Describing Grief

There are millions of books on Grief out there.  I've read a few.  Some of them strike me as accurate, some of them don't.  What they do seem to have in common is a lot of cliches.  It's a roller coaster, it's steps, it's a yo yo, two steps forward, one step back, at your own pace, bla bla bla.  I find accurate or not, most of them are useless.  We've all grieved at some level over something.  Lost love, pets, parents, friends.  We know what its all about.  But to grieve for your child is a different animal altogether.  Its like a whale in a fishbowl, taking up all the room.  The books I have read give me concrete facts, but no real description to define grief.  No picture of what grief really is.  Nothing to explain to me if I am reacting 'normally'.

I just finished reading a book called "The Year of Pleasures" by Elizabeth Berg.  It is a novel, not a reference book.  And it is about a woman grieving her husband (about the closest grief I could imagine to child loss).  This woman writes so very vividly about everything.  Every aspect of the book is finely detailed with original and poignant metaphor, simile and personification.  You can see what she sees and hear what she hears and smell what she smells, but most importantly you can feel what she feels.  Although the focus of the book is not necessarily her grief, the eloquence with which she defined her grief feelings is stunning.  I found myself saying over and over--yes, exactly, that is how it feels. 

In this blog I just want to share a few excepts from the book that struck me as insightful.  Hopefully I'm not violating any copy write laws and should she see my blog somehow she would understand that I am sharing her words because I could never express myself as beautifully as she does. I know these are completely without context, so bear with me and maybe go buy the book.

Sometimes I felt on the edge of reality, unable to understand the simplest things...Other times, I went numb, as though vultures had landed inside and picked me clean.  At those times, I did not quite taste or see or hear or touch or feel.  And at those times, I thought cautiously, Is that it, then?  Am I through crying?  Am I healing already?  And then would come another tidal wave of pain, nearly nauseating in its force....

Another mosquito bite of grief.  I was beginning to learn that sometimes sorrow was a complex form of aggravation.

I would try to find joy despite the necessary work of grieving, and I knew full well that work was exactly the right word to describe it.  It was [Michaela's] life that was over, not mine.  I had to remember that recognizing the distinction was not disloyalty.

I woke up the next morning full of a cheerfulness I was afraid to trust. ...and tried to ignore the guilt simmering inside.

I knew something about others predicting how long pain would last.  Pebbles flung against a mountainside, that's what that was.  Little bits of speculation thrown against an overwhelming fact.

I needed a break, a respectful visitation to a place I'd been ignoring.  It had been good--it had been a relief--to be so purposefully away from the reality....but in an odd way, I missed my sorrow.

...talking to a stranger would require something I now felt incapable of.

And noticed a specific and breathtaking absence.  At the moment, nothing hurt.  What I felt was only hope, that internal sunrise....I felt only my great luck at having had [her] for as long as I did.  I'd learned enough about grieving to know that other ways of feeling would come back soon enough.  But it seemed to me that this was the way we all lived:  full to the brim with gratitude and joy one day, wrecked on the rocks the next.  Finding the balance between the two was the art and the salvation.

I feel like I'm walking around carrying a really full--overly full--bowl of water.  When I don't look at it, nothing spills.

...her death changed our lives for the better, because it brought a kind of awareness, a specific sense of purpose and appreciation we hadn't had before.  Would I trade that in order to have her back?  In a fraction of a millisecond.  But I won't ever have her back.  So I have taken this, as her great gift to us....do I block her out?  Never.  Do I think of her?  Always.  In some part of my brain, I think of her every single moment of every single day.

Thank you Ms. Berg for letting me borrow your words.  I don't know where your insightfulness into the feelings of grief originate, if you have had a loss or if you are simply extremely empathetic.  But I have felt every one of these feelings and had every one of these thoughts in inexpressible waves of emotion.  You have beautifully expressed some of those feelings for me.  Thank you.

How many children do I have?

