Confidence, resiliency, and finding rhythm—I could be speaking of music, but really all of these are needed when creating a life, a writing practice or in this case also a running practice.
My daughter is now apart of a youth symphony and I'm much engaged in the process of helping facilitate her success—modern mothering: a fine line between helicopter parenting, a tiger mom, and just general mothering—which also includes the process of parenting oneself. What I say to my daughter (who is very much a perfectionist) is often what I need to be saying to myself. The very best thing about parenting is the messiness of it and the bigger reflections on learning to living well.
So what is confidence and is it over-rated? Confidence is a catch word that actually now has a connotation—so much of communication is understanding the nuance of how individuals use words. After pondering the word confidence I realized that I think of confidence in this way: working towards a goal—floundering through the messiness of the process—and reaching an outcome that is satisfying (and possibly successful, though success is not always required.)
I am not a confident runner. Hell, I can't even call myself a runner at this point. But I persist. I have a goal and I will run a marathon in this life. I just reread a post I did for Motherhood Later Than Sooner about my 50th birthday resolution to run a marathon and create a writing life for myself. Poof: seven years have gone by and I have been doing the heavy lifting of caretaking on many fronts, through job loss, moving, uncoupling, death, homeschooling—basically what most women are doing (without a paycheck). And trying to have a quality of life that includes self-care.
Frankly, I have read so much about women's empowerment, creating time for self-care, and trying to push myself to lean in that I could vomit. I have tried to do all the things I noted in a previous list here on this blog that I thought I should do everyday. That took four hours: one hour of exercising, one hour of journaling or blogging, one hour of meditating, and one hour for a nightly routine. And after that I wanted to do some writing work. Truly, that plan was and is unsustainable. I hope everyone is having a good laugh because I finally woke up and unsubscribed to every female empowerment newsletter that was clogging my email accounts.
And now for my whack to the head—a lá the great comedic teams of Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, and The Three Stooges. I have a new plan for self-care and it looks like this. And actually might be sustainable.
Monday – one hour early morning for exercise: walk or run or weights or bike or recumbent bike (mostly weather dictating the choice).
Tuesday & Wednesday – one hour early morning meditation. I have found two early morning IAM-35 groups through the Amma website. Thank you COVID-19.
Thursday & Friday – one hour early morning of personal journaling.
Saturday & Saturday – all day both days in the writing cave (kind of like the Bat Cave, but my adventures are in my mind). On these two day mostly no visitors—I have informed my child, wasband, and my mom in an attempt to limit the interruptions so I can think, write on my blogs, and meet other writing deadlines. And I can stay in my pajamas all day. My other new pleasure on Saturday is caffeine in the form of a homemade mocha using my new (used) stove top moka maker plus discounted surplus Starbucks Breakfast blend, with hemp milk, and three pouches of instant hot chocolate. This is my weekly treat as I must give up the sugar addition: ice cream, sorbet, chocolate, and the amazing homemade cookies my sister-in-law sends the family. Also I can handle the caffeine as I usually on Saturday night I stay up late working into the night.
So I may be able to create a rhythm for myself, and after awhile build some confidence in reaching my goal of running a marathon. If nothing else I am resilient and persistent to the point of nausea. New day, new plan, new life: GO Team Mo!!
My new best friends. Finally, these need to stop being paper weights.
And my fabulous writing space with a standing desk. Much better for my back. It's not the office I had when I started this blog, oh so long ago. But my space is really nice and I love it. With our three little apartment units next to each other: wasband, myself, and the mom—we all have the autonomy we each need. We are the wave of the future. Life is good.
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