I got up on time today.
I’ve
set my alarm so many times and simply turned it off and continued sleeping. Not
today. Today is the beginning of a new way of life, a new schedule that I can
stick to because my foundation lies on a solid schedule. Having a schedule and
keeping certain things like breakfast, lunch, and dinner regular is where my
life can truly begin.
My
life has just begun. Ever since I had my daughter, I’ve been living as if my
life is over, but it isn’t. I’ve just separated from the military, though it
now goes on two years since the separation, and I’ve just had a beautiful
little girl who is growing into a wonderful child. I’ve struggled intensely
with depression, but the truth is that my life has just begun. Now, I get to
determine what happens.
I
get to be Mommy. This was a revelation for me because I thought about my
daughter as if she were me; what would I want if I were two years old? And I
realized—I can provide my daughter with everything I wanted and needed when I
was her age. I can give her the life I never had—hell, she already has it. She already has both parents raising her with
love and kindness as much as possible. That’s something I never had.
I have a foundation. I’ve been feeling
like I’m floundering endlessly in an abyss, trying to find footing and build a
life for myself without a foundation. I realized, yesterday, that my foundation
exists. It’s time for me to build upon it. My foundation is a regular schedule
and a clean house and as long as I have a schedule, I can build upon it. My
schedule now includes a morning workout, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every
single day. Twice a week, it includes laundry, and that is non-negotiable
unless something comes up—but the great thing is that laundry is something I
can put into any other day of the week. Just because I have it for Saturdays
and Sundays doesn’t mean I can’t do it on a Wednesday.
Now
that I’ve created a schedule, I can work around and with it. I’ve scheduled
breakfast to be at 07:30 every morning, but it is almost that time right now
and I haven’t started because my daughter is still sleeping. My plan is to
finish this blog entry and make breakfast; I expect she’ll wake while I’m
cooking and I can get her up then. But having a schedule is my foundation and
it is what helps me get out of bed in the morning and start my day with
purpose, as I did this morning by getting out of bed and doing schoolwork.
Life
is measured by small achievements and big achievements. Both are equally
important. I’ve had a few big achievements in my life and one of them was
giving birth to my daughter. In fact, giving birth to my daughter was such a
large achievement that now I need to focus on the little ones—like getting out
of bed with purpose every morning and feeding my child when she’s hungry.
I need to focus on myself, but in so
doing, I can also focus on my daughter, for she is an extension of myself.
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