An apology? Nope......

Things fall apart every once in awhile. They just do.

Being able to accept that is a huge step in our maturation process. Plus it keeps us sane when the magnetic force field of our lives shifts a bit and we are tossed off balance.

Again.

Yes, young reader, this will happen consistently and repeatedly over the course of your life. Those of us who have aged a bit--to perfection, of course!--know this. "Perfection" is an ideal, we all know that, but aging towards that ideal means, by definition, that we adapt and adjust to new directions when that compass starts to show us another way. Instead of resisting, which comes in the forms of whining, complaining, and giving up.

Those aren't options for me. It's taken me some time to get where I am, but I'm doing better every day! Which gets me to my point....finally.

I had high hopes for this year, especially with my quest to seek out new adventures every month. I enjoyed that two-year process a few years ago, and it brought me great joy in a number of ways. Then I took a year off and missed it. Or thought I did. When I started again in January, I really thought I wanted to get started.

And then the grind started. What did I want to do THIS month? I have to do something, I told myself, because I told all of you that I was started down the yellow brick road of adventure again. If I was behind schedule, which is what happened, the whole thing started to weigh on me. I was BEHIND--and those of you who know me personally (I hope that's all of you by now, even if we've never actually met face to face) --know that I don't like getting behind in anything. (Yes, something else I'm working on!) It just puts my life under duress and I don't need that stress.

So, I've put the "new thing every month" journey on hold for now. I do more things that are outside my zone of comfort on a regular basis anyway, and that may have been the whole reason for doing it in the first place.

I've gone back to dancing, which was one of my first "new" things, and that brings me great joy, more than I can begin to describe here in this space right now. But I'm not going to beat myself up about the rest of it.

After all, I'm aging toward the perfection of acceptance.

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

Nathaniel Branden

No filters.......

As we mature, we tend to filter less. And I think that's a very good thing.         

• When did a group become a "cohort"?
• Why is my phone now a "cell"?
• And why does my home have multiple cells but no phone of its very own?
• Why can't I buy a digital camera anymore but intersections have lots of them?
• Why does my gym offer CHAOS as if its a good thing--AND I have to pay to have more of it in my life?
• My daughter's wallet was stolen recently and it never occurred to me to ask if there was actual money in it.
• It doesn't seem like a wise decision to force taxpayers to use garbage receptacles that are bigger than most people, much less when those bins are filled to the brim and thus immobile.
• Why does my credit union attempt to socially engineer my choice of vehicle by designating parking spaces for fuel-efficient cars--especially when they financed the car I am not allowed to park in front of their building?
• Since when can't I be trusted to safely make a left turn on my own?
• Do we really believe more signs and longer crossing times will remedy stupidity on the part of drivers who plow into pedestrians?
• How come telemarketers call my phone (oh, sorry....my CELL) and then refuse to speak for several long seconds? Didn't THEY call ME?

 “Progress has not brought about universal happiness...”
― Adam Leith Gollner

Putting it in context........

I recognize context better now. As a younger person, I had never  faced some experiences that have now happened to me multiple times in the course of my sixty-plus years. We learn from those experiences, at least  if we're paying attention.

Driving to the mountains of North Carolina from Florida for the first time should have been a piece of cake. It's only 8 hours or so, and I once drove from Florida to Colorado in a little over 48 hours, so no worries. Right? The only problem was that we arrived after dark. An unknown location, at the top of a mountain ridge reached only after putting the car in 4-wheel drive and inching up a narrow, one lane road to the top. The person who owns the cabin told us "It's the sixth cabin from the top of the ridge" and it was very dark that night. (Go ahead; think about that for a minute. I can see your face now.....)


Put that trip in context and I've never tried it again. We leave home in the morning one day, stay overnight along the way, and then finish the trip the next day, when the sun is still out and I can see well enough to navigate up that ridge where the cabin is located.

Context.....

It also raises its head when those who don't have the longevity we enjoy try to pull a fast one on us. We understand context when a 30-something personal trainer makes continued excuses for being late for appointments (for which I was paying him well), with things like, "Oh, I lost track of time" or "I didn't realize it would take so long to get my hair cut" or "Did you know I went back to school? I was studying for a test and forgot about the time." (In other words, he forgot about his customer, completely or simply irresonsibly, or both.) And the excuses always came along with him AFTER he showed up late for every appointment....yes, EVERY one. Sometimes he never showed up at all.

The context is rich with meaning. He didn't call ahead of time to say something like, "My little one is sick today and I have to take her to the doctor" or a similar reason that, within the context of our own experiences in a life replete with them, makes sense and everyone has had happen at some point.

Context matters. And we get much better at putting life in it as we age. We also hold others accountable within the context of a situation, too.

We are old(er) and we aren't to be toyed with.

I now have a new personal trainer, by the way.

Context, context......

“Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.” 

Robert Penn

 

Active Master exposed.......

There it is again.

Peeking out a bit.

It's represents one of those "Oh, that won't happen to ME!" things that accompanies becoming an Active Master, at least for some of us apparently.

There are some advantages as we age.

Yes, I have a greater depth of experience to draw from on an everyday basis.

