In three months, will you ask me about…..?

How’d that 90 days with no sweets go for you?  (my personal reset – except Thanksgiving and Christmas) And what’s your plan now?

My magical reset button is….

…. I read, I journal, I listen to music, I take a walk and enjoy nature.  I wander around a library or a bookstore.  I thrift.   I call my sister.  I play piano (badly).  I listen to podcasts.

My best reset – sitting and sharing a cup of tea with my husband, talking to or listening to him, spending a day together in nature (Williamsburg, Ireland, or at the ocean).

I sound as though I need a lot of resets.   Or do I sound mentally healthy, recognizing that I have many ways to reset?  (Notice that exercise is not yet a “reset”….)

Right now I’m struggling with…

….my new diagnosis as a Type II diabetic.  The life changes I’m trying suddenly are not about a smaller size in jeans, but in living a healthier life to have a long term quality life.  This is actually daunting.

I am making use of the dietitian counseling,  trying to learn how to manage foods, portions, and blood sugars.  I now take a med to keep blood sugars lower to avoid the damage that consistent higher blood sugars can cause in my body.

I’m going to take advantage of classes and support systems and for the next 90 days, as my own “reset”, doing the no sweets plan – except on each of the holidays.  (Fruits are my new snack.)

This diagnosis is yet another shift in my life, I suppose.  It is not curable but it is controllable.

A recent discovery I can’t stop talking about is….

… podcasts, although it’s not entirely “recent”.  I used to read blogs daily, but it seems that many blogs have morphed into podcasts.  I have some favorites (What Should I Read Next?, On Being, The Daily, The Moth, The Popcast (Knox and Jamie), This American Life, and quite a few more).

My entry podcast was Serial and it was compulsive to listen to.  I did it a week at a time as they were uploaded.

Podcasts are my cure for insomnia – because if I can’t sleep, I can listen in the dark to someone tell me a story.

Any recommendations?

A defining moment in my life was…

…actually I think there are a few defining moments, or decisions, that have directed my life down a particular path.

*Saying yes to a date with this young red haired guy because I needed to figure out how dating worked.  (3.5 years later – we married)  I think that finding a compatible life partner, and to continue to grow and learn new things about each other after over 40 years together is an amazing thing..

*Saying to that red haired guy that, ok, we could think about moving to another state in a few years with our four children.  (9 months later, we moved from CT to VA)  This decision changed the direction of our lives, even as we sadly left close friends behind.  (but the decision to move impacted other family members who also came to live in Virginia)

*Deciding to return to school at age 39 to pursue a nursing degree, after many years at home with children.  This was scary and intimidating, but I was a very good student and loved learning.

*Ultimately deciding to work with moms and babies has changed my life,  and although I enjoy helping moms learn how to breast feed, mostly I want them to just feel good about the journey in becoming a mother.

*And making a change to a non-denominational church felt like waking up.  I’m still waking up.

(and agreeing to let my daughters homeschool…. but maybe that’s a defining moment in their lives?)

I have mixed feelings about…

… the faith of my childhood and its teachings.  I feel now as though I wasted a lot of years feeling inadequate, being fearful,  trying to measure up, not getting it quite right, and attempting to figure out how to perform appropriately to please God.  I realize that many people can be involved in this same faith tradition without any of these feelings, and that’s wonderful for them.   It was not this way for me.  Decades of trying or not trying and feeling like a failure at this.

I am at a very different place now, sort of on a journey, but trying to learn how to live IN faith, or how to just BE.   I feel very outside of the box I grew up in, and my tribe is changing.

I am sad about how this may have impacted my children negatively when it comes to faith in a God who loves them.  I hope they will view  their own  spirituality as important to develop as they grow older, and as something that gives depth and meaning to their lives.

I am surprisingly good at ….

…”surprisingly good at” ?  I don’t think I could be described as such about anything in particular.  I think I am somewhat “ok” at a variety of things.

But I am very good at interpreting behavior in newborns and helping them breastfeed.  It’s just not  “surprising” after 13 years of working with them.

A thing that changed my worldview is …..

reading.  Reading about history, about racism, about other cultures, about spirituality, about relationships.   Books help me to step outside of the box I grew up in.

Someone who has influenced me is …… my husband.  I think his influence in the early years of our marriage was in his leadership, his courage, and being more ready for change than I was.  I was the follower.  Perhaps thinking I was supposed to be the follower.  Something about submission – since I was being taught this by books on marriage from the Christian sphere.  Submission to a courageous leader is easier when you’re scared of making change anyways.

Now we influence each other.  It feels more equal to me, but I think I’m the one who changed more.  I enjoy the balance.

Now my daughters have grown to have a great influence on me.  It is so amazing to hear their thoughts on so many issues, causing me to pause, to think, to reconsider, to learn.