Ahh, small talk.  The most basic unit of communication with strangers and aquaintances.  Usually so benign, but yet riddled with so many hidden bombs.  The benign "what do you do?" is a conversation ender if the person just lost their job (for example).  And the Omnipresent, "How many children do you have?"  Seemingly a great conversation opener (who doesn't like to talk about their kids?), can be more difficult than you can imagine for a person who has had a child die.  But let me back up a few steps....

When the two children I gave birth to were young, it was an easy answer, right?  Two.  Simple.  Then I married a man who had three children.  Ok, that's a little more complicated.  Add in that his oldest was about to get married when we met and didn't live any where near and I never even met her until after her baby was born.  So...now I have a mathematical equation to do.  First I have to figure out what the person is really asking.  Do they want to know how many children I gave birth to?  How many children I have something to do with raising?  How many children my husband and I have?  What exactly is the question?

I figured out after awhile to just stick with "between my husband and I we have 5" and following that up with a who's who that rivals the famous publication listing who was born to who, how old, where they lived, etc.  It wasn't a short answer, but it got a chuckle usually.

And then Michaela died and I had to start all over figuring out the right answer.  It seems easy enough, but it wasn't.  At first I made the same mistake a friend of mine was telling me about yesterday.  I would say we had 4 and one in heaven.  Talk about a show stopper.  Looks of pity, followed by uncomfortable condolences, followed by uncomfortable silence, followed by the person looking frantically for an escape. 
So I offer up this suggestion for the bereaved parent.  Give the questioner a break.  They aren't asking how many children you have alive.  Why even mention it in the first breath?  Your child is your child, forever, period.  Include your angel child in your number, you will feel disloyal if you don't.  But there is no need to announce that he or she is dead, unless perhaps you only had one.  That makes it a little more difficult, but at least try to offer up more that just that piece of information. 
For those with surviving children, it is a little easier, I think.  I have a memorized answer that seems to put people at ease.  I still say between my husband and I we have 5.  I usually leave it at that until the follow up question (how old, where are they, etc).  Then I start with the oldest and work down adding a tidbit about each one.  Misti is the oldest she lives in CT with her husband and three children,  my oldest daughter, Michaela, was killed in a car accident at 21, my stepson Brandon is 22 and at FSU, my son, David is 21 and going to a small school in Iowa, and the youngest, Heather is 20 and expecting our 4th grandchild.  Then I repeat the question back to them if appropriate.  Sure it seems rehearsed.  It is.

There is still that shock of the death of a child, but there is a lot of other things to process, so by the time I am done, they can simply acknowledge the death and either tell me about their own children or comment on one of the other bits I have given them to work with. 

And for the person confronted with someone telling you that their child died.  Unless they burst into tears or act like they need consoled in some way.  A simple acknowledgement and perhaps a follow up question.  "I'm sorry to hear that, how did she die?" Followed by a second condolence and then simply move on.  Ask about one of the other children if there are any or ask a question about the personality of the lost child that is age appropriate.  And then move to another topic of conversation.  It is ok to talk about your own children.  It is ok to ask more questions if you want to.  It is not ok to say "I know just how you feel, my dog died last month" or "I understand, I lost my father last year"....unless you also lost a child your loss is irrelevant to this particular conversation.  It isn't unimportant, it just isn't an appropriate response. 

That is all.  :).  I doesn't seem that complicated any more.

Getting Back Up

I think my posts paint an unrealistic picture of what it is like to be a grieving mother.  That is because I generally only post when I am up and I have something positive to say.  Truly that is more and more often as time goes on, but the downs are every bit as bad as they were two years ago. 

This will be our third holiday season without Michaela.  The first year was hard.  The second year was hard.  I'm pretty certain the third year will be hard too.  The only positive is that they were hard in different ways and I'm sure this year will be no exception.  Or maybe that isn't a positive at all....since it is very hard to prepare for the unknown. 