Yes, I've learned to slow down the decision making process, to look at so many angles that had evaded me when I was younger.

Yes, I try more new things than I ever had.

Yes, I have even finally let down my defenses enough to trust my instincts more often than not. And most of the time those instincts are correct.

But can someone please tell me why that bit of pink scalp is peeking through my hair? I may be smarter, more able to navigate the tumultuous waters of life, but I'd really like to do it with my hair.

OK?

How can I control my life when I can't control my hair? ~Author Unknown

I know not what I do.......yet

It's that time again!

The one where I do something I've never done before.

Each month around the date of my birth (the 28th), I embark on an adventure of some kind, stepping out of my personal comfort zone and into the realm of the unknown. And that's the whole purpose.

As we age, we tend to lose that sense of excitement, anticipation, wonder....call it what you want, but we kind of collapse into a boring, dreary puddle until it's hard to divine any fresh water in our lives. So far, I've had some great experiences, some truly awful ones, and some that I continue today.

I asked for suggestions from friends on my social media site a couple of weeks ago, and got some good ones....as well as some scary ones, at least to me. A trapeze? Zip-lining over alligators? Not sure about those two, in particular. But then there was attending a great mini-conference with Maria Shriver and Martha Beck in Savannah (too late for that one; it was last weekend when I couldn't go), swimming with manatees, acupuncture, hot yoga, some other workout routine whose name escapes me right now, rock climbing. One that's been on my own mental list for quite a while is to ride a bus in my city, and that idea won't go away, so I'm adding it to the master list right now. (I'm sure many of you who live in cities with excellent mass transit systems find this idea comical, but believe me when I say that it's not the same thing in many southern cities at all. I'll just leave it at that for now.)

I haven't decided which adventure to choose yet for the month, but the whole process invigorates me. The process of thinking of things to do and then deciding on one keep my mental systems on "go" and that's a good thing. Carrying the activity out is often physically challenging, and that, too, is a very good thing.

So, stay tuned. By the time I get back here, the latest event will be over and I can share it with all of you.

Be brave enough to live creatively. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can only get there by hard work, by risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful: Yourself.
Alan Alda

Liberals and social engineering......

They're still empty. Unused, unoccupied. I know because I checked yesterday.

I found this building a week or so ago, a brand new branch of my credit union in a part of town I only frequent a few times a month. But I had some other business to transact in the area and there it was, so I zipped into the parking lot and searched out the front door.

Sounds simple, right?

Well, it couldn't be located on the first side that faced me--every one of those parking spaces was empty. I noticed all the cars were parked on the other side. That must be it. I kept driving around to another side (front? back?) of the building.

Oops. No door anywhere. Maybe it's one of those new "no building" banks, where all your business is transacted in cyberspace......somewhere. But why would they have this beautiful building then? I circled again, totally confused now.

Oh, there's the door, tucked over there facing--wait--all those empty parking spaces!  As I turned into the first space, a sign stopped me in my tracks: "Fuel efficient cars only." Well, that's open to interpretation, isn't it? I drive a Kia, a small one at that. But somehow I gathered that's not what they meant at all.The space next to it was the same. I drove slowly to the next one: Handicapped.As was the next one. No problem with those at all. There were still two left down there at the end. I was bound to find one soon.

"Van pools only." Both of them.

Are you kidding me? When was the last time you and your coworkers decided to hop into the van and head on over to the credit union to do your banking in a cozy little group? Women often go to the restroom in herds, but banking? That's a new one.

As I told the manager when I finally was able to GET INTO this edifice, I'm probably more liberal than most people walking around. As a matter of fact, as I've gotten older, I've become even more so. I think that goes counter to what happens to most people, but I've never fit the mold in any aspect of life, so why start now?

But social engineering carried to this extreme offends even me. The manager's explanation of being designated as a "Green building" doesn't carry much weight. As I told him, I guess it's a matter of deciding what you want more: a "green" plaque on the wall or customers inside doing business. I'm guessing they will have to make that decision soon, too, because each time I drive by that building now, I make a point of checking out the parking lot: All of those spaces remain empty. Every time.

Or maybe I'm just not aging perfectly this week........

A man's age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,

Dancing fool redeux (2)

I tried. I really did.

For two years. Two very LONG years.....

That's when my ballroom dance lessons (and money for them) came to a screeching halt, through no fault of my own. I found other non-dance related outlets. I danced socially when I could. I tried to forget how dance makes me feel.

But, like a lover that lingers in your heart, no matter that your head has scolded you, telling you it's time to move on, dance refuses to leave me alone.

As the new year dawned, I made the commitment to myself, a resolution from a person who doesn't make them: I would find a way to dance again.

Last week, I walked into a dance studio again, just like I did in April 2011 when I was going to take ONE dance lesson for my thing I had never done before. The day I fell in love with a physical way of expressing music. And I fell in love again. So far, it was one free lesson, but it's a start.

I also found a community ed class where I--and a great friend!--will learn to cha cha. Can't wait.

I've learned over the years to embrace those things I find in life that bring me joy and fulfillment and an escape from all the responsibilities I carry every day. This one has hung around for two years, waiting for me to come back to my senses.

Well, I'm back!

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb