Your wagon is waiting

So here is what occurred to me today. I was thinking about the fact that the last couple of days, my eating has been way out of control. I haven’t been counting my calories faithfully, and I’ve been stuffing my face. As I was thinking about that, I thought the euphemism – I guess I’ve fallen off the wagon. And, truth be told, I’ve barely been hanging onto the wagon for the last week as I’ve lost myself in school and other tasks. But, as I lay there in bed about to start feeling really sorry for myself for my self-caused misfortune, I had this thought.

Your wagon hasn’t gone anywhere. You have really smart horses, and they know not to drive off without their driver guiding them. Normally, when I think about falling off the wagon, it seems like an insurmountable task most of the time to chase down my wagon as it gets further and further away from me in the distance. This gives me the excuse of sitting down in my fallen state and crying like a victim of my self-created circumstances that it’s too great a task to get back on the wagon because it’s getting away from me, off in the distance. But what I realized just now, at 37 years old, is that my wagon is waiting. It’s right there, by the proverbial wayside, horses bored and grazing patiently for me to get back on and drive off on my merry way. Simple as this sounds, it really blew my mind. It puts me immediately back in the drivers’ seat of my life and choices – a responsibility I don’t always want to assume because it is easier to wallow in self-pity than get back up and drive off.

Maybe you really got hurt when you fell of the wagon. What then? Well, as my mom says, you can camp there, but you can’t live there. So, take some time, heal up, mourn what you need to, then get back in your wagon and move on to your next destination. What if you camped so long your fellow wagoneers left without you? Two things – maybe you were never meant to travel with them. Or, if you were, it’s a lot easier to catch up when you get back in your wagon and move on. Either way, the choice is yours.

So, whether your wagon is weightloss, self-care, or recovery from addiction, just remember – your wagon is waiting.

I hope this is encouraging for someone that’s fallen off their own proverbial wagon. If it did, feel free to subscribe to my blog for more musings about life.

Much love,
Teri