As expected, I have lost my momentum. I always start out strong and when I realise it will get done, I end strong but I struggle with my momentum to keep moving forward in the middle. Case in point, over the last several weeks I haven’t always completed my steps and yoga has really fallen by the wayside. To counter that, we have had a bit of surprising news, but I have to develop my routine so I can build in being healthy in my mind, body and spirit. And I cannot let every unexpected piece of information affect me so much that I change my routines. I am struggling to keep the routine things going and my reading is slowing down too. My television watching is back up and I am back on the clicky phone games again. But, my social media viewing is still down and I am keeping up with my French.
I have picked back up my walking again, which I attribute to having a beautiful nature space nearby to walk on during the weekends and hopefully the evenings as the days are lengthening. And today, we went to a local abandoned Medieval village that we have been saying that we would visit for ages. That was brilliant. It was a good walk and fun way to spend our morning together. And we got up and got out this morning. I always love historic places you can wander up to and walk around inside and touch the history. I love when you can walk in the foot steps of history. It was really nice, until a walking group of like 15-20 people turned up and it just became too busy for me.
But yes, I need to get myself back together and I need to continue my quest to building the life I want. I want to get my reading back on track and I want to get my planning on track for building a different life. I know what I want now after many years in the wilderness and confusion. I guess I feel like I wasted so much time being lost that I want to live the rest of my life in the new way that makes sense to me as soon as possible. And I want to keep reading and I want to feel good in my mind, body and spirit. Patience is not one of my virtues and I want to be there now.
If you were to ask me if I was a rebel, I would tell you that I absolutely am not. But, I was listening to Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and he talked about how his mother was a rebel and how he was. Well, maybe he did not use those exact words, but he discussed how if rules did not make sense to them, they found ways around them. And I smiled, but then I began to think about my own life and what I challenged or didn’t challenge, and I realised in my own small way, I too am a little bit of a rebel.
Now, let’s not go crazy. I didn’t change the world and I didn’t use any rebellious spirit for good. No, I am neither that good of a person, nor am I that strong or that clever. I was a selfish rebel. When my mother told me I couldn’t do something, I was hell bent I was going to do it. We couldn’t afford for me to travel to Europe, I did it anyway. We could afford for me to go to graduate school in Britain and my mother was sure as hell not going to bankrupt herself for any of my whims, but I did it anyway. My mother told me not to get my ears double pierced or my naval pierced. I did it anyway. And that one landed me an hour phone conversation, missing part of a film with my dad’s family, and cost my a bottle of midori I brought home from University. I was over 21 at the time.
My father really wanted me to follow in his foot steps. He viewed himself as clearing the path for me to have a better life than he did. I couldn’t stand to only be known has daughter and to constantly be compared to him for the rest of my life (he was totally awesome at his job so it was daunting), so I came to Britain to go to graduate school. I could not face being another white, blond girl stuck in the middle of the country, the Midwest, with kids and an SUV and a middle class job, constantly looking around and thinking, is this all there is. So, I chose a different life. And while many of these rebellions are directed at my mother because she wanted me to be practical and not want more than I could safely achieve without taking any risks, that was probably because my father had a slightly more adaptable way of handling me. I am a loud, ‘look at me’ person. There are probably many who think I suck up all the air in the room. It’s because I don’t have my father’s charisma, but still wanted to be noticed. I do have my mother’s dogged determination though, which probably has led to many of our clashes. I have my mom’s determination and my father’s idealism. A recipe for disaster if ever there was one.
