Thinking Back: Washington D.C.

2015 has been a big travel year for us!  We have one more BIG adventure coming up in the way of travel too.  Rob and I are leaving for Paris next week for a long anticipated vacation for just the two of us.  Such a year of just going for it (which will leave us depleted of vacation funds for quite awhile, but that's ok).  Before we go, though, I feel like I need to pay homage to the other great trips of this year.

At the end of March, the kids and I drove my dad to Washington D.C. to celebrate his 70th birthday. Having one parent who has been unable to enjoy grandchildren and retirement taught me to not squander memory-making opportunities while they are available.  They just might be more fleeting than we realize.  It was a wonderful, exhausting, whirlwind of a time.

My children were able to experience Washington, D.C. for the first time with their grandfather, his first trip there also, and there were some very moving experiences.

Grateful for the experience and for Rob's generous heart for allowing us this adventure. even though he couldn't join us.  

Although, maybe Rob was just being the brilliant man that he is and saving his cross-country mini van experience for the next 1,000+ mile trip of the year.  Hmm.  I'd never thought of that until just now.  Anyway, moving on....

  

Random Thoughts and a Corresponding Experience

While running in my neighborhood yesterday afternoon, I passed a heavily-bearded man who was walking down the street holding a rifle in one hand and a dead mallard duck in the other.  As we came abreast with each other, I admired his catch and continued along my merry way.  A few yards later, I was struck by the realization that the experience had felt normal. Rifle, dead duck, mountain man beard and all.

I tend to let my mind wander when I run, and what ensued was an imagined conversation between my current self and my ten years younger self. She still lived in a large city before eventually moving to a "subdivision" of hodge-podgy homes and habitants in the country to become the current me.

The part that really made me laugh, literally, out loud was when I pictured the ten years ago me taking in the experience I'd just had.  Mouth agape, latte in hand, she'd have missed the point completely and stated, "You mean we start running in the future?"

Oh, the changes we never expect to make in our lives!  I love the continuous evolution.

Three Time Mudder.......Should she go for a 4th?

After three consecutive years of completing Tough Mudder Wisconsin, I took this year off with the intent to go into permanent retirement.  I even took the orange headband down from my rear view mirror in the mini van.  Yes.  I had a Mudder headband hanging in my mini van.  It kept me going some days, I'll tell you.

I love Mudder.  There is NOTHING that makes me feel so alive and bad-ass.  I am proud of my marathon completion and plan to run another, but Tough Mudder is in a different league.  I'm sort of a loner.  Mudder Nation embraces the TEAM.  I loved that part, surprisingly.  In fact, I was just reading this blog post after completing the first one.  Such memories!

My most recent team included some great friends, including Rob!  Running it with him was a wonderful experience.

Even though Electroshock Therapy left him a little dazed....as you can see.

As he was every year, my dad was among our spectators, and I got him muddy this time.

Made it up Everest!

Got to do the Legionaire's Loop obstacles

And I was airborne for lots of yardage

Three-Time Mudder!

Taking the leap....quite literally

Thankful to have all completed in one piece (except for a broken bone in my foot that happened on Mile 3 but was not discovered until almost 4 months later.)

Quite a team - Your Mother 2014

Bad Ass

Yes.  It was very cold.  Debilitating.

I'll let you know what I decide.

Jumping with my eyes shut

Well, ok.  Not really shut, but maybe squinting a little bit.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a planner.  I like to try new things, but I study first, and then I might hem and haw and second guess for awhile before acting.  So, anytime I act without knowing that I have great odds about the result, I feel like I'm going ahead blind.

For the last few years, I've been trying to figure out what to do with my professional life.  A certified teacher with a past in teaching English, I left full time work in my school district when we moved/Aidan was born.  It was always the plan to go back after a year or five.  Then my mom got sick with early onset dementia and needed residential care for her special needs.  We moved her close to us, and we found out that people get better care when a family member is closely involved.  I had a brief and successful stint working in real estate, but I hated the hours and the need to be available 24/7 to people other than my family.  So then, I had a ball working part time in my friend's lovely yarn shop and expanded my teaching bag of tricks to include knitting lessons.  When Aidan started school, I added substitute teaching at his and Delaney's school too.

It was great, in a way.  I got to work a little here, and a little there at fun jobs.  I had time to see my mom and to help her.  I was able to take care of the housekeeping stuff and was free to stay home with the kids when they were sick.  As I said, it was great in a way.  But, there was that planner in me that was going a little bit berserk.   Each day, I only knew what I could plan if the phone didn't ring with a substitute teaching position.  Things felt very disjointed with all the little fractions of things that I did.  I was running in many small directions at one time, and I felt scattered.

