Another New Year...So What Has Changed?

The tradition of New Year's Resolutions. The ritual of projecting our goals based on a date on the calendar; a let's start over because it is the first day of the first month of a new year. Today is the third day of that new month in the new year and many of those resolutions have already been broken. Is it safe to say that placing those expectations on ourselves, closing us into a box that we created to make changes we could have made on the twentieth or the seventeenth, will not continue to serve us because they hold no relevance to the choices we make everyday? And even more importantly, the reasons we make the choices we do. The sale of exercise equipment, diet plans, vitamins and health products increases every January throughout the world because millions make the resolution to get healthy, lose weight. Great choices, as we should all strive to be healthy because it is what we deserve.

I use weight as an example because mine has been a struggle and a challenge all my life. My father was abusive, I cried, my mother took me for ice cream. A serious pattern developed into an even more serious habit that became my identity. My weight was the bane of my existence and a source of burden for my parents. Doctors were consulted, drugs administered. As many as 14 pills a day , plus hormone injections, which turned to addiction at the age of 12. Skinny 12 year old drug addict that regained all the weight within 10 months of stopping the drugs. I was even sent to finishing school, which is the biggest joke of my history. I know how to set a killer formal dinner table in case anyone cares and at graduation, during photos, my father's only comment was all the money had been spent on this school and now there wasn't any left to fix my face.

So what is the point of this? All the resolutions in the world would not repair the damage that had been done to that little girl. Until the choices were made by me to let all that go and be the healthiest happiest me, Weight Watchers and Adkins didn't stand a chance nor did the date on the calendar. The depth of the pain and the scars created by that life were being stuffed down, painted over with a guarantee of resurfacing without notice. The lack of self worth was so deep and the history of fixing it with ice cream was such a habit, that the sky could have fallen at midnight December 31st and no resolution would make a difference. It has been said that all the compliments in the world cannot erase the insults and the pain. Until one's own belief system is strong enough to sustain a healthy inner peace; strong enough to embrace and nurtured that injured child, all the praise in the world falls on a deaf heart.

I truly believe that as we grow older, grow up shall we say, the responsibility of who we are and the happiness we feel is ours alone. It is imperative in the most important relationship we have, the one with ourselves and that little child, to find a peace, a happiness that allows us to live healthy and with a genuine sense of acceptance. There are still times when the demons return and there probably always will be.

I recently joined a group of women on Facebook titled "The Documented Life Project".  The goals are to create an art journal of our year, using specific assignments. My first attempt at a cover was in my mind a total disaster and embarrassment as drawing has never been a form of expression I used and for obvious reasons. As we can all assume from this writing, perfection is always my goal and when I started comparing myself to the amazing displays of the other participants, my black and white portrait of a woman was in my minds eye so lacking in artistic style and quality, that of course quitting became the only option. Dropping out of this group to save face and not let anyone get too close or discover the secrets. After posting my intentions, the gifts came so fast and with such love and caring that all I could do was cry. Here is what I had asked for. A group of supporters that would allow me to support in kind. The response, the realization that there are so many little girls out there, all over the world, who don't think they are good enough hit me like an arrow straight to my heart. I could feel their pain while I was feeling my own healing.

So, 24 hours and a lot of searching and listening (my word for 2014) I have discovered that this is my art. My true expression of myself and that little girl. It doesn't have to look like another expression because then it wouldn't be mine. So my new found friends, here is my door.