Checking in

It's been a long time since I've done any socializing, blogging or anything else. I've buried myself in work. Fortunately, there was a lot of work that needed to be done so I was making some progress on that front while I was waiting to get energy for the rest of my life.

My nephew has moved back out after four or five months. He was doing so well but keeps trying to make the old relationship work. It was nice having him here but next time, I think I'll come up with another way of helping him without having him move in. I have a tendency to forget to take care of me.

It's been six months since Dan's passing so I guess it's natural that I'm starting to come around. I visited the doctor last week (after putting it off for a couple months, dreading getting yelled at) and found that all of my heart-related numbers are good. She suggested that I spend the next three months thinking about what I want things to look like and then, next dr visit, we'll come up with a plan for getting me back on track. Something about getting a 3-month pass that energized me. I started thinking of how good it would feel to show a bit of weight loss when I go back in January.

Tonight I'm going to a friend's house to celebrate my birthday (the one that was in July) so I guess I'm starting to come around. And, over the week-end, I started cleaning out a storage room, defrosted the freezer, and started sorting through Christmas decorations. And I looked up a guy on Facebook, a guy from high school who had emailed me a couple years ago. Gotta say, he's cute still at 62 and looks rather cuddly. Hmmm.

Just thinking before hitting publish. My thought is that I had trouble letting go of Dan when he was going in and out of recovery, even after he moved out. And grieving can also be a way of holding on, more than just getting over the loss. So I'm going to work on managing my thoughts. Look forward. Think forward. Plan ahead. Give the rear-view mirror a rest.

Floating

I've been thinking about the need to go with the flow sometimes, floating, accepting, feeling and not resisting. Trusting that whatever is underneath my spirit will hold me up. Remembering that this, too, shall pass. Remembering to breathe in and out while it's passing. To smell the rain. Feel the breeze. Relax into the rise and fall. Because this, too, is life.

And so I was reminded of this poem by Mary Oliver:

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
- Mary Oliver

It rained this morning. Green leaves are shiny. Happy Saturday.

Time flies

It's already time for my 3rd set of goals for the 15-week period from 7/7/10 to 10/20/10. I've learned that small goals really do work. And that it's important to state goals that are actually what I want to achieve rather than what I think I should do.

So, here are my new goals:

• Physical: Visit the "Y" 3 times a week, doing what the trainer's plan says to do but no more (unless I feel like it). I'm loving working out, feeling my body again from the neck down, and am settling into a routine so that less effort is being spent on getting there.


• Social: Renew my personal style by adding something new to my wardrobe each week, even if it's just a bracelet, so that I feel like going out and doing things. This is more about living in my entire body not just being aware of myself from the neck up. This week I added a nearly clear yet peachy nail polish.


• Emotional: Just do it, 3 times a week. Meaning take immediate action when I think of something rather than putting it off and over thinking. As an example, when I realized I had a conflict for the time I'd made a doctor's appointment, I just called up and requested another time. That was so refreshing, so much easier than fretting over which of the two appointments to change, or waiting until the last minute and coming up with a story to explain a cancelled appointment (not that I would ever do such a thing, you understand).


• Intellectual: Try something that I wouldn't typically do, 2 times a week to get more out of my comfort zone. For one thing, I'm downloading some classical music for my iPod as an alternative to classic rock and country. For the 2nd thing this week, I haven't a clue. I definitely like my comfort zone but I do understand that the point is to enlarge it. Not enter a zone of discomfort, necessarily, but find new things that become comfortable.


• Spiritual: Make my house a home again, a place for flourishing, by taking steps 2 times a week to refresh a particular area (a place to sew, a place to cook, a place to reflect, a place to sleep, a place to paint, etc.).

Should be fun!

You know, this process is reminding me of something that I used to say to younger people who were hesitating over going to night school. I'd say that the time will pass anyway so the question is what do you want to have at the end of the time period. This may sound weird but I'm so grateful to myself that at the end of these 30 weeks I'm not still just thinking about changing.

Interesting thoughts for the week before I turn 60, yes? I guess I've finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up: me!

New Growth

This is my favorite time of year. And this is my favorite year. I just realized that is so.

I've been so busy. There's something about being busy that makes a person get even more busy. And the frame of the day expands to hold it all.

Well, that's not exactly what I mean. It's the opposite of being closed off, where one activity can expand to fill the entire day. But busy I have been:

• Took my young friend (the one that I'm mentoring -- I'll call her Shara since the benefits flow both ways) to two restaurants for dinner, helping her to get comfortable with more formal restaurants, menus and the like, than fast food restaurants so that she's prepared for job interviews


• In the process of getting to know Shara, I've also expanded my sense of self-forgiveness by highlighting all the mistakes I've made in my life from the perspective of how it's ok, not just ok, it's that learning from mistakes is actually what life is all about


• Refrained from making an issue of a conversation I overheard at work which I thought meant disaster for me only to learn later that the conversation was not actually about me


• Recommended (rather than asked for -- a distinction that's making all the difference) a new project for myself (designing the wellness component of our new medical benefit plan) which will stimulate my thinking and also support my personal wellness goals


• Surprised myself by getting initial loan approval (testament to my 18-month focus on not purchasing stuff) to refinance my house which, of course, means I must refresh the house really quickly for the appraisal (is it really possible to paint the exterior, get new carpeting and a new roof in a week??? ok, rhetorical question)


• Explored new ways of nurturing my spirit by spending a few hours at Spirtuality and Practice learning small steps to take, including #1 sleep and #2 take a day off each week to relax and enjoy an ordinary day


• Requested three books from the library that were listed on that Web site, including one (On Women Turning 70 by Cathleen Rountree) of interviews with 16 women who are living life fearlessly -- since I'll turn 60 in a couple months, am thinking it can't hurt to jump to the head of the class -- and they're ready to pick up already


• Skipped Weight Watchers for two weeks (I guess losing 4 lbs in one week was scary) but finding upon my return that instead of gaining I'd lost another 1/2 lb


• Planted five pots of flowers (white, pink, and red caladiums with purple petunias) for the entries to my house


• Had a good conversation with my exGuy, current GuyFriend, carving out a different place for him in my heart


• Made plans with my best girlfriend in town to see another friend's paintings that are showing this afternoon at an art fair


• Agreed to go to NYC on business Monday because it's good for me to be present at that meeting not because I have any clothes for such a trip (yaaaay Shopping!)


• Paused just now to proofread and wonder at how I am energized rather than exhausted but there you have it, my new truth: if you feel tired but haven't been, you know, doing much of anything? Get busy.

I must run but will leave you with my favorite blessing:

May the evening find you at peace with your day.