Birthday reflections!

A week ago I hit the big 46. I have never been one to be bothered by age. It's just a number, and honestly most people, most days, still feel like they're 20. You may feel 20 as in you don't know everything yet. You may feel 20 when you grab one more drink or one more piece of pizza, like your metabolism still fires up like clockwork every day. But 46 has definitely made me think a little more. As a wise friend once said, at 45 you can still claim being closer to 40. At 46 you're looking to 50.

Looking to 50, do I wish for my 20s body? Sometimes. It was pretty awesome even after giving birth to 1 kid. By the time the 2nd kid came at 25, the weight was harder to lose. Sleep was harder to capture. Overall still, the body I have now is pretty ok. I can live peacefully with it.

What is the issue with looking to 50?

Looking at 50 seems to be "grown up". As a grownup do I still want my bedroom to be pieces of unmatched crap jumbled together? Nope. Do I want an unorganized, unproductive closet? Nope. Messy yard? Double nope. Corn dogs? Fuck no. Okay, maybe. But only the truly great ones that are worth an hour road trip and perfected in a 60 year old diner full of nostalgic decor. This may be the year when "enough" isn't the goal. Perfection isn't the goal either. The goal is to remove or fix whatever doesn't give me peace, and have the cake. Just not all of the cake, and not all of the time.

Here's to another year!

 

Adventures at the Barre

This past weekend I drove to Nashville, Tennessee to do a weekend barre teachers training. It focused on form and tactile adjustments. The training could be intimidating at times, there were professional dancers and people who were regulars at the studio taking the training, along with those of us who had traveled from far distances to learn.
I have been working on my confidence with a program from Chalene Johnson called Courageous Confidence. I applied many of the lessons I learned this weekend. However, my confidence problem wasn't completely fixed.
I sometimes let my old habit of blending into the background get in the way of my learning. When you can't hear well out of one ear, a group training can be intimidating. I let a particularly confident and beautiful student dominate all of the questioning on my side of the classroom. Luckily, the instructor was very patient. She came from a yoga background and you could tell. She brought a lot of peaceful calm to the mix. She brought me out of the corner so I could get away from that dominant energy, and could also hear better.
Once we went over the manual, the next day we had a lot of tests. My 9 year old had to tag along as our babysitting fell through. This particular weekend he was obsessed with this stuffed dog from a Petsmart Christmas promo back in 2011. He had waitresses bringing that  dog sodas and fries. When it came time for my big test, he gave me the dog to hold for luck. As I was packing it into the cubby his ear fell off. Whoops! Luckily that wasn't a sign, as I did pass.
Overall lessons learned-due to many years working with someone who broke  my confidence regularly by nitpicking everything and praising little, I tend to hide so no one can criticize. I need to stop trying to hide and take up my fair share of space.
This journal is a way to work on that. Thanks for joining me on my journey!