Last weekend I started some holiday shopping.  I used to love holiday shopping.  I loved buying things for Michaela, because she loved the things I bought for her.  She loved getting (and giving) gifts and wasn't shy at all about her gratitude and appreciation.  Her enthusiasm bubbled out of her control.  Naturally as I am walking through stores my mind goes back over and over to 'oh, Michaela would like that, wish I could buy that for Michaela.'  I wonder what I would be buying her this year?  She would have graduated from UCF in the summer, so would be in the process of setting up a home somewhere. 

By Sunday afternoon, I was very blue.  I can't say for sure where the blues came from:  the shopping?  hormones? the upcoming holidays? the excited blessing of Heather's baby coming (knowing that Michaela never had that chance)? her friend's weddings/jobs/graduations?  I am happy for them, truly.  But each is also a tiny pin prick of what should have been, just a little sting of a reminder.  That day the hole in my heart felt tangible; like I could put my fist right through my chest.

This time the blues knocked me down.  I stayed home from work on Monday and didn't do anything.  People recommend that 'mental health days' be something fun to bring you up, but they don't understand.  If I had the strength to do something fun, I just would have gone to work.  These down days are like a bunch of elephants sitting on me, making it impossible for me to move or even breath.  I don't want to see anyone, speak to anyone, or do anything at all.  I just want to sleep or stare mindlessly into space or at a computer screen.  Even TV is too much input for me to handle. 

But I know I must fight those feelings.  I have to be stronger than the grief elephants and do what needs to be done.  I may be able to give myself a little slack to work slower or a shorter day or on an easier project, but to allow myself to succumb to doing nothing does not help me.  It leaves me feeling worse than I did at the beginning of the day. 

Tuesday I got up and pushed through the air that felt like moving through a jello mold and got to work.  I looked at my to-do list, now already a day behind and felt anxiety building in me.  I felt like I didn't have the strength to accomplish anything on that list; the whole list was overwhelming.  So I turned to a blank page and I wrote down one thing to do.  The most urgent thing on the list.  Then I did it.  Then I marked it off and wrote down one more thing.  Then I did it.  Then I marked it off.  By the end of the day I was feeling a sense of accomplishment AND had finished everything on the list.

By taking the steps one by one, I am now feeling much better.  I have a handle on all of the upcoming festivities and visitors we will be having, the uncertainty of how the holidays will be based on when Miley is born, the joy of having my son home for almost a month and my mom and dad down for a short visit after Christmas.  Brandon coming home from college.  Lots of short visits from Misti and the grandkids.  All of those things were overwhelming to me when I was down, but now I am excited and looking for a unique holiday season that will be nothing like any we have had before. 

God Bless and remember, the only option when you are down is to get back up.  Find your ladder.

Uniquely Exactly the Same

We had a great visit with our grandkids over Halloween.  I love that we get to spend that particular holiday with them because it is a memory making holiday.  It isn't overwhelmed with cooking or gifts or fireworks...it is a holiday of playing together. 

As I was editting the video clips, I was struck by both the similarities between these beautiful children and my own children at those ages.  That Ava had to knock the snowman over before she came in the house...the same way Michaela knocked one over right after they built it.  Just for the fun of destroying it.  That they love to pretend to be different animals...don't all children?  And play dress up.  And do puzzles and build things (only to knock them down) and dance! 

But yet, even as babies they are unique and individual.  It seems such a contradiction.  Each personality is so very different, what they like and don't like, what upsets them and what they enjoy, the foods they prefer and the colors they choose. 

I spent some time pondering this and thinking about how it affects our lives as adults and I came up with a few conclusions.  I believe in our needs we are all exactly the same.  We have the same physical needs, but we also have the same emotional needs (love, acceptance, security, purpose, fulfillment, and so on) and the same fears (rejection, death, illness, injury) and the same feelings (lonliness, fear, anger, excitement), but what makes us individual is how we go about meeting those needs, confronting our fears and reacting to those feelings.

