But right now, just RIGHT NOW, I think this year is full of prime living. Not that the recent days/weeks/months haven't been stressful. I've just finished a month where I travelled every weekend, and not always where my husband or family was traveling. REUNIONS and REUNITINGS were prominent.
So RIGHT NOW - I am feeling that this is the prime of my life. Returning from my 25th college reunion, I am more reflective and appreciative of the variety of things I have been able to do than worried about where I am (or am not) at this very moment. In the last month, I have completed a boot camp session that has reordered my life in terms of exercise, sleep and eating habits. This is just beginning - tomorrow starts the next session. In the past few months I have embraced art in a different way, completing many mandalas and signing up for a week long workshop that starts in two weeks. I participated in a community stations of the cross art creation and taught calligraphy (wow, was that fun!!!). I continued the yoga and pilates from my early March trip by doing individual sessions at a Pilates studio and intermittent yoga sessions. I am trying to put myself out there - and mostly in unpredictable (to ME) ways.
One Friday night I went to a yoga with live drumming class. Now THAT was a hoot - and a personal stretch to boot!! Tons of free movement, sweating like crazy, some poses, lots of breath work - total immersion in the moment. Some reflection - when asked what is the scariest thing to you, for me it might be to let people see that I have changed. Thus, the new way of looking at things that I might choose to do - are they different than people see me now - different than I see myself??
I just returned from my 25th college reunion. Tons of highbrow sessions - none of which I went to. Where are the yoga teachers in my graduating class? The convention managers? Restaurant managers/workers? It seems that everyone is professional or arts oriented. Tough crowd to hang with. But I did - and great to see lots of the folks. What struck me the most, though, between this weekend and other friends I have connected with lately, is an underlying sense of "what if my kids don't live up to all this?" WOW was all I could think. Of course they might not!!! It's not all it's cracked up to be, it's not for everyone, and so what? Aren't they amazing just as they are (your kids)? With all their faults, learning disabilities, neuroses, attention issues, non-athletic moments - - well, really, so what? They're your kids and they will land where they land. I just feel heartsick that their parents worry about this for them. That they might not be good enough for a competitive college.....
In my experience, being good enough for a competitive college is not necessarily all it is cracked up to be. It's a snapshot view - who you are right then at that moment - and equally fraught with the possibility of future challenges. Some might accuse me of having it easy - bright kids, well-adjusted, athletic, musical - but my kids too will face challenges. And in fact, it is how they (and we, their parents) face these challenges that may be more important.
So, as I face my own demons about having not "gotten anywhere" on some prescribed path in the past 25 years, I turn that around and remember that 25 years ago, at graduation, I was looking for a career in which I was able to continually learn new things and not get bored. I'm lucky - I found it ---- whatever it is. And whatever it will be!!!
