Perspective

Last month I spent a few days in Portland at my niece’s wedding.

Now one thing I found out about Portland is that in January there’s grass… real grass on the ground, and you can see it! This is exciting for me being from Minnesota. We haven’t seen grass since… oh.. maybe early November.

Another thing I found out about Portland?
Portland January Average Temperatures
* Average Daily High=45°
* Average Daily Low= 34°

Minneapolis January Average Temperatures
* Average Daily High=22°
* Average Daily Low= 4°

As you can see… It felt downright balmy in Portland in January to me. Even when there was just a little ice on the windshield outside, it didn’t feel bad at all. I had a black wool winter dress coat that I brought, and I seemed to be too hot most of the time in it.

And this got me thing a lot about perspective… because really when you think about it, that’s what this journey is really all about.

Dictionary.com defines perspective as: the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship.

Perspective was me feeling warm in Portland compared to the 4 degrees it was the morning I left Minneapolis…. It wasn’t “warm” to the people in Portland, but it sure felt good to me.

Perspective is… getting up early to go for a run, and not feeling tired, because you now have more energy from exercising and fueling your body appropriately.

Perspective is… thinking that a nice bowl of oatmeal tastes better for breakfast than a huge scone!

Perspective means… sometimes still feeling fat, but knowing you’re not because you fit into a size 8 and a medium.

Perspective means… seeing rolls of skin on my body, and thinking I’m fat, but looking back at my “before” pictures, and knowing just how far I’ve come.

Perspective allows us to find the reason for the journey. To find the reason that we do this. It allows us to feel warm when it’s only 45 degrees outside. It allows us to see where we’ve come from, and however big or small the change is to know that we are doing something to move ourselves forward.

I won’t lie… I have been having a rough time lately - probably the reason for my absence with posting.  It’s been hard for me to remember to keep everything in perspective. This journey is life-long. That means I have to work at it my WHOLE LIFE. No, that means I GET to work at it my WHOLE LIFE, and sometimes that means coping, and putting weight loss on the back burner, and having to be OK with that.

But perspective bluntly tells me with the glance of a few old photos that February of 2011 is much different from February of 2006, or February of 2008, or even February of last year.

New changes
New challenges
All which bring amazing new chapters in all of our lives.

“The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.”
~Ivy Baker Priest