Waylaid On The Path

Greetings and Salutations,
     I hope you have been doing fantastically well and are where you want to be. If not, I hope you are taking appropriate steps to at least think about heading in that direction. These are the thoughts of the evening: What does it takes to keep yourself on the path you choose in life? The kind of life you want. The quality of life you seek. The choices you make. And when I say "you" of course I mean us both.
     Before I left to come out to San Francisco I was on a great path. Making all kinds of positive changes. Yoga. Fun classes like jewelry making and pottery. Biking, swimming. Volunteering in my community. Blogging weekly. All activities well planned and prayed on for many years in my mind's eye. OK so in reflection I was on multiple paths LOL. And then I moved.
     Now don't get me wrong. I am grateful and very happy in my choice to turn my world totally up side down and move cross country. My instinct to move out here has been spot on thus far. It has been hard, scary, lonely, and frustrating. It has also been happy and exciting. I have felt my own personal growth in this process and that is way cool. This city is EXACTLY where I belong for this chapter of my life. No doubt about that even in my darkest hours.
     Since moving here, it continues to be a life lesson in learning how to live on the edge. And more so keeping my balance on that edge. On one hand it would seem so much easier to have one (benefited) forty hour job vs the three, sometimes four places I am juggling right? But what if it isn't. What if the "stability" of having one full time job is simply an illusion?  Seven months in and I am beginning to believe it just might be.
     A full time job brings with it no guarantees. It could all be gone in the blink of an eye. So enters that balancing on the edge I just spoke of. My current juggling act is at times very tiresome. I have no guarantee in any hours at all. Yet some how it works out. Most weeks I work 6 days and barely break 32 hours. But other times there are more hours than I can handle. My work calendar looks confusing to most who see it.
     But I am learning it is so worth every minute of it. My choices are teaching me extraordinary things can happen if you stay the course and push your own reality. To push your own definitions of stability and the way you perceive the world works. Sometimes when you wait for the other shoe to drop it never does. Maybe you catch it mid air and wear that bitch :) It is human nature to seek comfort in "concrete" things but do those things really exist? Stability is a momentary reality that is subject to change before you even know it has. What counts most is how you react and how you chose to view your life.
     Where is my path and when will I get back on it? Classes, volunteering, biking, blogging regularly, swimming, yoga, getting up early before work-- all of it. Why are good habits so hard to keep? Why is real change so hard to forge? In moving I've started the clock all over it seems. Absolutely wonderful and I totally hope you can hear the dripping sarcasm.
     I want to get back where I was and grow tired of my perceived inability to reconnect with that person. I joined a Yoga place in January. $85 bucks. Not one class attended so far. How difficult is it to participate in a yoga class? Its s-i-m-p-l-e because I've done it lots of times before. Some how I'm having trouble starting again. With all of it. Damnit. Damnit. Lucky for me tomorrow is another opportunity to get it right. It just trips me out how somethings I feel should be so simple end up a life long journey to get it like I want it.
     I hope I sound pleasantly frustrated with myself but determined. Hopeful I can reconnect with the Heather I started in Charleston and get back on all the paths that I love. All the things I knew I would love to do my entire life. I hope in my verbalization of these thoughts you will question and challenge yourself. Maybe together we will find some solutions. Life is an open book test with the answers we each discover along the way meant to be shared. Its what makes life worth living.

Tootles :)
Heather