This was a new and interesting thing I have learned about myself this week. I would have always just called myself a stubborn pain in the ass, but now, I’ll just call it being a rebel, a maverick. That sounds nicer. A great example of how I do this in my own way though is Friday night. My husband’s work colleagues are mostly male and many still firmly hold onto the great British lad’s culture. If there is one thing I hate about Britain, it is the lad’s culture. Men, who think it is okay to go around talking about women like they are objects, but if a woman utters an explicative or makes a dirty joke, they are some how unclean or wrong in some way. Oh, and every woman wants them. I use the full extent of my vocabulary, including the forbidden words and I love me a dirty joke. I use these all the time, and probably because of this insane double standard. I have probably lost my husband a job in another company because a guy who is now a director took offense to me calling his bullshit one drunken night. This guy still barely speaks to me, which I find funny personally and sad for my husband. My husband likes these guys although doesn’t follow the lad’s culture himself.
Last night, I had the previous idiot, plus another one there. The new guy seemed to take it better but his friends still ‘joke shamed’ me. I don’t respond to this and the men never seem to know what to do. I often talk to them like they are toddlers, because to me that is pre-school behviour, unforgivable in a grown man. It also makes no sense. People are people, and why should it matter if they are a women or a man. If the joke is funny, it’s funny. I think if it hadn’t hurt my husband, I would actually tell these guys what creeps they are, but I don’t. I just use four letter words and tell dirty jokes. Still, that is my current little rebellion against something so oppressive and still pervasive in British life. My only regret is the impact that this is having on my husband. I wish I could get out of his way and accept these facts of life, but I was raised with the values that people are all of equal value and the ‘lad’s culture’ makes me feel like women are second class in British society. There is no way I will put up with that shit. Don’t ever tell me to know my place. EVER. Part of me wishes my husband didn’t want me to go on these outings because it only ever hurts him professionally to have me there because of this rubbish behaviour.
Everything else in my project is going reasonably well. I am still eating peanut butter cups, but Saturday, I did only eat a salad for lunch with some fruit – all of which I could grow myself with a green house. Oh, and 2 peanut butter cups. I didn’t just eat my way through the day with bread and extra snacks. I also did not sleep (probably from feeling guilty about the impact my rebellion had on my husband’s life) and felt like rubbish, plus I think I am getting a cold, but I still walked my 10,000+ steps and did my 30 minutes of yoga. I am keeping up with my French and I have slowed down a little on my reading, but still, I am slowly clearing out that backlog of audio books. I need to turn my attentions soon to preparations. Once I finish my current book on Pre-historic Britain, I will turn to container gardening and planning for my spring garden. I am looking forward to that growth and renewal. I finished my story that has been driving me crazy. I am ready to write my book. I am also loving my walks on the common. They make my weekend. Final thought, I would run away into the outdoors if I could. I also leave you with a picture of a thin, European road that is always busy on one of its rare silent moments.
This week has been a bit more clearing of decks. I have worked through a book that was in my audible backlog, The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, and am firmly back to listening to a favourite author, Joseph M. Marshall III’s Keep Going. There is something wonderful about listening to his voice read the story of his people while walking through the woods on the Common. I love it. It sets me a little freer in myself. And the emotion his voice carries sometimes when he is reading is overwhelming. I found myself wiping away tears as I listened to a portion where his voice was cracking under the weight of the emotions he seemed to be feeling. I just love his books. So, the clearing down of the reading or listening to books is going well. I have even started reading another book that I picked up many years ago.
I am doing well with my French practice and I have not missed a day. I am doing well with my yoga as well and on the days when I am not doing Pilates at work and then I am doing 30 minutes at home. I am getting my 10,000 steps every day even on days when it is silly cold out or a bit grotty. I am failing at the photos side of thing in that I am not doing one every day. But, I am liking the ones I do take a lot more than some that I did when I was doing my one picture a day for a year. I am also working through the Doctor Who which is good. We have been watching lots of the Parliament and I have to admit I took this week off actual reading and was watching more television than I would normally like. And I have an ending for Nighthawks, not a great one, but it wraps it up.
The one thing that I am really struggling with is eating only the things I could grow or make myself. I am obsessed with peanut butter cups. I thought after I ran out after Christmas I would move on from them. Sadly, I just kept buying more. I am at least slowing down on my consuming it, but still. I need to refocus on eating vegetables, fruit, and breads, maybe some meat. I need to work on that a little more.
