Life – Page 4 – Bucket List Journey

October 4, 2014October 4, 2014

Where the green grass grows

greengrass

I saw this quote on Pinterest a few weeks ago that caught my attention. “The grass is greener where you water it.” It’s the perfect picture of cultivating contentment. Water your grass. Water your grass. Cultivate your interests and your talents.

I was talking to a friend this week who has had a similar experience to me in the last year – related to totally different things. Mine was related to grad school. Should I do it? Is it really where my life should head? But no, it’s a bit too much and wouldn’t fit our lifestyle. Does my husband support the idea? Is it just a pipe dream? In the last year and a half I went back and forth several times. Yes, I was going to do it. No, it’s too lofty a goal. But maybe we should look into it? Yes, no, yes, no… then I get pregnant. But the answer is like yes, just not right now.

Her story was about a small personal business. Should she do it? Should she not? She really wanted to, she’d be really good at it! But no, it’s a bit too much and wouldn’t fit their lifestyle. But it would be a really great fit! Would her husband support it? She went back and forth on it until one day she realized… she just had to own the fact that it really was a good fit and she should go for it.

It was kind of fun for me to realize that we had very similar paths to two totally different ends. Never once did we look at the other’s life and think “maybe that’s what I need…” because we’re so different. But it’s not always so easy when you hang out with people who are very similar to you. They may be similar to you, but they aren’t you.

What does this mean for us?

Someone may be able to mentor you to help you get closer to where you want to be. But like Gershwin, they may only be able to mentor you to help you be more like them.

So how can we avoid trying to copy other people’s success and talent and be a better or more “true” version of ourselves?

August 30, 2014

Fall, Imminence, and Change

hello fall There’s something about the imminence of fall that just gets my gears going (in a good way). Suddenly, I got my game face on and I’m crocheting again, and blogging, and reading, and being a contributing member to society. Why fall? Especially when fall is usually the time when my brain starts going to mush and my soul starts getting sluggish because winter is coming (you have to whisper that word). I even read an article this week about how this winter is predicted to be even worse than last winter.

Sweet Jesus, have mercy.

But let’s not think about that. Let’s go into our happy place of Pumpkin Spice Lattes (HELLO, I HAVE MISSED YOU!), spicy smelling candles, cool breezes, pants, and cozy sweaters but no need of a coat yet. Automne, je t’aime.

Imminence & Change

W and I have been thinking a lot about change and imminence lately, mostly related to becoming parents. When else in life do you have to wait a long time for a change that WILL come? Even with marriage, graduation, etc. there’s the (unfortunate) slight chance it wont happen. But at this point, I will give birth. Thanks to modern medicine there’s almost no chance we’d lose the baby in the process.

So we sit here and wait, try to expect and prepare for the inevitable. It’s kind of a mind game.

We did our wedding a little non-traditionally. We had a morning service, lunch reception, no dancing party or anything. When the MCs invited my parents up to give their parental speeches, my mother shot me surprised look and a glare and mouthed the words, “You didn’t tell me I was doing a speech!”

She was right. I had assumed. She knows convention and tradition. I had confirmed with my dad, but not my mom. Later, mom explained that because we had done enough things differently, she didn’t assume anything would be the same. Oops.

But no one at the wedding had any idea my mom composed her Mother of the Bride speech on the spot. I wish I had it on video because that was the best speech that has ever been winged.

A year later, my older brother was about to get married and I get a text from my mom thanking me for forgetting to tell her about the speech part of my wedding. The imminence of her delivering a speech at her first-born son’s wedding was eating her alive. She had been up at 4AM most nights trying to think of what she would say.

I can adapt pretty easily; I think it’s one of the positive sides of having moved so many times as a kid. But staring down the barrel of a proverbial gun to watch change come at you is a bit of a different animal.

So now, I’m trying to enjoy the things that have not yet changed: like being able to get 8h of sleep, do what I want (mostly) whenever I want, and not having someone depend on me for their entire existence.

May 18, 2014

About that hiatus…

Remember that I didn’t really blog for like 5 months? It became so normal for me to not blog that people even stopped asking my what was happening with my blog. I partially happy people stopped asking (because I didn’t have answers) but also disappointed with the fact that my lack of blogging became so normal. I think I saw it as a type of failure – failure to persevere in difficulty, failure to be creative and figure out what to write.

Yesterday I took some time to actually think it through. I meant to write more, but have been putting of thinking through what’s next. And now I have a bit of an idea. I know what distracted me from blogging and I have an idea of what I want moving forward. (If you want to hear a bit more about some of the changes in my life that influenced the lack of blogging, I’ll be sending out my next newsletter soon. My newsletters are typically more personal than the blog content. If you’re interested, sign-up here).

Some things haven’t changed

This is a relief. I’m glad that even though I’ve lost interest in some things (staying on top of social media/platform building innovation) other values have still stayed.

GUYS, I still care about running. This, I’m honestly surprised by, but I guess I shouldn’t really be. I haven’t run in almost a year. But I’ve thought a lot about it (I know, it so does not count). BUT, I was this close to getting back into it, and then I fell pregnant (yay!). Because I had been so inactive before, it wasn’t recommended for me to re-start running. This will be postponed until the baby comes. I had a lovely conversation about running with my best friend’s multi-marathoner dad that was inspiring. I think I might try to talk to him more on the topic.