Rob, my husband, was sympathetic.  He knew that I was in search of The Thing that I was Meant to Do with My Life.  He understood that I wanted a life outside of the family, even though I was grateful for the wonderful opportunity to stay home with our children and to be able to really be available for my mom as she declined.  The question was, what to do?

I kicked around ideas for a couple of years.  Then, I got more involved in my yoga practice as a means of continuing to work out while healing from some running-related injuries.  I've done yoga off and on for over a dozen years, but until this point, it had not been my go-to form of exercise.  As my injuries healed, my practice deepened.   The benefits added up:  increased flexibility, strength, mental focus, inner peace.  Because I was doing yoga nearly daily, it was easy to see the progress in my poses too.  I was totally in love with it.  I began to read up on the subject, started to follow a wonderful yoga instructor online (yogabycandace.com), and explored more yoga classes in my area (ahhhh, hot yoga!!)

Gradually, I came to the conclusion that I would combine my teaching training with my love of yoga in order to share what I've learned with other people.  I'm developing a curriculum to share, and I'm registered for my yoga teacher training (YTT).  Because I've had some starts and stops along the way in planning my new career, I'm hesitant to fling out my arms and yell, "Ta-daa!!"  However, I know that I need to  be all in in order to make this feel real and to become real.  So, here I go, jumping with my eyes squinty and working on being ok with it for now.  The picture of the future will become clearer as the work and planning continues to happen.  Send me some good thoughts, please, and I'll put 'em to good use as I work hard on this new and exciting adventure!

The Path

I’ve been given a mulligan.  When we moved to a new place, I stepped down from my career life, stayed home to raise my kids, and helped  care for my mother with early onset dementia.  For a true Type A, the new life of fragmented responsibilities without completion was stressful, and I felt like a failure.  I was grateful for the opportunity to be home with my kids and to help my mom.   However, I felt like a fraud, because, try as I might, I felt hollow and unfulfilled.  And guilt-stricken when I dared to admit this to myself.

For two solid years I felt like a schoolgirl playing hooky.   Then I began trying on new fixes.  Nothing felt right for me.  There were times when I knew I wasn’t being any good to the people who needed me, but I didn’t know how to change that.   I felt like I was losing my own identity.

Finally, I decided that enough was enough.  So many people had told me that I was being too hard on myself, to let go of all the high expectations I had for my life (or at least to modify them), and to “go with the flow.”  I cannot tell you how much I really detest that phrase.  It sounds so pointless.  Another?  “It is what it is.”  What IS that?

Finally, I realized that I had been given a gift: a rare opportunity to begin again, to walk a new path, to breathe in a new way of life.  (Type A me kept whispering, “Don’t mess this up.  It’s your only chance,” but I shut her down.  That was the first step.) 

Yoga, letting go of stress and unhappy things that I cannot change, meditating, and (above all) Gratitude:  These have been the things that have made my life more fulfilling than I’d ever really imagined it could be when I was in the darker times of my life. 

And, by the way?  "Go with the flow"?  Yes.  If it's along the river I've chosen.  And if the flow feels right.  If not?  I can swim to the bank and think things over while the river goes by.   "It is what it is"?  Sometimes.  And I still hate that phrase, but if I can't change it, then I won't fight it, but I don't have to ruminate on it either.  Like I tell my kids when they stress needlessly, let it float by like the clouds in the sky.

And finally, letting go of all the high expectations for myself?  That doesn't appeal to me.  Expectations and goals drive me.  There are many things I want to do in my life. Here's what I've learned:  I don't have to try to accomplish it all right now.  I can breathe and enjoy my people (friends, family, dog).  I can live my life without being in a mad rush all the time.  With this new knowledge, my chest doesn't feel tight anymore.  I feel relaxed to listen to my kids without thinking about what's next.  My day feels flexible when things don't go as planned (Ok, I'm still working on this, but it's coming along.)

This blog shows the process.  I almost deleted it to start over, now that I’m on the path that I’ve found.   However, I think the early years help to show the progress, and if nothing else, it helps me remember where I’m going and the reason I keep moving along on my lovely path.  So, I'll continue, taking with me all that is past and all my hopes and plans for the future.  These are the things that have put me in this exact place today, in this moment, the present.