I know a lot of people don’t like New Year’s resolutions and the like but as a planner and an organizer, I enjoy the whole process of a new beginning. Each new page on my daily planner is a wide open space and I look forward to that opportunity. Each new day, week, month, year presents to me a brand new canvas and I think that is exciting!
Last year meshed right into this year as we said our final goodbyes to my sweet mother-in-law. There was nothing warm, comforting, nor Hallmark card about it. The jagged edge of this parting makes it all the more difficult to wrap the whole thing up neatly and move on.
It seems like the last big chunk of years has been tethered to this or that, all the different and difficult phases of my PhD, particularly the dissertation; my mother-in-law’s life altering stroke and now her passing. Everything in my life has been wound and wrapped around these things. Now I should feel free but instead I feel rather precariously out on a ledge and very much without direction.
Remember that scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy crawls through the poop pipe? Freedom is on the other side but oh, the journey!!! I think I’m feeling a little like Red when he was released – Red was here too. A combination of Andy and Red. Okay, it’s certainly not that bad. But I do feel like I’ve crawled through the pipe and I’m still standing in all that mess. I’m at my heaviest weight ever, I’m completely out of shape, the stress and worry has taken its toll, and in many ways I feel like I’ve hit some place that very much has a rock bottom to it.
And still I rise – in the words that sound in my mind in the fabulous voice of Dr. Maya Angelou. I know it’s the end of the January but I’m ready for my New Year to begin. I may be a little behind but I’m here, I’m out of the pipe, and I’m ready to find myself again. And I’m ready to do that with music and movement. I think I’m finally ready for a ballet class.
All will be well. Who wants to dance with me?
Image from the Internet. Owner unknown.
THE 109th BEAD 
i’m dancing with you! i really thank you so much for this post.
first, let me say that i feel so sorry for you and your husband for your loss. losing a loved one is so terrible. but knowing that there’s still someone there for you, that loves you and supports you, no matter what, is so very precious. i’m glad that you have each other.
this post was also very important for me, because it came right in time. who knows me, knows how much i actually love ballet and that it became a part of me that i actually couldn’t imagine to be without anymore. last year i was in great shape, but then my health problems returned, some of them surely my fault, and now i feel only weak. i cut my classes down from 5 to 3 and after a flu in the beginning of january, i even couldn’t get my mojo back. still haven’t. i went back to class as soon as they started, completed the first week, where i felt incredibly weak and injured my leg. no ballet the next week and then i felt like i somehow couldn’t get back to class. before that, i couldn’t get enough classes and now i skipped class after class, because i just couldn’t…
then you wrote this post and i knew that i would just have to go back to find what i had lost. it was in the ballet studio and not on our couch. so i went and gave all that i had, like i did before. i am not as strong as i was but i am back and my strength and dedication will follow.
this is actually too long for a comment, i know, but this time i really wanted to be sure to finish and finally send at least this your way. so i am dancing with you.
Thank you so much, Lola! I appreciate so much your not too long comment. I’m sorry to hear that you have been having a hard time too. Some things are out of our control and sometimes even those things that we have a hand in, well, life can be difficult. But I’m so happy that you are starting to feel better and stronger. It’s going to take time and work but we are already on our way to healthier versions of ourselves! Thank you for dancing with me!! xoxo