The other thing I am focusing on is figuring out how I want to interact with the world. I am learning that I can’t control how people see me. I can try to react differently and I can try to find peace in a world that I do not understand. I think that my favourite thing that I have read or heard for a long time is this: the past is gone and cannot be changed, but you might be able to make a better future by the decisions you make today. I love that idea. I want to honour that.
This week has been a trial for me. I have been left to handle conversations which I should not need to be having. And I am often left to fend for myself at work, which on the surface is fine, but I am new and there is more than meets the eye to a work project. Still, I have been exhausted and not sleeping and I hate that. I have listened to 3 books since the beginning of the year and physically read 2. Yesterday, I did spend all afternoon and into the evening watching Doctor Who. I finished the first two stories and an episode which was the arc between the second story and the next one that is lost. Firstly, I can say that the first episode is brilliant. It was a solid and mysterious introduction to the Doctor and his travelling companions, however, the first story was not so good. I understood that they were starting a new series and they started it with the start of man – clever. But the writing wasn’t the best, especially when you compare it to the next story arc – the first ever introduction to those fiends the daleks. That had brilliant writing and the enemy was developed. Born was a race that would terrify children for many years to come. And the Edge of Destruction was a brilliant piece of script writing with good acting, making a group of unlikely travelling companions weary of each other work together to solve a horrible problem and in the process finding trust. I love Doctor Who in these early years. It screams optimism. Much like Britain it shows how resourceful humans are at problem solving, bringing light to darkness and using science, logic, and reason and teaching a little history on the way. I think the Tom Baker years are where it turns for me.
In terms of my routine, it is going well. I am getting 10,000 steps every day and I am doing my yoga and my French daily. I have moved my story Nighthawks on quite a bit and I am doing more reading, getting through books I have long wanted to read but just could never commit to. But something is missing. I have realised that I do not like my career path, it is fraught and there is too much trying to get people to work together and too many people who want to appear supportive but want to sabotage you. It just is not for me. And while I like my current team a lot, I am not as convinced that I can be myself and have this role as well. I just don’t have the drive needed to keep it going, or maybe I am just worn out and exhausted. Either way, I need a new path for my career. I am in the middle of taking a first step around that now which is contacting someone, always hard and tricky. And I am rubbish at asking for help. But, as I was reminded when listening to Barak Obama’s Dreams from my Father we are responsible for our own fate and if we never try then we have only ourselves to blame.
Clearing out the decks is going well. I am working through the back log of books I had purchased in audible and books I have always meant to read. This has slowed my progress on my mystery books, but hey, you have to start some where and I am starting in pre-history so, that still seems sensible. I read my hygge book hence I spent yesterday eating my favourite pasta dish and watching Doctor Who once I did all my movement things and a few chores. I tried to check out the Tao Te Ching at the local library, but it isn’t available right now. I am taking photos when I remember and I have not been on Facebook or Twitter really so far this month. I am using Facebook messenger and I nearly missed some drinks with friends due to not being on Facebook, but still. And I think I am all the better for it. Wow, I didn’t think I was getting very far at all but when I write it all out like that, I feel like I am doing amazingly well. And as I end this week’s update, I realise that this month is a very inward looking month, and a very solitary one without much interaction with others. Personally, that feels good. It allows me to cleanse my people palate too and decided what I want for my life from my social interactions. How do I want to feel from them and with them? These are aspects of my life I am currently considering and that feels like the right place. And I am grateful for the opportunity to step back, reflect, think and make changes to my life.
