When you get together with a group of people who have 20 to nearly 40 years on you, and they universally reassure you that turning 40 is no big deal/fabulous/a relief/easy-peasy, et al., it can offer some reassurance that it is, in fact, no big deal. If you let it.
So, while a small part of my inner dialogue is utterly freaked out about turning 40 - symbolically as well as the literal and figurative aspects of holy years passing by batman, FORTY - the larger part of myself is a little bit excited. Okay, maybe mostly excited by the prospect of eating cake with a fork and drinking wine, I will admit that I am looking forward to that detail element of the actual day.
What do I want out of the symbolism of turning 40, though? I would like more than to flash back to the tv commercials of linda from dynasty reassuring us that she's the best she's ever been. Thanks, Linda.
I would like to embrace the wisdom of en vogue, I think, and free my mind (assuming that the rest will, in fact, follow).
Free my mind - from defeating myself, from shutting myself down, for being the biggest obstable in my own path. Free my mind from the belief that I can't. From the no, nope, uh-uh, squelch, squash, defeat, negative bad.
I'm not a happy person, I get that and I accept it. That does not necessarily preclude the notion of cultivating a wee bit more happy energy in myself.
I will not be a pirate looking at 40.
I would like to be a radical self confident self contained chick looking at 40.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
How to be your own 800 pound gorilla
If you take a half a moment and really think about it, you are the greatest obstacle in your own path, my dear.
There is not a majik fairy lashing you to the couch with glitter strings, keeping you awake until after 11 pm on a schoolnight.
There is not an evil wizard making pudding in the kitchen and forcing you to eat it.
There is not a rainbow unicorn toasting toast in the morning and whispering in your ear, "eat this, it isn't all that good for you."
You do or do not get up, put on your sneakers, and go for a run.
You do or do not eat carbs and dairy for breakfast - ergo, you could, in theory, eat eggs and veggies and the like, which you actually do, in fact, like, and in your liking yourself mind know would probably be better all around.
You do or do not purge your freaking overstuffed closet and take items to the thrift store, as opposed to keeping them to encase yourself in and feel ugh.
You do or do not allow and enable yourself to, as it were, feel ugh in the first place.
You do look at pinterest, but you do not actually try to emulate things you like. So, you could do this.
You do wrap your emotions in tin foil and keep the alien invaders out - so to speak - so you could choose to do not this.
You are the only one who can celebrate being alive in this body in this time in this place.
There is not a majik fairy lashing you to the couch with glitter strings, keeping you awake until after 11 pm on a schoolnight.
There is not an evil wizard making pudding in the kitchen and forcing you to eat it.
There is not a rainbow unicorn toasting toast in the morning and whispering in your ear, "eat this, it isn't all that good for you."
You do or do not get up, put on your sneakers, and go for a run.
You do or do not eat carbs and dairy for breakfast - ergo, you could, in theory, eat eggs and veggies and the like, which you actually do, in fact, like, and in your liking yourself mind know would probably be better all around.
You do or do not purge your freaking overstuffed closet and take items to the thrift store, as opposed to keeping them to encase yourself in and feel ugh.
You do or do not allow and enable yourself to, as it were, feel ugh in the first place.
You do look at pinterest, but you do not actually try to emulate things you like. So, you could do this.
You do wrap your emotions in tin foil and keep the alien invaders out - so to speak - so you could choose to do not this.
You are the only one who can celebrate being alive in this body in this time in this place.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
go with it, baby
Part of yourself knows that you get it.
Part of yourself trusts that you just shook brooke w's hand and didn't squelch the impulse to say, "I'm a huge fan of your wife's." Good job that, girl.
Part of yourself knows that you will rock great jeans, gorgeous blouses, slightly messy updos, and you will OWN IT, sister.
Part of yourself is leaning into it.
So pause and reflect. Don't value judge, don't now versus then yourself into a bog.
Say, I am SO thrilled to become an Aunt. A little piece of my heart will be heavy that it isn't me, that is true. But the image of scooting down and reaching out my arms and whole-heartedly scooping that little kiddo up and hugs and giggles and being Auntie Jen - oh my gosh does it thrill me. To be a forever person for someone. Thrilled and giddy and grateful. Full of delight just imagining it - full of heart.
Say, it feels good to wake up in the morning and think, oh - today isn't run day. YES. Tomorrow is - and then on, embrace it and feel powerful and love it. Just love it. Let it lead you forward, it has the power to do that and you know it.
Say, it's a little freaky to find a blood filled bat bug in your bed. Okay, more than a little freaky. But settle in, plan, strive ahead and address it. Use your brain and your ability and deal with the big picture. Then find ways to make the small picture more pleasant. Yes, there will be massive vacuuming efforts and moving of a lot of stuff. But - organize and evaluate the 'stuff.' Is it just 'stuff,' and if so, why is it stuffed in your life? Part two, how flipping fresh and clean will it be in there once the deep clean/vac/herbal spritzing is all accomplished - amazing freshness ahead! Refresh and recharge and renew the space, and don't forget to put a dose of great background music on that.