I read Post Secret (www.postsecret.com).  The idea originated as a project where people anonymously sent in personal secrets to a person who published some of them.  It has resulted in multiple books, a web site and even a mobile app.  What strikes me about this whole phenomena isn't that people's deep dark secrets are terrible, but just the opposite; people's secrets are exactly the same.  They post about their lonliness and their fears and they are almost all the same.  Thousands of lonely people, thousands of people who are afraid they won't find love, thousands of people who hide their addictions, thousands of people who have been hurt by someone else.  The post secret community has become a warehouse for people who are hurting to not feel so alone in their pain.  They can see physical proof that they are not 'the only one' who feels that way.

I think that the world would be a much kinder place if everyone realized this simple fact.  We are all uniquely exactly the same. 

If we could appreciate that everyone on the street that we meet is struggling with the same fears and hurts that we are, perhaps we would be less inclined to flip them off when they accidentally cut us off in traffic.  Perhaps we would smile at people for no reason or say hi to people we pass on the street.  Maybe we could find some small joy in letting someone merge in traffic,waving them through a stop sign or letting them go ahead of us in line.  Maybe we wouldn't be so quick to blow the horn or cut in line ourselves.  Maybe we would be kinder.

Perhaps we would be able to see beyond skin color, religion, language, and body shape to find amazement in our real differences and solace in our sameness.  Because our real differences are not a physical thing, our real differences are in the unique ways we address our identical world and our identical needs, feelings, fears and emotions.

The Ghost of Halloween Past



In Sumter SC.

So many memories.  Thank God.  From the year before Michaela turned one, when I died her hair with food coloring so she could be a little martian.  How was I to know it wouldn't wash out???  To walking her up to the doors, to standing by the street and insisting I be able to hear both the 'trick or treat' and the 'Thank you', through the stages of princesses to scary to too old to trick or treat to her To her Haunted House in college that she enjoyed so much...this is nothing but Michaela's Halloween's in pictures....I hope you enjoy it.


At Shaw AFB Base Housing.  David was mad I wouldn't let him

Wear an actual hockey mask while trick or treating.

This was the year of standing by the street listing for thank you.  Karla

stayed home and gave out candy.

At Mildenhall England.  Yet another bunny...could be a lazy mom???

Bunnies and scarecrows are easy!

At Shaw AFB.  Michaela thought she was the prettiest Cinderella ever.

David hated the paint on his nose, but she convinced him it was perfect.

In Goldsboro NC.  The girls did their own make-up. 

In Hawaii with her 4 amigos + 1 I don't recognize.  One of the few Halloweens I missed. 

Goldsboro NC. 

Patrick AFB 2002.  She was so new here.  Halloween was a non-event except for this work party.

Melbourne FL 2004.  Flapper extraordinaire.

Self Explanatory.

At FSU.  I think this is supposed to be a pirate?

Pumpkin Carving Social at Kellum Hall.

Mich and Erin doing the haunted house circus thing?

Making carmel apples.  Heather carving her pumpkin.  Brandon doing...well, something.  And Sarah chillin'.

That is the last of the pictures I could find; although I know more exist.  I have never tried to put a link in this blog, but here goes, hope it works.  Watch it if you dare!

Kellum Hall Haunted House

Holidays

Thanksgiving with Grama and Grampa

One of the questions I get asked most often as a bereaved mother is how I get through the holidays or which holiday is the worst.  I guess I would say, for me, Thanksgiving is the by far the most difficult day to get through.  In general though, holidays themselves aren't the worst days.  On the holidays and before the holidays, the time is filled with preparations and visitors and general busyness.  And I can indulge myself in memories of past holidays to my heart's content.  The days after a holiday are often some of my saddest days.