Today I had two minor victories. I finished a book I didn’t think I would finish before the year is out and I finished the philosophy book I was reading Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings by Zhuangzi translated by Brook Ziporyn. How annoying wordpress won’t let me actually link from the book title because of italics. Anyway, I struggle with philosophy and if you have read anything I wrote before, then you may remember I thought from one quote I struck gold with Zhuangzi. Finally, someone who could make the world make sense to me. Well, it didn’t work out quite that way. But, I think it taught me one thing, philosophy is like everything in life. You have to be in the right frame of mind to ‘get it’. Sometimes, a phrase, idea or concept will strike you and you will really hear it because of where you are in life right at that moment. Sometimes, it will not. And that is okay. You seek out what you need for where you are in life and no two paths are exactly the same. So, you find the one that works for you in the moment. All feelings, emotions and reactions are ephemeral and your reading/philosophical practices should be the same to match where you are at when you are there. Now, anyone who may be reading this may think, well, duh, but this was a big aha moment for me. Also, what can I say, you are smarter then me if you got there a lot sooner or a lot younger.
Secondly, another thing I am very proud of is how much more well-read I am than I thought I was. So, audible (which is probably one of the great loves of my life) sent me an overview – a year in review if you like, about what I have read this year. First and foremost, I read 68 books this year!!! To be fair, many of those were re-reads, but because I am a slow physical reader, I always try to read or listen to 30 new books a year. When I listen to them, apparently I do better than I think! That really floored me.
Thirdly, I am really proud of ‘clearing my decks’ so to speak. It means tomorrow I can cleanse my palate a bit before 2019. I can take the day to reflect on what I have done and where I want to go next. This is a good thing, because I had a big plan for what I wanted to do next year and I am already re-thinking it. I cobbled it together after thinking ‘oh no, what am I going to do next year – quick, get a plan together’. Instead, I am going to take tomorrow to refocus and adjust my plan to fit where I feel I am now and what I feel I want to do. I think it is going to focus not just on restoring and recooperation, but include some fun ideas as well as working to my larger goal a bit more tangibly. These are my initial thoughts, but I will take tomorrow (while not at work) to consider them and work on them a little.
When I reflect on 2018, it won’t be one of the great or horrible years of my life. It will just be a year, but with some momentous personal switches in my brain. I have my confidence back after a few years where it was at rock bottom. Secondly, I have a little bit of purpose back as well. What a win! Thirdly, I think I have a great grasp of my values again now. And finally, while it feels as if there is a significant amount of chaos in the world right now, I feel like I have a few things to look forward to, which feels amazing given how I felt a mere 12 months ago. So, roll on 2019. I am ready for you.
Some times it is important to recognise what you are not as much as it important to recognise what you are. For me, this is admitting defeat on gardening. I wanted to be a gardener, I wanted to grow my own. But today, as I battled the big bush we have in our garden and looked around at a couple of trees which needed pruning, but would also require a big ladder to do so, I realised I wasn’t enjoying my time out there. I wanted to enjoy my time. I always tell myself this is because I work full-time and if I didn’t, I would love this life. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. The necessity of money means I will never know. I wanted to feel the pull and get back to nature. But I don’t. I want to pay someone to come in and sort this out for me. And I feel bad about this, but really, now I just don’t want to deal with it. So as I contemplate if we can afford someone to come in and rip everything which requires maintenance out, I am thinking, maybe I will never be a gardener. And that is okay
I have also realised I am not a fancy food eater. I don’t like small portions and weird sauces and odd combinations. I like good solid food with good sized portions. I am also not a fad person. I know what I like and I know what I don’t like. I am not a highly social person. I wanted to be, but ai am not. I like going out for experiences, but I’m happy in my own company. I can talk a big game at work and pretend to be social, but I do not often get close to anyone. I’m a loud introvert. The thought of being out at the pub or a bar on a Friday or Saturday night just doesn’t hold the enthusiasm for me. I do not like dresses or skirts or heels. They are too complicated. I do not like the industrial look in buildings and I will never appreciate polished concrete as a surface for my home. I will never be a baker and I will probably never accept British cakes as real cake (sorry Britain, your cakes are just too stodgy). I will always want to do something to help others, but may feel scared that I cannot afford to so that I don’t need charity myself later if something unexpected happens or that I will never be rich or hold a senior position at work because I just can’t rise above the banter at work to be able to get into a senior leadership position. I don’t want to be a senior leader at work. I do not want a McMansion – I don’t see the point in 4 bathrooms when you have to clean them all and who honestly needs a sitting room in the room in which they sleep? I won’t ever like anything pumpkin flavoured, no matter what spices are in it. I may never like or get mindfulness and yoga, no matter how many times I try them. I will never like flying, but will always love travelling. I will never be as strong as I want, as capable as I want, as fearless as I want or see and do as much as I want.
