Over the course of my life, I have had to recreate my life work. I have taught yoga. art, hula hooping, drum circles. All of these opportunities came based on my openness to try new things and willingness to figure things out and just 'fake it until I make it.'
As I move into my fifties, I find that all this adapting has made me feel a bit scattered. I am pretty good at a ton of things. I always wanted to be a craftsman of sorts. I want to pick one thing and really dive deep into it. Being a military wife has not really lent itself to that type of focus. As my husband moves and makes choices based on his career, I have had to align and adjust.
Maybe that is why over the years I have grown more appreciative to what a yoga practice can offer. Perfection is not attainable. Each day you come to the mat and you met your body and, by extension, you meet yourself. I find that I can't run away from my secret longings on the mat. My practice has always had a spiritual component to it. And because of this, I can ignore the practice for long periods of time, complaining about my time commitments. The reality though is that if I don't have time to be quiet and alone with my thoughts for 30 minutes, I am too busy.
Writing is pretty much the same way for me. I will take long breaks from coming to the page. But when I finally sit down again, one of two things happen. Either my thoughts are like a runaway train and I can't house them on the page fast enough or I feel a clog in the system and I have to just begin with a prompt of some sort.
My life this year has not been as I have planned. That is funny to type. No year has really been how I have planned. But this year I have a nod of 'oh I see' with the recognition. I hear a whisper to go back through each year and parse out what worked. And the things I am seeing are quite surprising. Some unexpected things are coming to the forefront. And it makes me smile. Working ALL THINGS together for my good. Yes, GOD does.