Looking Back

I woke up this morning, and was thinking back to some of the things I've written in the last year. I had to shake my head at some of them. Perspective. I'm thinking, in particular of the post I wrote in which I declared the mornings to be mine. I wanted 3 hours, at least, if I remember correctly. That was back in April, and it was right for the time...I managed to keep up that routine for about 5 months, and it was good to establish it. At the time, maybe I even knew it wasn't permanent – but remembering my headspace when I wrote that makes me think of that line in Joni Mitchell's Come In From The Cold. “...I made some value judgements/In a self-important voice” I'm not sure who I was declaring this righteous new routine to, other than myself. Or why I felt the need to be so adamant about it. I was trying to justify it to myself. Sometimes it is hardest to convince ourselves that it is okay to need what we need – particularly in the moment. All the fears and insecurities we (I) have about not being enough, not doing enough. Permission to just do what you need to do, for yourself, for your sanity, for your health...it can be hard not to feel that that has to be justified, or explained, even to yourself. There was a lot of good that came out of it. It created some patterns for me. I got my body back, at least to some extent. When I need to stretch in the morning, I do. There are still days I'm pretty sore, but not the way I was, for months on end. I'm okay to be on the computer in the mornings when I need to – like this morning. I've been pretty terrible about the computer – I'm way behind on my social media stuff, and my website. I have kept up the writing. I have kept up the reading. I'm determined to pick up my fiddle again before the end of the month. These things are all easier because I gave myself that permission – even if I had to stomp my foot and have a tantrum inside myself to do it.

It's funny, sometimes, the paths we take to get to where we are. There are days I look back and think “why on earth did I choose that route? It would have been so much simpler to go the other way.” Not unlike when I was climbing (which I miss terribly.) It's the need to challenge myself, to see if I can figure it out, and regardless of how much more complicated I make it, I generally find I've learned something valuable.