Now that it is the new year, I started thinking about my year and how I haven’t accomplished all the things I wanted last year. Now that I am coming up with my New Year’s Resolutions list, it is just growing and growing.

Make more money, lose more weight, be more social, do more yoga and meditation, be in nature more, and on and on.

Then I started thinking about how I am doing that thing again, where I am just focusing on all that I haven’t done yet and all the things that I need to do….but never really think about all the things that I have accomplished and how far I have come in life.

Grant it, I may not be where I want to be in life, yet, but when I look back to see how far I have come from where I started and all that I was up against…….wow.

I’m paid well, I’m healthy and I look great! I live in a great apartment, I have a great job, my bosses and co-workers are great! I have a great doggie, who is happy and healthy. I have a good car that I bought brand new and on my own. I travelled the world and had so many different and interesting careers.

I started to think about what life was like for me growing up and about all the things I had hoped and wished for back then. Growing up, I thought a lot about getting away from home, that somehow someone else would adopt or take me in.

I grew up with a father who sexually abused me and a mother who emotionally and verbally abused me.

School was my only escape.

At school I got to see and hang out with my friends, and most importantly, I was free to be me. At home I wasn’t allowed to say how I felt or what I thought, I wasn’t even allowed to show any emotions except what was acceptable to my parents

School was also where I got the most praise and encouragement.

Though not all my teachers were great, I did have some really awesome teachers. The one that stands out the most to me was my English teacher in high school, Ms. Margolis.

She kept telling me how she thought I would make such a wonderful writer. So much so, that she submitted my work into a contest one time and I actually won, I won first place!

She was so proud of me. I was so shy, and I was trying my best to hide. But Ms. Margolis insisted that I come onto the stage to receive my award and for me to say a few words.

I don’t remember what I said or if I said anything. However, I do remember hearing her say that she didn’t understand. I guess she couldn’t understand how or why I was literally running away from my award, from my moment. Perhaps she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t accept the fact that people liked what I wrote.

Thinking about it, that has been a theme in my life, that others believed in me more than I believed in myself.

When I was in bootcamp for the Marines, we had a guidon, a person that would carry our platoon’s flag and a person who would carry our company’s flag.

One day, the guidon was positioned somewhere, and it fell over, so that guidon was fired. My drill instructor said that I should be the guidon and I believe she asked me if I wanted to be the guidon.

I said “no ma’am.” I don’t remember if she hazed me because of it, but I do remember what she said to me, “it’s a shame that I believe in you more than you believe in yourself.”

All throughout boot camp the drill instructors would say, or yell rather, at you, telling you how you suck and you are this and that and all those words just rolled off my back. But these words, these words hit different.

Years of therapy helped me realize that I was too hard on myself and that I held myself back from a lot because I am afraid of failure.

Growing up, nothing was ever good enough for my mom. My brothers could do no wrong and I could do no right. My mom liked to tell me that I was dumb and stupid and that I couldn’t do anything right.

Therapy helped me realize how silly all this was.

How could I be dumb and stupid if I did so well at school? How is it that I can’t do anything right, when I have done so well for myself, all by myself?

I grew up in poverty. We received housing assistance, we received food stamps and had to take the bus and walk everywhere. Now, I am paid well, live in a great area in a very nice apartment, with a brand new car that I bought, work a block away from the White House, living a life I couldn’t possibility have dreamt of as a child.

Indeed, how silly is it to think I am anything less than what I am, an amazing, intelligent, beautiful and kind woman. Therapy helped me realize that my mom no longer has control over my life and that I don’t have to carry her criticism of me any longer.

I am not a failure.

I am a success!

If I did all this while still holding myself back because I was afraid that I would fail, just imagine all that I could do if I actually believed in myself.

I’m not sure, but I am definitely excited to find out.

I guess that will be my new year’s resolution then, to live my life without holding myself back due to fear.