I love the Nordic reindeer designs on sweaters. LOVE THEM! And I love log fires, wooden cabins, woods, and lakes. Always have, always will. I love things made of natural materials. I love hiking and autumn and hot apple cider and hot chocolate. I will always love when the nights draw in and cozying up with a book or film I love. I will always love to write but will always think what I write is drivel. I will love to capture beautiful things in photos. I will always love simple pastas, tacos, Chinese food, and casseroles and stew. I will love to cook and experiment. I will never be a confident person and I will always be scared and anxious.
These are my truths that I am struggling to accept and accept that maybe that is okay. I am still nourishing myself and being a bit gentle with myself. Why? I still don’t know exactly why. What I can say is that apparently I got a big, bad bruise somewhere along the way – maybe several that are placed near each other. Either way, I know that I need to love myself a little and look after myself a little. My days of just keeping going all the time are over.
Expectations – I am beginning to think that they are the devil. And when I begin to think about it, actually work against my pursuit of prosperity, achievement, and just keeping my sanity. They are the antithesis of achievement, of being able to enjoy what I do and to being able to feel prosperous. We, or rather I should say I, struggle with expectations. I tend to put too many and too high expectations on myself rather than setting smaller, more realistic ones. And then there are the ones that society presses upon people – how to be happy, how to find balance, that you should be eating correctly and exercising and stimulating your brain and drinking the correct amount of water and stimulating your mind and being there for your friends and your family and having a clean house and making the perfect dinners and… and… and…. And if you are woman, being beautiful and looking young and fit. How can anyone be all these things? How does anyone have time for all these things? Especially when, like me, you are working full-time to make ends meet? The simple answer is, you can’t. Or at least I can’t. And if you are like me, trying to do it all just leads to distress, frustration, anger and disappointment in yourself (sadly not disappointment in society which is helping to set the expectations).
People think expectations help to set goals and drive you towards them. I think some times this can be the case, especially when people really know what they want from life. I also think that those people probably already have drive and don’t need any more. But, I think for those who do not have that strong steer of what they want, we can use these expectations to punish ourselves, especially if we are resetting them when we decided to change direction in our life. Well, maybe not everyone, but I certainly punish myself with expectations. It’s never enough. I never know enough, have done enough, or completed enough in my goals. Every day is about what I did not get done rather than what I did do. I write in my journal, I practice my French, and I go to work. How is that not enough? I am staying on top of my bills and life admin, and our house while not clean as a whistle, is clean enough. Our garden is okay but not overly nicely kept and we keep trying to get someone to repair a fence, but no one seems interested in being paid to fix it. It is a bit beyond my abilities to fix a fence. Still, I look out there and think, damn I need to do more and maybe I should just fix the fence myself.
I don’t ever just let myself enjoy life. When I look at the books I was enjoying in some of my lowest moment, it was about those who just took time out to enjoy their life. So, while I still want to do things and I do want to exercise more and drink all the water and eat better, I refuse to punish myself. I mean, I am trying to refuse to punish myself. Saturdays and Sundays at the moment – where normally I would think I should be cleaning or going out and doing something, I am enjoying watching a tv series, reading, doing a little writing, cooking sometimes and consuming tea and biscuits. I am lessening my time on social media. Not too much and not completely, because it is a link to my family, but I am not going to look at the posts of people who desperately want me to think their life is amazing and punish myself for not living that life too. It’s stupid. It doesn’t help and it means I can’t achieve what I really want to achieve because I get in my head about what I am not doing.
