NOT GONNA MAKE A BETTER ME

People who know me well know I generally make some sort of "intention" for the New Year -- a way in which I want to grow and/or change.  

For example, in 2010 I decided to "public" my interests:  I started leading "Ecstatic Dance", a meditative movement group.  I also started a community group for older women for support and dispelling ageist assumptions.  Sometime after that I started performing my spoken word poetry at open mics and contributing to a Chap Book with other women poets.  All lasted for several years.  In 2012, I started to blog --  ongoing now for 10 years and counting.  In 2019  I took yoga teacher training and now I'm  teaching.  One year I decided to "watch more football" and "watch more TV" without apology!  The intention doesn't have to be only one thing nor does it have to be a big "self-improvement plan" along the lines of the usual "lose weight", "go to the Y", "read the Classics" sort of stuff that feels like a chore and is always short-lived.

This year, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I thought at the age of 72  I'd make an intention of being alone more; traveling alone; challenging my "alone" comfort zone.  I thought it would help me feel less resentful about Hub's many solo trips.  I've changed my mind.  I might do that if I want to, but if I don't, I'm not gonna force myself to do something I'm only trying to do in relationship to someone else's pursuits and choices. 

Instead, I'm looking back.  Since November 2016 it's been one damn thing after another. In my personal life came shake-ups in relationships and break-ups with institutions and groups that I didn't see coming.  Then there was Covid, which NONE of us saw coming.  All provided ample fodder for catapulting me into a mental health crisis and ongoing wheel spinning.  And of course, the Presidential election of 2016 and its aftermath of chaos, the Big Lie of 2020, and the Insurrection of 2021 all created a shit-show of a political situation that completely pulled the rug from under my most basic beliefs about our country and the people in it, so I was called to near constant high alert emergency activism.  I'm tired.  What I need is to sit down and be quiet.  I need to read some novels.  I need to laugh a lot more.  I need to feel OK more of the time.  I need to challenge myself to nurture myself, not stress myself.

Now my over-arching intentions are to: Not fix me. Not fix the world.  I'm being guided by Radical Acceptance of the reality of the present moment.  It is what it is.  I don't have to like it; I do have to accept it.  Also I'm moving to a place of Radical Acceptance of ME and my basic nature -- no more trying to be a good "fit" for people in a way that makes them more comfortable and me less so.  

Does this mean I won't still be introspective and shift and change with new insights? Does this mean I won't contact another legislator or ever go to another march?  Nope. I will do all of that, but in the coming year I will do it with more ease and less anguish and in a way that puts me first. (Whew, that's even hard to write -- lots of self-judgment about prioritizing myself!)  I will do it with clear-eyed realism.  And I will do it all without attachment to a particular outcome -- which is hard but I think doable with practice.

In the grand scheme I have little to zero power to influence or change anyone or anything beyond myself.  I'll just skip along being me, as I am, in every present moment.  

NEW YEAR INTENTIONS 2023

Not gonna make a better me.

Not gonna save the world.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

I HURT

 Mostly we try to put a happy face on our public-facing sharing.  Sure, me too.  Highlight reel stuff.  But in this blog I've also tried to be vulnerable and revealing about things I'm guessing most of us have experienced in some shape or another.  I'm told that I often put words to others' feelings and experiences.  High praise.

So here goes....Is this you too?

My hip hurts (substitute your own hurting body part).   This started some months ago, an occasional thing.  I took a couple of Tylenol and mostly ignored it.  But then, over time, it got more common that after a walk, or a yoga class, or too long in our reading chair that hip pain became more than an annoyance and downright painful.  I took a couple of Ibuprofen instead of Tylenol. I ignored it.  Mostly.

Over the past month or so, there is no more ignoring it.  One night after a 3 mile treadmill session with various incline settings, I could barely walk. I mean stooped, hobbling, hurting barely walking not able.  I took Ibuprofen AND Tylenol and started to worry.

After that I noticed that upon every rise from the chair, my first few weight bearing steps were a hobbling limp with a little "ouch".  I realized I'd been ignoring the occasional sore knee that throbbed out of the blue for no reason while just sitting there watching TV.  And every morning I woke up with a sore, stiff neck. Is it possible to "sleep wrong" every night?!  One morning it was so bad that for the rest of that day and the next, I couldn't turn my head.   What was going on???

I am married to a retired Rheumatologist.  This joint pain thing is right in his wheelhouse!  He did an exam that resulted in sort of a shoulder shrug since I didn't scream upon examination, but there was perhaps a wee bit of "maybe?" around the possibility of osteoarthritis in the hip.  I called his colleague, a still-working Rheumatologist, and scheduled an appointment.  She did a full and thorough exam and ordered x-rays for neck, hip, and knee as well as lab tests requiring about a pint of blood.  Nothing.  Nadda.  Well, not totally nothing -- maybe a wee bit of arthritis in the neck, maybe a wee bit in the knee, maybe a little something-something in the hip, but none of it adding up to stiffness, soreness, and hobbling around in pain on a regular basis.

