer, my body is just not the same. I haven't actually gotten mentally prepared to undertake this mission, but I plan on a return to my formal self by my 28th birthday. But what gets me SO MAD, I mean really FREAKIN' MAD, is that I was SKINNY!

I remember when these pictures were taken, and I recall both times worrying that I was going to look fat in the pictures. I look at them now, and I think I was TOO thin- what in the name of all that is good and holy, was I thinking? It makes me sad that I wasted to much of life devoted to worrying about how much I weighed. I was never once please with how I looked, I always thought I could be smaller.

These three pictures below were all taken in Italy, the summer I studied there in 2002. There I was in the food capital of the world what I recall most about that trip was all the different ways I tried to avoid gaining weight.

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If only I had been able to enjoy being skinny when I was skinny. Instead, the exact opposite happened- I made myself miserable worrying about my figure, always being afraid a guy wouldn't like me because of my inner thighs that touched. Looking at all these pictures has taught me a lesson- it's actually a quote I love, but never really stopped to think of how it applied to me.

"Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

Omar Khayyam

Now that I'm nowhere near as thin, skinny and pretty as I once was, I have resisted taking pictures of Spencer that include the me. I don't want to ruin the picture and I don't like having to see that I'm not the girl I used to be.

But, I'm starting to see that's just my pride. I need to enjoy each moment of my life, otherwise it's just going to pass me by. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself, ages 14-23, STOP it, you are skinny! You might be too skinny! You are wasting these precious moments that you will NEVER get back!

Spencer, age 3 weeks

I never appreciated myself and that makes me very sad. So I'm posting the few pictures I have of both me and Spencer. I'm sure one day, 10 years down the road, I'll be kicking myself again for hardly having any pictures of me and my daughter during her first year. I've been so consumed with how much I hate the way I look now, that I've let it adversely affect the most important thing in my life. And I know that this isn't just because NOW I actually do have a weight problem, because I was the same way even when I didn't- I just took my pictures.

Yes, I recognize these two don't exactly go together, but I think the color complement each other. The first picture was taken in July, we were out to eat with some friends and someone, sans permission, took a picture of us. The second picture is of my William and Mary Goochies, who drove hours to spend the day with us, even though I was complete post-surgical mess and no fun. I really have the most amazing friends! Spencer was 3 weeks old.

Oh, just gazing at my beautiful babe, once again, caught off guard. The second one is with my Grandpa; it was taken the first day he got to meet Spencer. He was in a nursing home and was very sick when she was born. He wasn't healthy enough to see her until she was three months old. It was a really special day, one I'll never forget- he was my only grandparent alive when Spencer was born. He died this past February.

Spencer and me at her fist birthday party

This is the most recent, I took it on my laptop last month.

I think everyone has their "thing" that they think will change if only "x" happens. Mine was always, "If only I was 5, 10, 15lbs thinner, everything in my life would fall into place." I could justify every problem with that excuse too, for example, I used to say, "I could have made a much better grade on that paper if I hadn't had to exercise for so many hours the day before." That's just a silly one, but I did it for everything.

No more! This year I'm going to try to get back to the old me, but a new old me. One that appreciates all my body has been through. I'm excited! I think part of the reason I've been so slacking on getting back into shape is that I've been dreading the idea of returning to that lifestyle; where every waking moment is spent on thinking of ways not to eat and if I did eat, how I was going to get rid of it.
So here's to being happy with who you are, the way you are. I know I'm ready to be happy with myself, I've been waiting about 27 years!