I live in Canada. This blog is a leap of faith for me, something completely out of my comfort zone and not at all in the realm of what I do for a living. About 11 years ago, I was staying at home with my eldest daughter on maternity leave and thinking about what I should do for a career. The only job experience I had was as a waitress and I had never gone to college. Luckily there was an option to take a degree in accounting locally and I signed up. This was an incredible privilege and something I had always wanted for myself (I dreamed of being a lawyer growing up), but it also started me on a path of constant multi-tasking in my life. About a month after I started school, I went back to work. This time to an accounting firm as an accounting technician. I have been balancing this full time career with my educational goals ever since, with my husband and I adding another daughter to our family along the way. This leads me to today. I have been so proud of the goals I have accomplished and more importantly I have been so lucky to have this family I never dreamed of growing up (I'll expand on this throughout the blog). However, I have also gone from a relatively healthy woman to someone who labors up the stairs, struggles to talk while walking above a crawl, and has ballooned up in weight to the point I have doubled in size. (I would like to qualify something right upfront. I am in a larger body, but I am not saying there is anything wrong with being in a larger body - only that I have more than doubled my weight in a short time span and am at an unhealthy size for me. Really important to me as well is that I acknowledge my body has many layers of privilege being that I am white, cisgender, straight, able bodied, Canadian among other privileges that I may not even be aware of yet. I intend to be as aware of these privileges and how they affect the lens through which I view the world as I share this story as possible. I know I will make mistakes along the way on this blog, but I commit to being teachable along this journey). At a journal and meditation evening one night recently, I realized all of my goals and my values are not aligning with the way I live my life. I am tired, eating poorly, not giving my full self to anything anymore. The pattern has become that I talk about how badly I want to make changes but I qualify it always with "when this, then." When I am done CPA, then I will focus on my health. When I am done CPA I will go on holiday. When I am done CPA I will entertain more or visit my best friend or, or, or..... So instead of "when" I am starting today! I have decided to defer starting the CPA program until fall 2020. I don't know what to expect in this year away from my timeline, but I can't wait to see what I learn about myself along the way.