Dear Reader,
Me again! Erratic but pretty much weekly, so it's an improvement and I'm giving myself the win for keeping up with the blog. Hi there! Good to see you again.
I am - in fits and starts, like an erratic dance (there's that word again) making progress on figuring out life in this phase of my life.
Progress: I went out with a friend for happy hour at a funky new bar yesterday and actually had a cocktail with dinner. (It was called a Hairy Woodsman, and, well, I just had to order it. It contains Aperol, my favorite flavor since visiting Italy this summer, and it was surprisingly delish given that it contained tequila, which I usually avoid.)
Where was I? Oh, yes, drinking a Hairy Woodsman at a new place with an old friend on a Wednesday night. And tonight I met another friend to walk along the water at sunset and get exercise and catch up. And tomorrow I'm getting together with another friend. So, that's all good - and about three times more than I went out in 2020, so it's a win.
(2021 wasn't much busier than 2020, if I'm being honest, but 2022 has been making up for lost time.)
Work is going well: I love my kids, and we're doing some interesting things in AP Lang, and I'm happy with my colleagues, bosses, and the curriculum. Pause to reflect on this - so cool, right? I love teaching.
Steps backwards: on Monday and Tuesday I was exhausted, and ate stupid food in front of stupid television shows. That's not who I want to be, but sometimes it's who I am.
My goal? To live intentionally. To live my values, to meet my goals, to have joy, to be connected in community. Isn't that what we all want? What does it look like for you? Really - what DOES it look like? How much introvert time? How much social time? How many hours a week at work? How much exercise? How many books, and how many TV shows? How do you balance cooking and eating healthy food with working, commuting, playing?
And what about reaching life goals? How does one make progress on one's dreams? When WILL I write that book? It's languishing, both calling to me and repelling me...
So: here's what I'm doing. I'm TRYING.
Yup. That's it, that's my genius. I'm trying to carve out time in my days, weeks, months, to focus on the questions.
My new yoga practice and studio class is giving me joy, and the weekly commitment is something I look forward to. (If it was cheaper I'd go more than once a week!) My time out with friends is delightful, seeing music or art shows or checking out a new restaurant. I've been writing pages and pages in my journal. And all of these things are part of my answers.
I'm trying to figure out what I love, and how to be the person I love. I'm trying to embrace my life, in all of its imperfections and messiness, and get giddy.
I just signed up for volunteer training at the food bank. Such a cliché', right, to begin volunteering in the community in one's 50s? (It is a cliché. Just look at the average age of volunteers at such places to know that I'm right.) But - it's the right time. I don't have to have dinner on the table at a certain time, I don't have to get Tessa to gymnastics or rock climbing or cross country or homework: she's at college, either doing what she should or not (as is right: this is her life, and she needs to choose her path, too). I'm not establishing my career, I'm deep in it.
I don't need new friends because I have a wonderful community already with close friends... but I'm enjoying making new friends, at work or in my neighborhood... and if I make new friends at the food bank, I'll invite that into my life, because it sounds lovely.
This weekend I went to a wonderful local coffee shop and ran into an acquaintance who is someone I admire. She's in her early 80s and a model of who I'd like to be at her age: creative, active, vibrant, engaged in her life and her community. We exchanged emails, and then we exchanged poetry. I'm so glad to have a new friend who wants to exchange poetry!
This is not a mid-life crisis: far from it. This is mid-life awakening. It's a bit of a cliché and I don't mind at all. There's genius in this cliché, and I'm chasing that genius. Every step gets me closer to the life I dream of, this life that I'm creating.
It's still messy. Sometimes literally (why do I put of vacuuming so often?!), and sometimes its friends who are having health crises or job crises or marriage crises; sometimes it's that I just can't seem to find the energy to do all the things I long to do and then I backslide into letting months slip by without opening my book documents on my computer.
But I'm trying. And every time I try, I feel better about the world I'm making, and that's enough for today.
Genius.
I think that my next step is re-building volunteer time at the food bank.
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