Happy Holidays...

I want to wish a warm welcome to all of the folks I've met on here and thank each and everyone of you from the bottom of my heart for being there to support me, make me laugh, put me in my place when necessary and most of all become some of the best friends I've never met. I'm in Olathe, KS with my family for the holidays so hopefully I'll be able to catch up with Casey and Lori sometime while I'm here. We've exchanged phone numbers so I hope to give them a call ASAP or at least at sometime of the evening when most people aren't asleep :) So if you're both reading this I'm in town as of this writing and I'll be contacting you soon.

So I want to express a feeling I've been having lately and maybe some of you have run into something similar since you've been doing body for life and no for once this has nothing to do with the tracker or gym girl. It's about the inexplicable feeling I've been having ever since I started Body For life in October. I've been having this nagging feeling that something wasn't right, that maybe I was constantly forgetting something or that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's been in the back of my mind in small place, not really taking control, but still there. As I was getting onto the place this afternoon I realized what it was: I was happy. I know that's weird, but I've been so used to being out of control or allowing things to happen that I didn't realize that since I started doing Body For Life and even really since July after kicking the fast food/soda habit that I had started making improvements in my life that were lifting a lot of the blocks, barriers and self imposed chains that had kept me down. Let me expain this a little more.

Ever since I left high school I've battled depression, dissapointment and a constant battle with my self image. I'm sure we've all been down this road and like many of you it became second nature. I had accepted that I was probably at my peak condition and began to get comfortable with things. However that never sat well with me either as in the back of my mind I always knew I was underacheiving in so many areas. However, a few setbacks in love, jobs and creative/academic pursuits had left a bad taste in my mouth for anymore ambitious adventures as the fall always seemed harder everytime. I didn't realize it at the time but I was self sabotaging myself a lot and not doing things I KNEW I should be doing. I soon began making half assed efforts at everything in my life because I figured if i were to do the expected bare minimum and expect failure than I would never fall as hard and hey if I didn't fail then that was gravy.

I went thought a rough 2005 but started finding little outlets that I had let go of long ago and started trying them again. Drawing, creative writing, becoming a little more assertive at work and yes...health and exercise. Instead of trying these grandiose schemes and making a big production of everything I started making small steps towards success. The more steps I took the more it seemed I was chipping away at this self imposed prison of self sabotage and more to the point self loathing. After keeping a slow but steady pace of practice and tiny but dogged determination I slowly began to excel at and even master those things that seemed impossible in the past. Sure they were small little tidbit and details but the point is that as I did this my confidence began to build. I began to start taking on larger projects and even dreaming that grand what if's I hadn't dared in the past. Funny thing is I wasn't falling down anymore, if anything I slipped but would manage to hang on and regain my footing and start climbing again.

So as I was standing in line for the plane all of this hit me at once. I wasn't feeling strange because I was depressed; it was because I was happy!! Yes weird isn't it? It wasn't the "Oh shit I can't handle happy" weird it was the "whoa I'm happy and I need to start enjoying it" elation that I hadn't felt before. I guess the best analogy I could think of would be that after a period of steady progress you find yourself a multi-millionaire without realizing it. All of a sudden you're in control of your financial future and you no longer have to worry about whether or not you can afford the things in life but how many colors they come in and the quantity you want to purchase. All of a sudden I have an abundance of happiness and it's burning a hold in my pocket so to speak and all of a sudden I feel like I've been released from a prison. That nagging feeling wasn't that I had forgot something or that I was waiting for the show to drop it was the abundance of doors I had open before me now and my inablity to decide which one to go through first!

If my biggest and most immediate problem is where to succeed first then that's a problem I really don't think I mind being stuck with. Thanks again for all of your love and support and although I'm with my family this Holiday I'm still around and thinking of each of you as though you were my family and hoping that you all are having a safe, warm and incredible happy holiday.

P.S. If you go through the metal detector at the airport please make sure you remove all condoms from your cargo pants as the foil wrapper sets it off and might embarass you a tad when you have to produce the offending object from your clothing. Again another thing I probably should have shut my mouth about but it was just too funny not share with you guys :)

Happy Holidays,

Your favorite Idiot...Jeremy