Say, I get to go ride tonight. A nice horse. Yes.
Say, I am creeping up on removing sugar and most starch and much grain. And I think it will feel fantastic.
Say, Mom is sounding more energetic each phone call. & Dad has projects to solve. And that is all good stuff.
Say, I probably would not have been able to sustain or advance in ballet but it gives me goosebumps to watch it, how joyous is that.
Say, discussing books and life with a crew of unique woman pretty seriously rocks.
Say, practice will make you more able to have a polished hairstyle.
Say, it's a wonderful thing to be friends with your spouse.
Say - wow. Eight years are just around the corner.
Say,
write the story down. Speak your voice. Find your courage. Embrace your joy.
live life and go with it.
Part of yourself trusts that you just shook brooke w's hand and didn't squelch the impulse to say, "I'm a huge fan of your wife's." Good job that, girl.
Part of yourself knows that you will rock great jeans, gorgeous blouses, slightly messy updos, and you will OWN IT, sister.
Part of yourself is leaning into it.
So pause and reflect. Don't value judge, don't now versus then yourself into a bog.
Say, I am SO thrilled to become an Aunt. A little piece of my heart will be heavy that it isn't me, that is true. But the image of scooting down and reaching out my arms and whole-heartedly scooping that little kiddo up and hugs and giggles and being Auntie Jen - oh my gosh does it thrill me. To be a forever person for someone. Thrilled and giddy and grateful. Full of delight just imagining it - full of heart.
Say, it feels good to wake up in the morning and think, oh - today isn't run day. YES. Tomorrow is - and then on, embrace it and feel powerful and love it. Just love it. Let it lead you forward, it has the power to do that and you know it.
Say, it's a little freaky to find a blood filled bat bug in your bed. Okay, more than a little freaky. But settle in, plan, strive ahead and address it. Use your brain and your ability and deal with the big picture. Then find ways to make the small picture more pleasant. Yes, there will be massive vacuuming efforts and moving of a lot of stuff. But - organize and evaluate the 'stuff.' Is it just 'stuff,' and if so, why is it stuffed in your life? Part two, how flipping fresh and clean will it be in there once the deep clean/vac/herbal spritzing is all accomplished - amazing freshness ahead! Refresh and recharge and renew the space, and don't forget to put a dose of great background music on that.
Say, I get to go ride tonight. A nice horse. Yes.
Say, I am creeping up on removing sugar and most starch and much grain. And I think it will feel fantastic.
Say, Mom is sounding more energetic each phone call. & Dad has projects to solve. And that is all good stuff.
Say, I probably would not have been able to sustain or advance in ballet but it gives me goosebumps to watch it, how joyous is that.
Say, discussing books and life with a crew of unique woman pretty seriously rocks.
Say, practice will make you more able to have a polished hairstyle.
Say, it's a wonderful thing to be friends with your spouse.
Say - wow. Eight years are just around the corner.
Say,
write the story down. Speak your voice. Find your courage. Embrace your joy.
live life and go with it.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
should could would, right
Wish I could sing, well. Wish I could dance, well. Wish I felt more beautiful. Wish I felt more comfortable in my own skin.
If I could - would that I could stop undermining my own happiness, success, joy, daily life. No body can get in my way like I can, baby.
Because it's not tiredness or laziness keeping my ass in bed when the 6 am alarm goes off, keeping me from getting up, getting dressed, drinking some water, and going for a run. No such luck.
It's the evil twin, the Gollum, the side of my self that really does not quite believe the hype. The "you're good enough" and so on. It's the part which has a split-second realization that ultimately, getting up at 6 am to go for a run in the cool morning air is going to, um, make me feel good. Make my day start well. Give me some zip and zing. Put color in my cheeks, et al.
And we can't have that happening, now can we...
Right, I say. Awareness of the event, if not the why; if not the almost instataeous process of it all. SNAP and I go from awake - time to get up for a run, to awake - stagnant.
If you meet a person you enormously esteem, and they encourage you with "Courage. Voice. Joy" & that's exactly, EXACTLY the freaking point of it all - what do you do with that?
Stagnate. Fear. Sit in the mud puddle.
Should get up and run. If I could. Then again, if I could, I would do a lot of things, right? Write. Horses. Be present to my life with a bit more enthusiasm.
How then, to get on with it?
If I could - would that I could stop undermining my own happiness, success, joy, daily life. No body can get in my way like I can, baby.
Because it's not tiredness or laziness keeping my ass in bed when the 6 am alarm goes off, keeping me from getting up, getting dressed, drinking some water, and going for a run. No such luck.