It’s all about self-care which I am notoriously bad at it and as I keep harping on about, I am going to be a little good to myself for the rest of this year. It’s going to have to be enough. And my expectations that I put on myself, that the voices in my head want me to buy into, well, they are just going to have to quiet down a bit. I need to make choices within my expectations and I am going to choose to just do what I can and enjoy the little moments.
Well, what if it isn’t? I have struggled for my whole adult life to find it because once upon a time a psychology lecturer told me that she hoped I would find it. I am still struggling with the whole liking myself thing. I struggled to be as empathetic as I used to be both on Friday and today. I have never been a patient person and I am getting worse in my old age. I am also struggling with the difficulties of having a few truly shit situations handed to me and how I should or could deal with those. My problem is, what is the alternative? Dream lives are great and all, but what if you are rapidly approaching middle age and your absolute dream seems impossible and you can’t think of any other dream life you want. Or scratch a dream life, you can’t even figure out what you are good at and could tolerate doing for the rest of your life. I guess the good thing is, your life is getting shorter so there is less time you would need to do anything that makes you unhappy or uncomfortable. And not giving a fuck just isn’t working for me.
So what now? I keep trying to learn and keep doing things. But am struggling to call it moving forward when I don’t have a clue what forward is. But, I keep making food that is tasty and that comforts me. Maybe I need to keep comforting aspects of my life going for a little while. I know hygge and hygge bashing is a thing at the moment, but feeling happy and comfy in my house and skin is the important part. So I am lighting candles with inviting smells, eating tasty food that brings comfort and read/listen to books, watch films and television. I still need to reconnect with nature and I need to exercise but, I am trying to feel happy and comfortable with myself and my immediate environment that I can affect and am changing the aspects which don’t seem to make me happy.
I do think we can get so focussed on defining ourselves and what we like and don’t and what that means (like that we are yuppies or hipsters or whatever) that we forget to just be. I get frustrated not doing, moving and achieving and I am beginning to think that for me, inner peace won’t be something I can achieve. Does it even exist? Does it for me, even if it does exist as a thing? If it does, do I want it? Is it for everyone? Do we all have to achieve it? Or is it just one more thing we must all try to achieve, to get to be? Maybe, being a frustrated, impatient when not achieving person is me and deep down that makes me happy? Either way, I am done with the whole ‘be your best self’ or party tricks to control who I am and my own reactions. Instead, I am just going to be who I am. When I fuck up, because it will happen and often, I am going to just apologise. I am going to still worry what people think of me, but I won’t let it control me. I’ll not worry that I am not smarter, better with people, funnier, thinner or liked. I’ll just be who I am and try to be okay with that. And I’m going to like hygge, and even worse for me, I’m going to like Christmas, and snow. I am going to be annoyed with Bill Bryson for what he said about Des Moines, while silently agreeing with him on our shared hometown. I’m going to be complex and confusing. I am going to love what I love, and hate what I hate and I am going to love to hate things. I won’t apologies for that. I am going to let myself want the things I want. I am going to be me, and hope I can live with me.
With the documentary that came out this summer and just because of the times and the world we live in now, Mister Rogers is floating back into the conscience of many of us. We wonder, what would Mister Rogers make of our current environment? How would he explain it to the kids? How would he help ‘his kids’, those of us who grew up with him, make the world better? Not for one second would we think that he would ever abandon us or not give us words of wisdom in confusing times.