Long ago July 4th

Of course the Fourth of July, being the day we said our last goodbyes to Michaela at our private beachside service will never be the same again.  I have no inclination to celebrate that day and feel no remorse about skipping fireworks and other festivities; although I don't mind going along if it is with family or friends, I can still remember and reflect.  Overall, I prefer to think of it as the day my husband proposed to me and as a day to quietly think about Michaela.  Since both things happened at the beach, that is where I like to go. 

Christmas mice

Holidays with Michaela were special.  She had such enthusiasm for them.  She loved them all and she loved the rituals and traditions that surround them.  Her favorite holiday was Thanksgiving because it involved her two favorite things:  food and family.  But all of the holidays were important, we colored Easter eggs, carved pumpkins, baked Christmas cookies.  Halloween costumes had to be homemade.  There was no skipping the traditions with her around.  We have not decorated the house for Halloween since 2008.  I doubt we will again. 

First year of pumpkin carving

We have a new tradition now that I hope we are able to maintain.  On Halloween we visit our grandchildren.  Since we don't get to see them on Christmas or Thanksgiving, what better way to make new memories than spending the same holiday year after year, doing the same traditions and watching the changes as the years pass.  Pumpkin picking, hay bale mazes, first painting pumpkins and the graduating to carving them as they get older, dressing up and trick or treating. 

Pumpkin Art

This year Heather came over with some friends and carved pumpkins.  It was fun and full of memories for me.  Next year we will be doing pumpkin painting with Miley, her baby, I hope, before we go up north to see the other grandkids.

And these new things will be a joy that I am thankful for, just as I am thankful for the memories I have of my own children doing these things. 

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

This morning I upgraded my Apple devices.  As soon as I was done, I eagerly explored my phone to see what was new and changed.  I liked the changes.  I can't wait to get my new phone at the end of the month. 

Last week I logged onto Facebook and there were changes.  I hesitantly clicked around to see what had changed and decide if I liked it or not.  My newsfeed was full of other people complaining about the changes.  The 'real' news was full of stories about people complaining about the changes. 

As a Human Resources development person with a MSA (Master of Science in Administration), much of my education was focused on managing change in large organizations.  In a nutshell, 2 years of education and several thousand dollars can be summed up by three words...communicate, communicate, communicate.

Now wouldn't you think the genious who could change the entire world's way of communicating would be able to figure this concept out?

Look at how Apple implements their changes:  Before they say a word, they build up anticipation by leaking little bits and pieces about what the changes are going to be.  Then they announce a date that they will make an announcement and the excitement mounts.  By the time they finally make the announcement, everyone is prepared to love whatever it is.   Then they make the announcement, but you still can't get it, more waiting...oh wait, you can pre-order!  Hurray!  Now you wait for your new device (or software) to arrive.  After all of this anticipation your mind is preprogrammed to love the change. 

Look at how FB implements their changes:  You wake up one morning and people are complaining on FB about the 'new FB' layout.  Your FB looks exactly the same.  You get on the 'real news' to see if you can find out what they are talking about.  Nothing there yet.  You wait anxiously (not the same as anticipating) for the change to strike your FB page.  One morning you wake up and everything is different.  You have 'the new FB', oh no, what is wrong with it?  You poke around expecting a stink bomb at every click of the button.  Eventually you get used to it and dread the next change.

Confusion

In general people hate change, but there are ways to make it more tolerable and even exciting.  In your workplace, in your family, with your friends, even in your own life you can make changes by communicating a positive message and allowing time for it to become a positive thing.  Any sudden, unexpected change causes stress and confusion.

I did this (internally) with my exercise program.  I had to stop yoga for a few weeks because I didn't want to give up those hours with my mom.  But every day I reminded myself, I can't wait to get back to yoga, I feel so good after yoga, so when I finally had the chance to go back I was excited about it and motivated to do it.  And I'm back at yoga now and feeling great!

It's all in how you look at it.