It's the evil twin, the Gollum, the side of my self that really does not quite believe the hype. The "you're good enough" and so on. It's the part which has a split-second realization that ultimately, getting up at 6 am to go for a run in the cool morning air is going to, um, make me feel good. Make my day start well. Give me some zip and zing. Put color in my cheeks, et al.
And we can't have that happening, now can we...
Right, I say. Awareness of the event, if not the why; if not the almost instataeous process of it all. SNAP and I go from awake - time to get up for a run, to awake - stagnant.
If you meet a person you enormously esteem, and they encourage you with "Courage. Voice. Joy" & that's exactly, EXACTLY the freaking point of it all - what do you do with that?
Stagnate. Fear. Sit in the mud puddle.
Should get up and run. If I could. Then again, if I could, I would do a lot of things, right? Write. Horses. Be present to my life with a bit more enthusiasm.
How then, to get on with it?
Friday, May 4, 2012
where is the magic quote hiding?
If I stop and allow myself to think about why I surf blogs in general and allow myself to be sucked from one blog to another, then search back through posts and months and months and even years... Searching for something, really, if I think about it.
Seeing the comments about having a baby, wanting a baby, losing a baby, children growing up, all these things... sometimes it makes me smile at someone's joy. Sometimes it makes my heart ache down into the pit of my stomach because some part of me knows, in the "knows" in the core of yourself sense, that being someone's mother is something that has meaning to me. That I'd expected I'd do. That perhaps I'd just assumed I'd get to do and be. To be sitting at pushing 40 and trying to understand this, see how the so called child bearing years have slipped by me and now, still in the twilight hour of logically, healthily, being able to have a child - I can see that it is going to slipstream away from me. I can see that it won't happen. Sometimes, I have calm peace with that - maybe it will in some other form, some day. Sometimes, I have crushing heartbreak about that, something so scary that I cannot even look at it. Sometimes, I have, to quote, furious anger, such fury and resentment because it's "his" fault. It's not, not completely, but by hitching my wagon to his wagon in life, that's the path I've turned down.
Sometimes, it just makes me want to cry. But instead, I squish it away because what can you do? Looking at life - my life - its unpredictablility, its instability, its utter unsuitedness to bringing a child into it - what the hell would I be thinking? Practical, able to self-deny, she wins out on this one, unquestionably.
I read words about people's schmoopy doopy love, their lives and selves broken open by some new understanding of the self, of the world, of what it means to love. I get it but I don't, really. But this too becomes something I question about myself, over and over and over again. Where is the part of me that holds me back from living my flipping life? LETTING GO. Letting go of all the nonsense and living my life.
All these blogs, clicking open in a new tab, reading some other random person's wisdom, perhaps being touched by it until I realize the author is, say, freaking 25 and then thinking - wtf. What am I looking for? I know it, I am looking for some magical combination of words that SAYS IT. That makes me have a eureka moment, makes everything click into place, makes life make sense, makes me see whatever the hell it is about myself and how I walk through the world that I simply do not see.
I look back at this mashup of random crap I've put here and I see things over and over an over again. Sad. Lonely. Disconnected. Shitty candy. More shitty candy. Self loathing in small doses. Feeble attempts to latch onto any shred of feeling empowered, feeling better, feeling different. Different is good, right? In many ways, YES, different is good. Because I am here dreading saying, "no, I don't want to go camping Saturday night," dreading the fucking reaction to that, dreading the part of me that shuts down and just says, fine whatever and puts me last. always always last.
I have a friend who will break her own heart making changes in her life because she is finally at the place where she knows she must. I wish I had her courage, to risk looking into my own heart and figuring out what the rotten root really is in there.
I do not want to be sitting here at 40 typing the same old shit. With a bloated gut full of 3 musketeers mini bars that make me feel sick and frankly did not make life all that much better as I ate them mindlessly. Made me feel better for microseconds as my teeth bit through the milk chocolate, I can say that much.
That's not quite a joyous life though.
Seeing the comments about having a baby, wanting a baby, losing a baby, children growing up, all these things... sometimes it makes me smile at someone's joy. Sometimes it makes my heart ache down into the pit of my stomach because some part of me knows, in the "knows" in the core of yourself sense, that being someone's mother is something that has meaning to me. That I'd expected I'd do. That perhaps I'd just assumed I'd get to do and be. To be sitting at pushing 40 and trying to understand this, see how the so called child bearing years have slipped by me and now, still in the twilight hour of logically, healthily, being able to have a child - I can see that it is going to slipstream away from me. I can see that it won't happen. Sometimes, I have calm peace with that - maybe it will in some other form, some day. Sometimes, I have crushing heartbreak about that, something so scary that I cannot even look at it. Sometimes, I have, to quote, furious anger, such fury and resentment because it's "his" fault. It's not, not completely, but by hitching my wagon to his wagon in life, that's the path I've turned down.
