Monday's attitude

I think it would be fair to say that most of us worker bees fall into two categories of a Monday morning. We either face the new week with optimism or dread the week ahead already pining for the coming Friday. I tend to be an optimist, and with two nights of hard sleep and dreams and not waking until close to seven am each of the following mornings I feel refreshed and ready to do battle. I made my decaf at home, threw some fruit and veggies into my lunch bag, and headed out onto the big bad Monday morning traffic.

I had lain in bed last night realizing that the damage I do to myself isn't about my past failures - my go to excuse for all my current problems - instead it's about my present and future failures that may occur or be occurring because even as I swear I have not given up, my actions tell a different tale. How is laying about watching movies most of the weekend a good example for A? How is it preparing me for the challenges that lay ahead in my life? I don't need to regain my former athletic shape, I just need to be active and show a healthy respect for my body, my life, my continuing existence so that I am ready for whatever comes next. So that my life is something I can share and not hide from in embarrassment having made my worth about my mistakes and not about my resiliency.

It's easy when coming to a hard moment or hour or day to think, "But it's right I feel this way, after all I failed my son, and I can never recover from that."  This happens more often than I care to admit, my get out of caring free card. Not attending events, becoming somewhat of a hermit, living in size 18 clothes that I hate. It's all part and parcel of the same dysfunction. Maybe it's all the nuts and seeds I've been eating lately, but for whatever reason I was clear headed last night, I was calm and filled with the normal feeling I embrace so dearly when it arrives apparently out of the blue to visit.

I made a conscious decision this morning to NOT stop for a fast food breakfast. I made myself take the time to brew coffee at home and was glad there was a banana to take in the car to break my fast. I truly felt the reality that this one positive act could change my life, could lead to another positive decision later in the day, and that I could keep this up indefinitely.

Belief is a marvelous feeling. I could move mountains this morning, even this ungainly one I have been living in for the past few years. And as I have prayed before, please let this feeling last. Please let my core of strength and goodness continue to make its presence felt.