As much as life can be so hard and oh it loves to throw me curveballs, it definitely is rewarding as well.

I sometimes stress over the littlest things and shrug my shoulders at things I probably should be more stressed about. I know I live in a me, myself and my four mentality most of the time. And a lot of things that get me down are just a bump in the road for others who deal with so much more than I have ever had to deal with, but that’s life. My road is my road. And your road is yours however more bumpy or less bumpy it may be.

Raising 3 boys has made me question my reason for living sometimes. There are so many thing I have screwed up and some things that I feel I have done that is right where others may disagree. I still don’t have a good relationship with my oldest son, but he finished his freshman year of college, so something went right, right? My middle son is about to be a senior in high school and oh man, he tests the waters daily, he is turning out to be a great young man. And my not so little guy is kicking ass and taking names and only 15 years old. They all had their own way of taking care of me on Mother’s Day, which was amazing. And on that day, I knew that although the journey is tough, things are going to be alright. And not just because of Mother’s day, but all the days. It’s just happened that they went above and beyond that day which shined a light on how I should be so thankful!

Then there’s my journey of getting to a better physical and mental state. The take care of me journey, because as a mother, I forget to take care of me. And maybe it’s not that I forget, but it becomes almost an act of selfishness that I somehow learned to define as a bad thing. But guess what it’s not a bad thing. There needs to be selfish moments for you. If you aren’t physically and mentally healthy for your family, you will fail them in ways you may not even see. It won’t be intentional, but it may happen. So, if I’m not feeling so sad about myself then I can focus on them a little bit better. And hopefully, they’ll see and learn from my actions. That they too will learn that taking care of themselves is a priority. It will help them to be better spouses and parents later on down the road. Hopefully I’m setting a good example for them. Time will only tell.

Well that took a deeper turn than I had anticipated, I really just wanted to say that I’m feeling good about all the things. And I’m doing things in the gym that I haven’t done in a long time. Like Toes to Bar. But my lil brain just took over as I was reflecting on far I’ve come in the past year. Cause it’s not just me that’s come a long way, it’s my whole family. And I don’t share much about them on here because I figure no one really cares. And my fitness journey is what I want to share most. To encourage you all that are reading this that life is crazy but everything is doable. Small steps, big steps, quitting, overcoming, winning, patience, etc.

But back to Toes to Bar. I haven’t been able to do those in years cause I got so damn heavy. And now it’s like I never knew I couldn’t do them. They aren’t super easy right now, but it’s no longer, “I can’t do them!” And I did a box jump from sitting, which I’ve never tried cause I’m a scaredy cat. I’m not springy or bouncy. I can’t do consecutive box jumps without a pause at the bottom, so although I can do them I’m not 100% sure that my body will do what it’s supposed to do. But I finally did try and after a few attempts had success!

Being able to do things like that gives me a confidence that I had lost. There are so many levels to confidence and I don’t think most people realize that. Sometimes I am 100% badass and I believe it while other times I think I give myself too much credit and feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. I can be solid 100% in my skills as a graphic designer on one project and then a complete disaster on another project. I can do double unders like a champ but too scared to climb a rope. It’s this crazy complexity and some days I feel ON and all the things are good and some days I am OFF and even doing the simplest thing is a chore.

So many things feed our souls and in turn so many things take away. Finding balance is hard, but if you just find happiness in the small things then the big things find a happy ending too.