In the UK, Mister Rogers was not broadcast and he is somewhat unknown. Those who do know him think he is a bit smarmy because they do not understand the essence of Mister Rogers. To me, he will always be like a third parent. A quiet presence in my life, one of the voices of conscience that lives in my brain. Sadly for Mister Rogers, he sits right next to the ‘imp of the perverse’ voice in my head. Still, Mister Rogers is one of my pillars on which I have built my life on. I will never be the good person he was. I tried, because there are many soft, loving, and good influences and role models in my life. How I ended up a sarcastic woman ruled by her ‘imp of the perverse’ voice, I will never know. I should be a good person. But, I also want to be a good person. I want to be like Mister Rogers. But, when I think back on the lessons that he taught, like handling your emotions correctly, I don’t do that at all. I tease, I take things too far, and I cause trouble to be funny. I defend myself with sharp words, I use humour to share out my feelings or to mask what I really want to say because I think if I say it as a joke, it will be okay. And, I have been told I have a withering stare. I use these defenses to keep people from running over me, or trying to shovel their shit on to me. I tell myself that I have to do this to survive in my job and in my industry and in life. I have always wondered if there is another way. Is there a way to be a bit more Mister Rogers?
As I share his messages on social media, I feel like such a hypocrite. I listen to these self-help messages about living my best life and I think, living my best life is living the Mister Rogers life. I can’t do that. I can’t be him. Sure, I have common decency, like when a woman dropped a tenner in the pub on Thursday, I pointed it out to her. We give to charities at Christmas and I was a member of the ACLU to support those trying to make the world better. I like to think Mister Rogers would approve of those moves. But my ACLU membership has lapsed and I only really give to charities at Christmas. I occasionally stand up for what I believe in, but more often than not, I chicken out. I am beginning to think that to soothe my soul what I would need to do is to be brave enough to connect back with the Mister Rogers voice in my head, and instead of following the path of the imp of the perverse. Maybe by doing that, I can be dig into my own feelings, and find appropriate ways to manage them. Maybe it is all about finding the balance between being tough enough to not let the job get to me and to earn and keep the respect of colleagues and to be able to use my inner Mister Rogers. There has to be a way to not be so tired any more and to be strong and tough when I need to be and to be a little bit of Mister Rogers too. How can I get there? How can I bring Mister Rogers back into my life? How can I use kind words and thoughts and actions more? Where are you Mister Rogers? We need you again. I need you again.
With the death of John McCain this week, I have been thinking about honour and bravery and what it means to me. My bravery is obviously on a much different (and lower) level than his was. Being brave is hard. I am being a little brave, well, brave for me. I have had a new start with a new job and I have said no when I needed to and I am taking on more when I think I can. I am expressing my own opinion based on the information I gather. It has been a hard because I am not inherently brave. I have an opportunity to redefine myself and I am trying. And people seem to be responding well to it.
I always love a new start, particularly when I think I mess something up, which is pretty much every day. When I make a mistake, I often feel like I must run and start afresh. Standing up to my mistakes and owning them is something I do, but then I want to hide. Maybe it is a lack of courage for my convictions. Maybe I just feel like others know more than me or are obviously better than I am. I think both of those have a degree of truth to them. I won’t lie, I spent most of this weekend so far sleeping. I am exhausted from years of stress and years of anxiety, most of which I probably put on myself. I am still recovering from that.
I am determined though and I use it. My determination has meant that our bedroom is now a new colour and it sees me re-learning French because I miss it. I have realised that I am lonely and that I will need help to fully explore everything I want to explore. How I do that is something I need to think about. When I want something bad enough, I will make it happen. The trick is that I must want it in my very soul and that happens so infrequently for me.
Trying to wrap up these disparate thoughts, what I think I have learned from this week of all the tributes to both McCain and Aretha Franklin is that the bravest thing you can do is be your own true self, unapologetically, but be humble, listen to others, take ideas from everywhere and most of all, learn from your experiences. Stand up for what I believe is right, no matter the opposition. Don’t be afraid of a fight, especially those worth fighting for. I am not as strong as either of those two. I have spent years being wishy-washy and not really knowing what I like. I am disappointed in myself and frustrated by those wasted years, but if I am to be as optimistic as Joe Biden made McCain out to be, then I need to let that go, and forgive myself.
Discovering Me 