Life Begins at 30

In just 365 days I will be 30 years old. While the number itself doesn't bother me, the fact that the past decade of my life has disappeared as though it were only days does.  It terrifies me. I am not looking forward to my certain death, and each birthday reminds me more and more of my mortality.

Another thing that bothers me is that if I continue living as I have been all of these years, I will meet 30 living a lifestyle I am not proud of, representing myself in a way I never imagined as I entered my 20s just 10 years ago.

I am fat. I am lazy. I've had a tumor.

I have traveled the world, but kept myself from true experiences because of fear and self consciousness.

I want children, but never want to see them struggle with their health or their weight the way that I have and do every day.

I am a trying wife who, on more days than I care to admit, is a great challenge to live with, talk to and enjoy being around.

I can't keep my house clean, my teeth flossed or the daily chores of life balanced, or even completed. I am a sad example of an "adult" - also not what I want for my children.

I wish more than anything that I were pregnant right now, but at the same time I am terrified that I will bring a child into a life that I am not proud of. I fear that people won't even know I'm pregnant because my stomach is already so large. Or worse, that I'll give birth to a child with a physical or mental issues or an addiction to sugar because of the lifestyle and food choices I make when pregnant.

But as I write this I start to consider the text as though it were written by a foreign hand, the letters strung together by a student perhaps who is eagerly anticipating my response. What, in deed, would I say? Most certainly, my response would include the following two words: SO WHAT?

I have made poor choices in the past. I clearly acknowledge that and I am not please with how I have allowed my life to proceed.  This is all true. But so what? Am I going to ruin the remaining years feeling sorry or resentful over the choices and shortcomings of my past? This would certainly continue to destroy my future.

So what does it mean? Perhaps it means I have yet to mature into a state where I am really responsible and accept that my choices have consequences. Perhaps it means nothing. It is definitely true that no matter how I feel about what I have done I am not a bad person, in fact I am a great, caring, compassionate person who gives of herself. I spend far more time working on ways to help my students than I do on maintaining my own life, let alone improving it.

So what am I going to do about it? Well, I cannot change my choices in the past, or how those choices impacted me, but I can take very conscious steps toward improving my future, and maybe even countering the negative impacts from my past.

There are many ways to do that and many of them are beneficial. In fact, things are so bad that any positive choice I make from now on will lead to vast improvement.

There are many choices, but the one that has the greatest hold on me and is probably a huge root problem for the other problems is the one I should focu on, it is what I should care about.

I am going to remove all refined sugar!

This is possible only if I also recognize that it not possible every day of the year, therefore I suggest an absence of refined sugar every day with the exception of a SMALL amount on birthdays and holidays. Day to day, in the coffee, when I'm craving -no!

Now good luck to me!!!