riding a new bike

Yesterday marked the inaugural ride on the new bike. The mountain bike. The yes, I live in the mountain bike capital of the world and I guess I'd better stop saying, "no, I don't mountain bike," bike. The now I have biking shoes, gloves, and special shorts with a magic chamois incorporated into them, on their magic way, bike.

But to ride a bike, start to get your groove, start to develop a feel for shifting, a feel for the bike's braking, a feel for remembering to relax your shoulders - this is good.

In the bigger picture and the more rational/rationalizing side of myself, I can certainly see that having specific shoes, gloves, sunglasses, et. al for riding a bike is, maybe, not completely necessary to ensure successful biking endeavors. And yet, to have shoes, gloves, and the like to gear up in and go out for a bike ride adds a level of compulsion to the whole event that I think, if I let myself, I will like.

Mind you, yesterday's ride was on hard top surfaces, on side roads and bicycle paths and a brief stint along the highway - there was, in fact, no mountainous biking involved. However, it's a tantilizing prospect to work toward, building some comfort and feel with the bike and some strength, to help ensure a more successful first outing into actual mountain/off-road environs.

There is some power in making a decision to grant ourselves a new hobby and then going forward in that decision fully. Sensibly, making smart choices and not buying the latest and greatest crazy gear nor a terribly expensive bicycle; but still, saying YES to tne concept and making it happen.

blts ahoy

The skies are blue, the clouds are puffy, and it is Friday afternoon. The weekend is just ahead, and after many, many weeks of little resemblence of "weekend" in my life, the prospect of something that will be the most weekend-eqsue weekend in a long while is quite pleasing.

The weekend will commence with blts for dinner. There may be red wine. There will likely be dvds from the video store.

The urge to get out and GO is felt by more parties than the resident border collie. GO!

write what you are looking for...

If you find yourself surfing the internet for the magical blog that will provide the inspired reading you are seeking in your life, and instead only finding sweet and lovely people who are:
1) significantly younger than you are
2) living a very different life than you are
3) talking about things which don't particularly speak to your heart or mind
4) are obsessed with frozen yogurt, chia seeds, and lulumon;
then, perhaps it's high time to create the words you wish you were finding out there working the google on the internet machine.

So, I'm 40. I don't have kids. I don't like frozen yogurt. I don't make chia seed pudding with stevia and pumpkin.

What I am is 40. Pretty good self esteem but pretty low self confidence. Pretty happy with a lot of my life, pretty overwhelmed by a lot of the details in my life. Pretty comfortable with who I am, pretty sad about the self-loathing that still steers the ship some days.

I'm not a sparky personality. I'm a steady trudger you may not have noticed. I don't own a garmin, but I aspire to break 10 minute miles. I like really healthy food, and I struggle every single day not to self medicate with crappy stuff (mostly to make myself feel bad).

I'm a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend, an animal person, a horse person. A reader, a runner, a hiker, a new bike owner. So easily hurt, but also so strong and able to hang in there.

I wish I had the recipe for myself - to get out of my own way. To take risks when appropriate. To release the things that are gone for good.

I do know that a lot of the ingredients I'm throwing into the mixing bowl of myself are not so good lately. Too much stress, sugar, worry; too little sleep, exercise, play.

Time to sweep the grit off the pathway and step ahead with some confidence.

Is a list a bad thing when you're caught in the do-this-next cycle?

1) Sleep eight hours a night. Or at least really close to eight hours. At least most nights. Enough of this after 11 going to bed nonsense.
2) Exercise EVERY DAY. At minimum, six days a week. Five would be an improvement on the current 1-ish.
3) Remember how much improved you felt when you cut out grain, dairy, sugar, legumes, alcohol. Formulate a plan of what to incorporate in small amounts, embrace the plan, and set yourself up for success.
4) Laugh, smile, deep breaths; it will all be fine.
5) SLOW DOWN. Really, dude. Be now, let go of your fierce deathgrip on what happens next.
6) A serious organization, cull, release, downsize extravaganza will be good on many a level. Get on that shit.
7) If a dress makes you happy, then get it in another color. Just don't wear them two days in a row and it will all be good. And if it's not all good with someone else, so be it.
8) So, go order the dress now.

You are getting yourself in a muddled old protocol of next-next-next-next. Say, enough of that, thank you very much. Press pause. Reboot and rejoice, because life is actually pretty amazingly wonderful if you let it be.

I'm Living in My Own Private Beautiful Laundrette

Laundry day while apartment living is not the best of times, but when the laundromat is empty, it is hardly the worst of times. And also, it will be done for the week and that is a good thing. That said, the internet connection is disappointingly slow and thus one is forced not to futz around on the blue social media page but rather, do other things on the internet machine.

There is something a bit humbling about revisiting one's hopes about turning a particular age, only then to realize that few magic things happened in conjunction with that age turning. The day was decent enough, the meal out was fabulousness beyond compare, the cake didn't turn out so well but it was fun indeed to consume it with a fork.

But the underlying concern here would be that the greatest truths of the duality lifestyle are still ever present. Defeat myself at every turn, I have mastered it. Loath myself just a tiny little bit below the surface, I have that on lock down. Deny myself joy each and every day - check, baby.

The good? You know, the thing is I have no energy to sit and write up a "good things in my life" type listy. It seems both daunting and annoying.

The shit that I am over, and over, and over, again and always?
-Candy and crap
-Not fueling myself with food that makes me go mmmmmm...
-Hating how I look
-Hating my clothes
-Feeling like a lump, awkward
-Feeling frumpy and unpolished
-Feeling like I don't know what ME is - ie, "express yourself" yes, but what does that mean?
-On some level, denying myself running to feel worse
-On a similar level, denying myself having fun training my dog
-Ignoring my needs to serve the idea of other

But the thing is, if I don't run several times a week I feel like crap. So, I feel pretty much like crap. If I eat toast for breakfast I feel like crap. Check check. If I shut off me then me is pretty effectively shut off, shut down, and zoned out.

WTF, yes?

Purge the fucking clothes, Jen
Make a fucking menu plan, Jen
Run.
Have fun with your awesome little dog.
Focus on yourself because all else improves when the self is healthy and happy.

Um, dude? You turned 40. You ran a fucking half marathon. You're pretty awesome. So, be it.

Happiness is more than a beatles song, so they say

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.

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.