Sometimes, it just makes me want to cry. But instead, I squish it away because what can you do? Looking at life - my life - its unpredictablility, its instability, its utter unsuitedness to bringing a child into it - what the hell would I be thinking? Practical, able to self-deny, she wins out on this one, unquestionably.
I read words about people's schmoopy doopy love, their lives and selves broken open by some new understanding of the self, of the world, of what it means to love. I get it but I don't, really. But this too becomes something I question about myself, over and over and over again. Where is the part of me that holds me back from living my flipping life? LETTING GO. Letting go of all the nonsense and living my life.
All these blogs, clicking open in a new tab, reading some other random person's wisdom, perhaps being touched by it until I realize the author is, say, freaking 25 and then thinking - wtf. What am I looking for? I know it, I am looking for some magical combination of words that SAYS IT. That makes me have a eureka moment, makes everything click into place, makes life make sense, makes me see whatever the hell it is about myself and how I walk through the world that I simply do not see.
I look back at this mashup of random crap I've put here and I see things over and over an over again. Sad. Lonely. Disconnected. Shitty candy. More shitty candy. Self loathing in small doses. Feeble attempts to latch onto any shred of feeling empowered, feeling better, feeling different. Different is good, right? In many ways, YES, different is good. Because I am here dreading saying, "no, I don't want to go camping Saturday night," dreading the fucking reaction to that, dreading the part of me that shuts down and just says, fine whatever and puts me last. always always last.
I have a friend who will break her own heart making changes in her life because she is finally at the place where she knows she must. I wish I had her courage, to risk looking into my own heart and figuring out what the rotten root really is in there.
I do not want to be sitting here at 40 typing the same old shit. With a bloated gut full of 3 musketeers mini bars that make me feel sick and frankly did not make life all that much better as I ate them mindlessly. Made me feel better for microseconds as my teeth bit through the milk chocolate, I can say that much.
That's not quite a joyous life though.
Friday, March 2, 2012
too many candybars, not enough mikes...
I love the old school Beastie Boys on my running playlist. Thank you, oh creator of free download for the couch to 5K program; I owe him a lot.
Alas, although I ran week 5 day 2 yesterday and felt really good toward the end especially, when one consumes roughly 2/3 of a bag (ie, the remainder of said bag) of snack sized Three Musketeer bars, one will in all likelihood develop a scorcher of a stomach ache.
Which is all my own fault, of course.
But then, I feel a bit sad and confused and stuck, so it all goes together. What will make me feel worse? Or, perhaps more importantly, the part of me that was feeling a bit optimistic and dreaming some dreams? Shut her down man, shut her down! Throw some cheap chocolate on that uprising and squelch her in a stew of whipped chocolate now even richer chocolately tasting.
Darn self.
Underlying realities:
I am so freaking scared and angry about what's happening with and to my mother. Yes, eternally grateful it is going smoothly and things are happening in the way the doctors like. But so want to tear things down at how upset it makes me to think about this happening to her, right now.
I want a horse in my life.
I am incredibly terrified to face that.
Try to turn the subconscious focus on self-care: eat better and enjoy every morsel; sleep enough (7 hours isn't enough. need to get more sleep); and keep running. Look forward to "too many djs, not enough mikes..." on week 5 day 3 which is the 20 minute run. Get on that.
And get on getting a horse into life. Just flipping do it. Figure out a budget and make.it.happen.
Because healthy, happy self is better for mom and everyone else, most importantly, self.
Alas, although I ran week 5 day 2 yesterday and felt really good toward the end especially, when one consumes roughly 2/3 of a bag (ie, the remainder of said bag) of snack sized Three Musketeer bars, one will in all likelihood develop a scorcher of a stomach ache.
Which is all my own fault, of course.
But then, I feel a bit sad and confused and stuck, so it all goes together. What will make me feel worse? Or, perhaps more importantly, the part of me that was feeling a bit optimistic and dreaming some dreams? Shut her down man, shut her down! Throw some cheap chocolate on that uprising and squelch her in a stew of whipped chocolate now even richer chocolately tasting.
Darn self.
Underlying realities:
I am so freaking scared and angry about what's happening with and to my mother. Yes, eternally grateful it is going smoothly and things are happening in the way the doctors like. But so want to tear things down at how upset it makes me to think about this happening to her, right now.
I want a horse in my life.
I am incredibly terrified to face that.
Try to turn the subconscious focus on self-care: eat better and enjoy every morsel; sleep enough (7 hours isn't enough. need to get more sleep); and keep running. Look forward to "too many djs, not enough mikes..." on week 5 day 3 which is the 20 minute run. Get on that.
And get on getting a horse into life. Just flipping do it. Figure out a budget and make.it.happen.
Because healthy, happy self is better for mom and everyone else, most importantly, self.
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