Where Does The Time Go?

As I sit and ponder on the thought that I am forty nine years old I can't help but focus, not so much where the years have gone, but how much I have changed and become so much smarter than I ever thought possible. I am not sure if this is all because of the age thing because I do believe the illness has a lot more to do with it than just the number of years I have had here on earth.

When I think back to the years before illness I remember a person who was flying around trying to keep everyone else happy without any regards to my own well being and happiness. I am not talking in a selfish sense as in me time or in wanting material things since those have never been important to me but in a inner self type peace. I would scramble around trying to keep everyone happy. If I heard of someone needing something I would do it. If someone was ill I was the one there making the meal, watching their children, or fulfilling any need they might have. This was who I was. Then the illness struck and I was unable to do all the things that made me who I was. In turn the illness forced me inward, a place that I was not use to being. In turn many people have left my side. I have realized many of the people I thought cared about me really didn't. That is okay. I have learned friendship cannot work when only one person does the listening and makes it work, it takes two people. A hard but good lesson for me.

I never really took good physical care of myself, ever. I just didn't care, look what it got me. I am still very overweight and my health is failing me miserably. I am still in that I don't care state about taking care of myself. SAD I know but for me the energy it takes to do the things I have to do each day are exhausting. Adding more to that is hard for me. I try but it just isn't a top priority for me. So this is another reason why I was forced to go inward. The soul searching I have done over the past five years that has helped me find out who my true self really is. I am happy I have had the years to do this because I am almost sure if I hadn't become ill I would still be trying to please and keep everyone else happy, living some kind of crazy existence. Now I focus on trying to keep myself going, even though it is just one day at a time. If I am blessed with my family surrounding me and I am able to give some love to them that is what fills my heat and soul.

It is still excruciating painful for me when I hear of someone who is in need and I am unable to help them out but I have learned I must be true to myself and I always hope and pray there is someone else who will step in and help them. It is very hard to change that part of you when you are a giving, loving soul. But I must continue to focus on myself, not in that selfish way, but in a, you will pay for, if you do to much kind of way. It has taken me this long, five years, to get here. It hasn't been easy. I have cried more in these past five years than I have in my whole life. But I made it. I made it to a peace and acceptance, not a total peace or acceptance, but at least some sort of peace that works for me at this time. I am blessed.

If you are reading this I hope that you are at a peace/acceptance with yourself too. Illness or no illness we must take charge of our lives and not live by the standards of the world or by the way other people think we should live. Do what is right for you. Learn to say no. Learn to live your life in your own true happiness and not by what someone else thinks is right for you. Enjoy the little moments in your life, the simplicities that bring joy to your heart. Only you know what those are! Do some of your own soul searching. Time is limited here don't look back with regrets. Look back and realize you did what was right for you and then when you ask yourself, "Where does the time go?" Your answers will be ones that made you happy along with knowing you are being a kind and good soul, not only to the world, but to yourself!

God Bless!

Dianne