At the end of the month my husband will be changing from a Droid to an iPhone.  I plan to have him so excited to make this change that he won't even think to get frustrated when things are a bit different. 

Think about this next time you have to make a change--move, new school, new job, new process, new equipment, marriage, divorce, kids moving away--some changes may not seem so great on the face of it, but life takes you down a road that isn't always in your control.  How you communicate that change to yourself and to others can make everything better or much, much worse.

Momentum

I lost some of my momentum in the last few weeks.  But with very good cause, my mommy was visiting.  I have moved exercise to a very high spot on my priority list, but not as high as my mom who I just don't get to see that often.  So it has been two weeks since I have had a real workout.  I am excited, though, to start again next week.  Especially to go to yoga.  I love the way I feel after a yoga class.

In the meantime, I have been having trouble getting out of bed in the morning.  Not waking up.  Just making myself leave the bed.  I have been having extremely vivid dreams and when I wake up in the middle of one of them, even the most mundane of them, I just want to go back into that world.  My mind takes the real and the surreal and mashes it all together in an impossible way while I sleep.  Even when the dreams are bad, I want to go back into them and see how they turn out.  See if I can change the bad to good. 

This morning's dream was particularly mundane.  A friend and I were trying to clean a grape slushee out of a white carpet before her dad saw it.  Why on earth would I want to go back into that dream?  But I did.  I didn't open my eyes and I thought hard about what was going on in the dream, sometimes that let's me doze off and get back into it.  But no.  Not this time.  I think it is because in that dream world anything is possible and I want to be there.  It is always vividly colorful and everything seems slightly brighter and more intense than in the real world.  And when I can't get back to it, I start to feel sad.

Still my bed is warm and comfortable and I am not inclined to leave it.  I know I am not going to fall back to sleep.  My mind starts telling me that the sooner I get up and get moving the sooner I won't feel sad, the earlier I will get to work (thus the earlier I will get to come home), the more I will accomplish in the day...but I fight it.  I just don't have the motivation to make myself get up a minute before I have to. 

Yet my mind was right.  Once I do get up and start moving about, the sadness falls away and my mind turns to more productive thinking.  It is this way every day.  So why can't I start that pendulum swinging and get the momentum rolling without this daily battle?  I would love to be able to do some workouts in the morning before work, but I know I will lose this battle every time.  It matters not how late or early  I go to sleep, how well I sleep, or what I have planned for the day.

Does anybody have any 'tricks' that helps them get the morning started? 

The Picture(s)

For anyone who sees my Facebook regularly, this isn't new news...just some further discussion of a recent event.  It is about The Picture (and some other things).  So, first, here is The Picture:

In the background of this picture some people see something unusual and some people do not.  Of the people who commented on the picture, I would say a full 90% see what I see (perhaps those who did not weren't inclined to comment).  I did not see it when I took the picture.  I didn't even see it when I first edited the picture (changing it from color to black and white).  I saw it when I was deleting old pictures.  Unfortunately I had already deleted the original color version, so that makes it hard to really verify anything at all, but I don't need to really.  I see it and that is what matters.

If you are in the minority of people and don't see anything, try this:

Look inside the circled area.  What appears to most people is a young woman's face.  What appears to those of us who knew her is Michaela's face, with her hands under her chin, her blond hair shining.  This seemed so obvious to me that I found it hard to believe.  I have seen teeny tiny signs and believed in them whole heartedly, but this is stretch even for me.  So much so that I went out another night and tried to recreate the picture.  Nothing scientific about it...lots of factors would be different no matter what.    This is what I came up with (new picture on the left):

Nothing proved or disproved by this.  It does clear up though, what some people were saying looked like octopus legs in the first picture.  They are there in the second picture as well, simply part of the tree. 

