There are some moments in life where you look at things and go WTAF? Some call them "wake up calls," "aha moments," or even "reckonings." I just said WTAF? Let me explain.

Like most people, around the end of December, I start getting antsy for the new year. I am not a fan of the holidays overall and never have been. I love Thanksgiving, but having to live through advertising for several weeks that says "jewelry equals love," "new cars for every member of the family," and "December is a license to eat anything month" is just something I do not enjoy. This season was a little different, having lost Zena just before the start of the holidays, my grief was manifesting in ways it had not in the past. Let's say my neighbors benefitted from the baking frenzy I embarked upon that kept my Mixmaster moving regularly. When it was all said and done, I was happy to usher out the horrible year 2019 was for me and welcome in 2020 with hope and optimism.

Perhaps it was the depths of darkness that was 2019, maybe it was the coming of a new decade, perhaps it is just where my mindset was, but I had incredible energy and hope for the arrival of the new year. Part of this hope is knowing in my gut that I need to make a lot of changes this year. I'll hold off on sharing what those changes might include, but part of it involves purging whatever is not serving me any longer. Now, I am not a Marie Kondo follower, but I do have some excellent organizational skills, so I decided to employ those and start cleaning my stuff up. Part of this included cleaning some bookshelves of old datebooks, which I hold onto for a few years "just in case" I need to refer to something later in life. 

I reviewed notes, daily calendars, and to-do lists and realized I had been stuck in the same position for the past seven years. I was not moving forward and standing still. And some of my notes indicated how I didn't want to be stuck, but I had no idea where to go. I'm still not sure I know where I am going. But I know this - I am not stuck…today. Some days I still am, but I now have more days where I am not. I genuinely want to move forward and change my life's trajectory. It was changed seven years ago – actually nine if you count when it all changed with diagnosis, and for the negative. But if I think back to 1998, the year I met Ed, I can see how quickly things can change for the positive if we let it. In 1998 I met Ed, we fell in love, got engaged, purchased my first house, became an "insta-mom," and had an entirely new beautiful family. In one year.

Having looked back upon the last nine years in this way seemed to have awakened me from asleep, I have been in for too long. I feel different. This is what I mean by Sandshifting. Something has shifted in me where I can't go back to the way things were. Things appear different. Seeing my life documented in these books has changed my perspective on how I am living my life.

January was good. I set goals on what I wanted to get accomplished by way of purging several areas of life. Happy to report I achieved these goals. So, I moved into February, which is always a difficult time for me. As I was consciously looking towards the month, I realized that February 2, 2019, was when I went blond to transition to gray. It was fun. It was a positive change. And it was a look that I never in my wildest dreams thought I could pull off.

Almost a year to the day this year, I cut about six inches off of my hair as I needed a new look. My hair felt lifeless, and I had too much of it (I know – a problem many wished they had, and one I don't take for granted). I needed something new, fresh, light, and more reflective of how I feel about myself these days. The long hair was not doing it.

As I think back to the year it has been of growing out my hair, I look in the mirror and can't believe that this is all – or close to it – all my natural color hair.  I look in the mirror and can't grasp this is my real color now. This reflection staring back at me is my authentic self and me.

All in one short year. Truly a transformation.

It feels like sometimes we have to strip away all of the old to get to what is real. Erase years of programming on what things "should" be to what they are.

And getting used to seeing that looking back at you can be a hard reality.

How long have I been faking it? Longer than the days of coloring my hair, I suppose, but is that when it started?

By not working the past year, have I started stripping away the artificial chemicals of my life and getting to the real me? And have my roots grown out so much, that I am genuinely starting to see my authentic self?

Seven years is enough. It's time to move forward with significant changes this year. Start the things I have been putting off for too long, including this new website. It's not done, it's not perfect, it's not yet what I envision, but it's live. Because Ed used to say, "the hardest thing about doing anything is getting started."

What can you do to change your life for the better in one-year? When you think about things one year from now, what do you hope to see in yourself? In others? In general? I don’t know if we have the answer, but I am going to find out what that is for me.

I’m ready to start. Lord knows I’m not getting any younger, and I am getting grayer by the day.

With hope and optimism,

Tracey