Choices

I have been thinking a lot lately about getting into shape, eating healthy, exercising, etc. etc. etc. You get my drift. Every year about this time I think okay I am going to start now, so I can look great by summer. I will then start a program, lose a few lbs. and slowly (or sometimes not so slowly) go right back to those same unhealthy habits. I want this year to be different. I choose to be different. I want to do right by my body.

My Mom had diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis and died from kidney failure. She didn't die young. She was 82, but her quality of life could have been so much better if she would have taken better care of herself. Maybe she did the best she could. I don't know.

My sister died of lung cancer. She was 46 years old. She had met and married the man of her dreams just a few years before the diagnosis and only lived 3 weeks after receiving the news. It was horrible. I cannot describe the fear that ripped through my body after hearing the news. How could it be? She had to be okay. I couldn't lose her. Not her. This was the woman that had held my hand through some of the darkest times of my life and pulled me until I could see the light. Not her. We are supposed to be together when our Mom dies. She is one of the few people that I absolutely cannot live without. Not her. Please God not her. I remember coming home after being with her at the hospital. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I was home alone and I just started screaming her name as if by some telepathic means she would hear my cry or God would hear my cry somebody, anybody. As I sat in the chair next to her lifeless almost colorless body there was silence. She was gone. It was evident that everything that makes a person who they are leaves when their earthly body dies. My beautiful sister was gone.

I know this is intense but it's real. I kept thinking if I could just go back in time I would do anything, everything to make her stop smoking. Even if that meant locking her in a room until the desire for cigarettes left I would do it. Even if after it was said and done she hated me I would do it. Even if I had to cry and scream and beg on my hands and knees I would do it. Somehow, someway I would do it.

Why would I not do the same thing for myself? I am not a smoker, but there are other things I do that could cost me my life and put my family through hell. Why not for myself? I eat too much sugar and diabetes runs in my family. I don't exercise and high blood pressure and heart disease run in my family. All of my sisters have some form of arthritis. Why wouldn't I try to prevent that? I am not beating myself up. I know life is a journey and my journey has brought me here. I also know I am worth fighting for.