Friend of Julie: Missing Pieces to My Life Puzzle

It's been nearly three months since my last post and a few of you have been asking if I'm okay and how I'm doing. Thank your for that! Here's an update of how I'm doing, where I am on my weight loss journey, and where I'm focusing my energy today.



I'm not sure what caused my lower back pain last June, but after a few months of physical therapy and daily stretching exercises, my back pain is gone—yay! At the end of September, I twisted my knee and a few weeks later I was in so much pain that I could barely finish a four-mile walk. Prior to that I had been walking 8 to 10 miles daily.

Each month that passed, I walked less and less. Physical therapy for my knee only seemed to make the pain worse. By February, I was overwhelmed with pain and I was no longer taking my daily walks. I had become best friends with Ben and Jerry and my daily food choices were unhealthy. I felt like my life was a puzzle and there were a few pieces missing; I could not find the way back to living my best life.

What helped resolve my back pain was those daily stretches and that I stopped eating sugar. It was not a long and winding road of recovery from sugar, mainly because of a really bad flu that cleaned out my system these past two weeks. I do not wish that flu on anyone. In week two the symptoms lessened, my body was sugar-free, and my optimism returned. My knee pain is still there, but I now have the energy needed to get help to resolve this. I had no optimism when I was eating all that sugar.

I'm eating healthy again, but I feel like I did in the beginning of my journey in that I'm not ready to talk about what I'm doing or where I'm going on my weight loss journey. I want to spend my energy on doing and not talking or writing about what I'm going to do.

One thing I have learned from my nine months of unhealthy eating is that regardless of what I'm choosing to eat, I should never give up my exercise routine. I could not believe how much stamina I lost. The good news is our bodies are so forgiving. I am inspired to regain my stamina, because this past year I met many people who are in their 80's and 90's who have healthy bodies and minds. 

During the time I was stressed from my back and knee pain, I gained weight. Yes, gaining weight has been a setback, but along the way I found the missing pieces to the puzzle of my life: optimism, stamina, health, purpose, joy, love, intuition, and the desire to continue to learn and grow. These pieces are essential to live a good life and I don't plan on losing these pieces again.

My weight loss journey is just one part of my life's puzzle, I also have a business to run. Renewed from finding the missing pieces of my puzzle, I'm focused on making this a successful business. For almost two decades, I've been wanting to help others capture their life stories, so I started a video memoir business. I'm enjoying filming people telling stories of their lives and the lives of their families. Yes, in case you are wondering, this is where I met those octogenarians and nonagenarians.

I've captured stories from people in the Pioneer Valley, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and I now have enough stories for my portfolio. This means the time has come for me to build my StoryCatcher Studios website. I do other video projects, including filming stories of small businesses owners, editing films others recorded, and I'm working on a local documentary. I also teach two classes at the Springfield Museums: Creative Writing and Memoir and at Holyoke Community College I teach a 3-hour class Family Legacy in spring and fall.

The photos above represents the part of my life pertaining to my weight loss journey, but I am more than a number on a scale or the size of my clothes. So are you. Meeting and filming those elders, I want to be like them—I want to be 95 years old and still have my health and my mind.

I have not given up on my weight loss journey, but I will stop blogging about this part of my life, at least for now. I'm giving my full attention to my whole life and all the new found pieces to my life's puzzle.

Thank you all for your support over the years and for being a big piece of my life's puzzle. Wishing you all a safe and wonderful life journey.