I’m not one for big New Year’s resolutions, but I am determined that 2017 will be the year that I focus on getting myself together.  Don’t get me wrong, I have a great life with a wonderful husband (of 32 years), 3 beautiful children, 5 amazing grandchildren and a dog that follows me around like I am the most amazing owner this world has ever produced! But this great life of mine needs me to be at my best and I’m not even close to being there!

How did I get here?

I have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis for the past 13+ years and one year ago I finally took my neurologists advice and stopped working.  This was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made.  When did it become that working became my world?  I know how it happened….. it crept up on me very slowly!  I loved my job!  I was important in my job, they couldn’t make it without me I (or so I thought), I was important in my community, if busyness was a sign of success, then I was a rock star!  I didn’t take coffee breaks, rarely ate lunch, ran back and forth from one meeting to the next, worked at night and on the weekends from home, even looking at my calendar when I wasn’t feeling well to see if it was a good time to take a sick day.  I know I’m not the only woman that falls into this trap.  Am I right?

What I didn’t see was that my work was defining me, I let work consume me. This was ok for a while until I began to get sick.  I found that I was unable to find any balance between work and my home life, I was so tired at the end of the day that all I could do was plop on the couch and didn’t want to see anyone or do anything.  I remember sitting in a co-worker’s office at the end of a particularly crazy year and saying to her that there is no way I could handle another year like this last year. I knew something was going on with me physically but I didn’t know what it was and I never in a million years would have guessed what I was about to hear.  I will elaborate on that in another post but getting back to why I decided that 2017 was going to be the year I was going to get myself together.

I decided that I would give myself a year of being off work to get rested up and adjusted to a life without working and then I would focus on really getting back to what Raegan is all about.  Get back to enjoying the little things in life, like watching the sunset from our favorite spot on the deck, like having water fights with our grandchildren, like spending time with my family and really being present when they talk to me. Like taking the time to take my dog for a walk along the beach.  Like camping with my husband and inviting all the grand kids if we want to.  Like learning how to shoot a gun, focusing on my golf swing, travelling, and just being grateful for all the blessings in my life. Over the past year, I have realized that there are many facets to my life and that I wanted to find a way to celebrate and honor all of them and this is one way I aim to do it!

That’s all for now – the beach awaits!