So...I left with a Physical Therapy referral since the whole thing might also be a mechanical structural response to my lifelong touch of scoliosis.  Back in the day, like 60 years ago when I was diagnosed, they didn't do anything about it.  Just "Oh, that's a thing; good luck!"  So I've spent my entire life being a bit crooked and compensating with musculature that crooked-ed in the  opposite direction.  I guess my body is now saying "enough!"  At least that's my understanding at the moment. 

Maybe PT will teach me how to sit and stand and walk so this annoying ouchiness will subside.  At least I hope so.  Because I am very humbled by this and would prefer to go back to feeling invincible.  

At least, that's the view from here...©

A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT...ALONE

I'm listening to the wind howl and the rain hit the windows of the Airbnb place I rented for myself on a whim months ago.  I had decided to take a solo trip, a personal retreat to start the New Year.  This is one of my "intentions" -- to challenge my comfort zone more often.  I don't really enjoy traveling alone or being away from home at all, really.  Oh sure, I go places with Hub and we have a great time once we have arrived at wherever we are going.  I just don't like the actual travel that much.  And doing it alone is a whole other thing.

Here's what I notice:  I definitely depend upon him to handle most of the logistics of planning and certainly, for sure, the logistics of which way to turn.  I'm directionally challenged.  Also, I hate driving in the rain, or the dark, so he does (although I do most all of the driving for both of us otherwise).  It's a 3-1/2 hour drive from my house to the ocean coast where I am.  I did most of it in a downpour because, of course, it's January in the Pacific Northwest!  There was a several mile detour off a state highway at one point, with questionable signage, on some winding backwoods road (to my city girl sensibilities), so my GPS was useless and I got lost twice.  That was fun.  I made it well before dark, but stressed and exhausted.

First on the agenda was meeting up with some friends to see artwork at the Coastal Interpretive Center, which lifted my spirits considerably.  One of the woman I've known for years but she moved way out here. We became re-connected when she signed up for my Zoom yoga class; the other I met recently because she also takes my yoga class.  The first had virtually held my hand with tips about that detour and landmarks and directions.  The other gifted me, upon arrival,  a 'retreat' bag of bath salts, tea, a book (HumanKind) and a handmade felt heart representing support for sobriety (that's another blog post).  I am just done in by their kindnesses.  When you are trying to pull up your big girl panties and do new things alone, it really does mean the world to have cheerleaders along the way, including my BFF back home who is enduring my texts so that someone in the world knows I'm still alive.

So here I am 2/3 of the way through my 3 night stay.  I brought enough reading to keep me occupied for a month.  I brought crocheting so I can start to replenish my stash of blankets and afghans for donation.  I brought my computer and my intention to  blog (hello!) and journal and sort some hard things out.  I brought the intention to walk the beach and nature trails and explore the town.  (But I don't like being cold and wet, so?)  I brought the intention to continue my yoga continuing ed class online. (But now I don't feel like "working".) 

I brought my willingness to be very uncomfortable and just lean into that and see what insights might emerge. I plan to do more of this in coming months until the discomfort and feelings of loneliness fade, until it becomes commonplace for me to go away alone, until it feels like freedom.

I realize, with embarrassment, that at my age this exploration of being alone in the world is long overdue.  Of course I've had a life that wasn't totally dependent on others.  I've done lots of hard  things when I had too.  Hub had a demanding, time-sucking career and a passion for doing personal growth work in various groups that took him away many times.  I handled a lot of the home-front/family stuff, worked full time at a stressful job, had primary responsibility for my mom and her dementia issues, etc etc.  Life stuff.  I just mostly choose not to nurture myself by being alone, alone.  I love the security and pleasure of connections with others.  I love sharing experiences and conversations and observations.  And I like a lot of quiet, alone time, but that means a few hours spread out over the day/week, not days on end with no other humans I know in sight.  I love being at home with Hub, just hanging out in our life together.

But here's the thing.  Hub goes away a lot.  Unlike me, he likes time completely alone, not having to consider anyone else in his decisions sometimes.  He camps alone for a few days at a time throughout the summer; goes on snowboard trips alone from one day to a few days to a week or more several times each winter. And I am left at home, which can be fine and can also be an issue.  I decided I needed to take my own time and space alone too.  It would help me grow in a new way, challenge my comfort zone, create experiences and memories that are mine alone.

So I'm sitting here realizing, of course, that many of you are alone not by choice.  I understand and marvel at your resiliency, strength, and "gumption".  It takes a lot of energy to do hard things.  And what I'm doing isn't even hard...I'm in a nice place, will hang with two great women who live in this town who I'm excited to welcome here to my lovely Airbnb today to do fabric art together.  I'll go home to my safe place tomorrow.  Hub will be around between snowboard trips -- in fact, I am accompanying him on one later this month.

But for now...I listen to the wind, hear the rain, sip my coffee, and feel all the feels about being in a strange place alone -- just noticing what arises for me: fear, happiness, sadness, loneliness, confidence.  It's all there.  Also I'm hoping for better luck navigating the detour on the way back home.

At least, that's the view from here...©