I can't really say why I felt any need to prove or disprove anything in this case.  It seems so clearcut.  I guess that is why, perhaps.  I don't expect spiritual things to be clearcut.  I expect them to be interpretive.  Here are some things that I believe for absolute fact with no proof whatsoever:  My grandpa came to me before Michaela died to offer comfort for what was to come, Rainbows are important, I have had incredible luck with weather for over two years now (too much so to be coincidental), the balloons and the biplane at the beach were for us, Mich had a hand in finding our new home, she held me at an outdoor concert and listened to the Song "Sister Golden Hair" with me, and the angel in this picture (below):



Father's Day 2010



Funny how I find it easier to find faith in the abstract picture above than the clear one from more recently.  Most people can't even see the angel in this picture, although to me she is clear.  Perhaps that is why God (or the universe) doesn't just text message us with what he wants us to do.  Perhaps if it was that clearcut, we wouldn't believe it, in fact we would probably get locked up if we claimed to be getting text messages from God.  So keep this in mind:  Miracles come quietly...pay attention.



Small Steps

Today I did my second 5k (this year).  Last year I did the same 5k as my first 5k ever.  I'm happy to report that I was 5 minutes faster this year (although fast is a relative term!).  But I'm more happy to report that since I posted my blog about peer pressure about 2 months ago, I have made a significant change in my life and am maintaining it. 

Someone  asked me what I was doing to stay motivated, so I thought I would write a nice positive post on what is making me successful this time when I have failed so many times in the past.  First before I list out what specifically is working for me, I have to point out that I have only made one change.  I have been working out regularly.  I think this is important because at times in the past I have tried to make several changes at once (eat right, lose weight, work out, dress better, etc).  By doing it that way, everytime I failed in one area, it felt like a failure in the whole self-improvement effort and I gave up.  So my new plan is to attack all of those things in increments.  Changing one small thing at a time and working at it until it becomes a habit and I can make another change.  

For those who watch my Facebook page, you may have wondered what posting the pictures of my shoes last week was all about.  That was a second change, a very small one, being implemented now that I feel the exercise one is settling into permanence.  Since Michaela died, mornings have been difficult for me and I find myself just throwing on any old thing to go to work.  Mostly whatever went with flip flops.  So last week I started pulling my nicer shoes out of the closet and forcing myself to wear an outfit that looked good with them.  I'm thinking SMALL!  Small changes are easier to tackle than big ones!

So, to answer the question of why I am able to stay motivated this time, here are my thoughts:  Each of these sentences starts with the words "I set my self up for success by...."
1.  not taking on too much at once.
2.  choosing a workout schedule that is easy for me to commit to.
3.  choosing workouts that aren't dependent upon anyone else.
4.   choosing a workout that I enjoy and provides immediate feedback (yoga).
5.  choosing a workout that is on a set schedule and convenient to my house.
6.   avoiding the pitfalls I was already aware of (I won't get up in the morning to work out, if I get comfortable in the house in the evening I won't work out)
7.  setting realistic goals for myself and not worrying about how well (or fast) anyone else is going.
8.  having specific goals (i.e. the date of the 5k)
9.  accepting that every single day I have to make the choice to be successful at this; it isn't a one time thing.
10.  by celebrating every success, even through a simple facebook post that solidifies my accomplishment as fact (even if it is a picture of my shoes!).

Of course there are a lot of other factors as well:  A supportive husband, supportive friends, cooler weather.  The ones I listed are the ones I think contributed to my previous failures and my current success.  Notice that they are all things that are under my control and no one elses.  I am applying my new attitude about choosing to all of the parts of my life.  I can choose to be happy.  I can choose to workout.  I can choose to surround myself with positive people.  And today I chose not to stop running.  I didn't make the choice when my legs were tired....I made it before the race began.  I had to remind myself and continuously reinforce the choice the more tired I got, but I made it 5k without walking a single step.

I can't control my friends, my husband, the weather, or even my workload at work sometimes; but I can control my own life...one small thing at a time.

PS...I just started reading a book called The Power of Small by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval.  I think I am going to like it.  I'll let you know.