On Life One Year Later

I'm a couple weeks late with this entry - oops! It's been (slightly over) one year since I caught a rather stressful flight from Manchester back to Edmonton and picked the pieces back up. I was rather battered and bruised (metaphorically), technically homeless (though with great supports), and a lot shaken in myself. I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at where I am a year later. The things I'm happy about: My mental health - the most relevant and critical one! By the time I returned I had already levelled out pretty well. Removing the trigger (the work situation over there) had allowed my medications to do their job. Since then I have been back to the nice stable me I got used to being. Ups and downs, but nothing out of the realm of healthy reactions to life. My doctor and I are even starting the process of slowly easing me off some of my meds. Yay! My family - there have been some wonderful additions to said family. Both my best friend and my brother provided me with beautiful nephews this year. I'm not a baby person, but I am completely enthralled by Sol & Ollie. I am excited for the upcoming lifetime of loving them. My love life - yes, you read that right. I now have a love life. Actually, after spending the year exploring the world of dating (online and in person) and having met a few toads I'm a couple months into a pretty awesome relationship with a truly awesome fella. To respect his space and privacy (I'm not sure he even knows about this blog, though I guess as soon as I share this on FB he will!) I'm not going to say anything more, other than that he brings a lot of happiness into my life. My social life - he's not the only good person in my life though. I was lucky enough to have a wonderful network of supportive and loving people to walk back into. I am incredibly grateful for my friends and all that they add to my life. My possible future - I am waiting to hear back about an application to get my M.Ed. I already have a supervisor lined up and could start as early as January if everything goes through. Terrifying but exciting! The things I'm less happy about: My work world - I am fully employed in a job I enjoy doing, that much I am grateful for. But not all is perfect in the world of my work life. A lot of this is things I have no control over - management, other peoples' drama, etc. There's a lot of that to talk about but this blog is public and I don't want to get myself or anyone else in trouble by saying something that gets back to someone. What I can talk more openly about is the other piece - I'm feeling a lot of imposter syndrome lately. A lot of self-doubt about whether or not I actually know what I'm doing or can do a good job, particularly with the post-secondary half of things. I sometimes think I need to find a job that I can do in my sleep so I can actually escape this feeling, but I know how quickly I would be bored and miserable. My physical health - I made some good progress this year, but now I've regressed. I refuse to weigh myself because I don't even want to know how bad it is. I just can't seem to demonstrate the same kind of self-control and willpower that I had before. I plan to change this though. Today was supposed to be my fresh start but the abundance of cookies in my life (how I ended up making 177 Snickerdoodles last night is a story for another day) sabotaged that. Tomorrow is a new morning and a new chance. I am making three commitments to myself: walk 8000 steps a day (one day a week allowed as a break), no eating past 8 pm (this used to be a rule but I've gotten lax on it), and track my food every day staying under my caloric limit at least 4 days a week. So it's not paradise. Life is never perfect. But all in all I am happy with where things have landed. (And for those wondering, Quirk is happy too. Though she's not a huge fan of me spending so much time at someone else's place these days!)