I have had a love/hate relationship with this whole COVID experience since day one. So much of COVID sucked right down to the depths of hell, but like with all truly bad things, there is always also something good. In this case, for me, the good has been the changes in me. I guess the conclusion I have come to is, that if you try to lock me down and break my spirit, I will rebel like hell and find a part of me that I never even knew existed. Take that COVID!
So many lessons have come out of the last 16 months for me, and one of the biggies was that I am far more competent and capable than I ever gave myself credit for. I am, for lack of a better phrase, still very teachable...even at my age. I also learned that I am worthy of at least as much care and effort as I give everyone else. Imagine that!
Ultimately, I think I may have learned more about myself in this time period than I have in all the decades before.
Prior to this last year or so, I have not been someone who took myself very seriously. I was an afterthought, even to myself and I looked and felt like it. I also didn't push myself to do a lot of things, because I always felt that I wasn't smart enough or capable of enough. This came from years of being told that I would never amount to anything by my dad. I think it was because I was a girl, and he just didn't think very highly of girls/women. Because of this thinking, I quit things when they got too hard as I think I felt I would fail anyway. Rather than push ahead and try to find answers, I just felt I wasn't smart enough to make it to the finish line. I don't know that I was really okay with all of this, but I did settle for this outcome more times than I would like to think about.
This last year though, I challenged myself. Maybe it was because we were on lockdown and it was either challenge myself and learn, or die of a stagnant boredom. Since I haven't actually allowed myself to be bored since 1983, then learn and push ahead was my only practical choice. From this choice, I learned why for four decades my cookies had tasted like and had the consistency of sheetrock. I learned that the reason some of my past sewing projects didn't come out properly was not that I couldn't sew, but because I didn't take the time and/or have the patience to read the directions and sew properly. More importantly, though, I learned that taking care of myself was not the chore that I had always viewed it to be, but worth the time and effort I put in to make me feel better and in some cases make me feel more whole so that I was better for the people around me. This has been huge for me and I know that I am not alone in the difficulty (especially as a woman) of finding the desire and the energy to make myself a priority and to take care of myself.
This particular blog, Do I Look Like a Celery Kind of Girl, was originally started as a blog to talk about health and self-care, even if I couldn't frame the right words at the time. Unfortunately, over the years, it has been ground zero for a lot of false starts with big ambitions and very little long-term follow-through. Because of this, I decided if I ever started hitting the keyboard again for this particular blog, that it wouldn't be until I had something long-term to say with some real follow-through as the end game. I think COVID may have just given me all of that and more. It also made me realize that long term may just be overrated because quite honestly long term is not the same for all of us.
COVID and the year 2020 and the start of 2021, have put me on a journey like no other journey I have ever been on in all my years. Something was opened up inside of me that gave me a bit of childlike wonder, and a whole lot of desire to push myself and see just how far I could go.
I have never been big on limits in the big scheme of things (David taught me that) and yet in so many ways, I have limited myself over the years and I am working very hard to stop that. Life is very short and if we don't live it on our own terms, we will end up wasting it on someone else's. That is not the life I choose to live.
I am no longer tying myself to big ambitious goals that are usually too big to be attainable and when they fail, end up hanging over me like another missed opportunity. Instead, I am thinking and planning at best, no farther ahead than this summer and in most cases, no farther ahead than next week. This is going to give me opportunities to try things on the spur of the moment and rearrange things when something doesn't fit. My OCD where order and scheduling occur will simply have to make peace with a little bit of spontaneity, as I am allowing myself no guilt if time or situation doesn't allow for something, but I am also not allowing myself to give up, give in or quit anything I do start.
Moving forward, I am going to use this blog to the fullest extent and I am going to take you on the journey with me, that I started several months ago. I have no plans, very limited goals and the only thing I really know is that it is going to be about transforming me and ultimately, taking care of me, whatever that ends up looking like on any given day.
Perhaps one of the biggest lessons, to come from all of this is that life and health are a gift. For me, it is especially so, with all the genetic issues and illnesses my family possesses. I am 58 years old and before I know it, I will soon be hitting 60. Rather than see me and my body as winding down, I prefer to see myself and my body as entering an exciting new phase of life where I don't have any expectations and everything is a new chance at a new beginning.
So if you are like me, and ready for an adventure in life, then join me on this journey. I won't be blogging here every day, but when I do, I promise you that I will try to make it worth your read, and maybe together we will find a little joy, a little laughter, some new ideas on life, and some much-needed self-transformation.
Until next time, may you have no expectations, may you have no guilt, and may you push yourself farther than you ever dreamed possible.
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