I still value writing. Even though I haven’t done much of it lately, it still is something I want to continue to cultivate the habit of. This winter semester I took a class and was SHOCKED that it took me a couple of painless hours to write a 15 page paper. This is not what my life was like in my undergrad, but all the writing since undergrad has obviously paid off. This was very affirming!

I really like you guys. I don’t know if I can go so far and call the readers of this blog a “community” (my husband is really picky about the proper use of this word!), but I appreciate all of your feedback, the fact that you actually read this and seem to find it helpful. I don’t know where this blog will go and how long it will stay running (I have no plans of being a “mommy blogger”), but I have enjoyed it and been surprised by it and you.

This Summer

I’m not going to make you or myself promises about writing this summer considering I’ll be pretty busy travelling with work as usual in the summer. But, I do know that I’m a different person in the summer: full of energy and ideas. I imagine I will likely have more to say.

I hope this works out! I miss it.

December 7, 2013December 7, 2013

Dissonance

The last few months have been obviously abnormal for me in certain ways. As my dad put it, “Your lack of blogging is very obvious.” He also proceeded to assume that I must be a lot less stressed by blogging less.

Not exactly.

I’ve realized that my life is a lot more together when I’m busy. There’s this sweet spot where I’m quite busy actively working on my priorities. This point exists right before I’m freaking out because I haven’t done laundry or grocery shopping for weeks. This fall, as I have focused on work and getting my laundry done on time and having food in the house, I’ve also watched a lot of Netflix.

I am mostly OK with these things.

I’m mostly OK with having not really moved forward much in reaching some of these goals listed on this website because I know there’s more to life than blogging and running and reaching goals. I’m mostly OK with having been a bit of a blob on my couch because it’s OK for me to not have everything together at all times.

But I was also partly not OK with this fall because I don’t like being a blob. I’m not a very great person when I’m a blob. There’s this ugly spot on that same imaginary chart where if I don’t have enough challenge I revert to laziness. This was me in my personal life this fall.

There was a distinct dissonance in my life and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was unmotivated, yet I understood that this was not the end of the world, even if I didn’t like it. My SAD wasn’t really a big deal recently, which was incredible. And yet, something was still off.

This morning when I woke up the sun was shining. We cleaned the house and I did all kinds of things I had put off. I scrubbed the tub, I cleaned the shower curtain, I did laundry, tidied the house, I walked to Café St. Henri and here I am. Blogging. Getting Things Done.

There’s something about December that motivates me. It’s the anticipation of a new beginning in January. So here I am, turning my back on that weird fall and facing forward.

p.s. I’m putting out another newsletter soon! Sign up (on the right) to make sure you’re going to receive it.

September 17, 2013September 17, 2013

404 Error

The great thing about posting once a week is that no one has any idea how Mentally MIA you’ve been. I’ve been really MMIA. Totally focused on figuring out life in Montreal again. Say, what? Yes. You’ll hear more about that in my newsletter coming out to inboxes soon. Strangely enough, I’m writing this from 8 hours from Montreal. I kid you not.

So you can imagine that my brain is just trying to play catch-up.

Normally, I’m reading a really fascinating book that gives me content to write about. I’m reading a book right now but it’s about marriage and not really relevant to this blog. And so this space will remain quiet until I can get my head back above water.

August 19, 2013August 18, 2013

Giveaway: The In-Between

Last week I mentioned a few books that helped me process and understand my quarter life crisis. (For the record, I still feel stupid every time I write that phrase.) Honestly, none of them were Book Saviour of my situation. Nothing I came across carried the epiphany that solved my broody inner conflict.

This book is also not that book. (Sorry.)

But, in a sense, the book is more than that. The whole premise of it is, as its subtitle says, embracing the tension between the now and the next big thing. It talks of the discipline of valuing the awkward in-between. Don’t worry, the book is not as painful as that sentence made it sound. Jeff shares how he has learned to find meaning and value in the times of waiting.

It’s something I’ve tried to get better at.

As I was reading this book, I thought, “this book would be good for people going through a quarter life crisis.” I also started wracking my brain of people who were in an in-between phase so I could recommend it to them.

And then I had a horrifying realization. I have been in the in-between state in certain areas of my life, too. It was better when I didn’t realize I was waiting and hoping for things. Now I feel like I’m in this purgatory and CAN’T GET OUT! Suddenly the book went from being something I wanted to pass on to someone who could benefit from it more, to something I was thinking about regularly, practicing often and ended up reading a second time.

The In-Between is a story of growth and change. The glimpses the author gives us could very well be from your life or mine. He’s adventurous and goal-oriented. But no matter how hard we work to get somewhere there are always times of waiting. How we respond to this waiting, Jeff says (and I totally agree), can say more about us than where we’re going.

Go leave a comment answer the question: What was your most recent ‘in-between’ moment or most difficult time of waiting? Then sign up for your copy of The In-Between by Jeff Goins!

The giveaway runs today until August 30 (2 weeks). You can get more entries by tweeting and sharing on Facebook daily (come back and update Rafflecopter each time). The only mandatory entry is a blog comment. Rafflecopter now works on iDevices.

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