A Year to Change: Conversations with women on choice, connections, and clarity in midlife

This morning, I read the obituary of a woman I do not know. Edda M. Jakab.

It was the caption under her picture that drew me in.

“At age 17, she took a day off from high school to wed, returning to class the next day as a married woman.”

She died at age 61 still married to that man. Her husband said she was “fond of finding beauty in the ‘necessary journey’ – an Emersonian phrase that captured the long road she traveled.”

The moment of decision might well be an on or off sort of place, but the change I’m interested in is long term change — better diet, better health, better connection … for the rest of my life not just for this second.

I think we all understand, intellectually, that change is a process, a journey. And, yes of course, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step… right, right, right.

But, in fact, that’s just a beginning.

Change happens whether we choose it or not. We get older, things happen to us and to others that require adjustments. But that change might be more of the kind that gets me somewhere, just not necessarily where I want to be.

And I’m 50. I get to choose! For cryin’ out loud!

So what I’m struggling with in my personal journey is making the right choice about where I want to go.

My acupuncturist reminds me that I don’t have to make a single choice for all eternity. I just have to make a choice — from the hundreds of ideas I have –  for right now. Choose something for which I have passion and the rest of the stuff will sort of find its own place.

How are you figuring out where you want to go?

If you have even an inkling of an idea, I’d sure like to hear it.

Thanks.

Once upon a time when I was revising my resume, I put in for a life goal: to be rich and famous, famous first. My DearHusband said I couldn’t do that. Employers just wouldn’t get the joke. But I want people to know who I am and what I do. And I thought it would be great fun. I still think it would be great fun.

But yesterday I realized the one question I never actually answered is this:

What do you want to be famous FOR?

Sheesh, I’m really not sure. I have lots of ideas, lots of possibilities. But pick one and make a plan to have it happen…. Yea…that’s where I seem to get stuck.

I’ve signed up to be part of Andrea Lee’s Multiple Streams of Coaching Income club. The first think I have to do is make a post of my commitments. That means I have to choose at least one thing I want to work toward this year.

I have to say one thing I want to get know now for.
And so, I’m stuck.

And you think that You’re having a hard time managing change?

Click and look

Things are supposed to just work the way they are supposed to. There aren’t supposed to be surprises when making tomato sauce or bread. I always hope there aren’t surprises when installing new soft ware on my computer. I understand that’s a pipe dream… Nevertheless, a body can dream, can’t she?

Accidents are unexpected, by definition. On the road, the accidents that require police intervention are not so good. But when an accident in the kitchen yields a great taste, well, that’s good.

But I think there’s something about the difference between dependable and expected. They closed Grey’s Anatomy episode, Great Expectations with this thought:

You gotta wonder why we cling to our expectations
The expectation is just what keeps us steady, standing still,
the expected is just the beginning
the unexpected is what changes our lives.

Maybe it’s that unexpected whatever that starts the ball of change rolling?

– kerch and leslie

PS. We’re currently finding that if you try to listen to this using the player in this window, we sound like chipmunks. If you click on the Audio mp3 icon (also called a chicklet) you hear us like we really sound.

 

 Tomato Sauce, Bread and Dependability: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Click on this link to an article in today’s Telegraph about The Big Ballet. What is The Big Ballet? “…a unique Russian dance troupe (average weight 20 stone)”

Yes, there are pictures. Yes, you will envy these women who “aim to show that grace, nimbleness and femininity are not the preserve of stick-thin ballerinas.”

I love them!

A couple of the women who we e’mailed yesterday about this site have asked if they can track their own progress in various areas on this site.  Here’s how:  make your entry as a new Comment to this post on the topic and schedule of your choosing.  Just remember, it will live on the Internet for the world to see!

I’ll start:  Weight change was not a particular goal for me this year, but getting (and staying) Healthier IS a particular goal for me.  I track my weight weekly, so I can tell you that for the past 3 weeks, I have been stable.  No change up or down.  I’ll take that!

I must report that in my travels through my neighborhood on foot today, I saw blooming crocuses.  Croci?  3 of them, and they were brilliant yellow through the snow. 

This causes me to note the progress of the year through winter and now headed toward spring and to relate that to my own “progress against goal.”  I feel like I’ve made some progress, despite my continued failure at quitting smoking.  A number of my health-related “to do’s” are now “done” and I’m closing in on the last few. 

My vainglorious return to the gym now feels like habituated behaviour and my eating is under control (which means that my weight is not going up and - some weeks - actually goes down a little).  Still, both eating and exercise are battles that are never really won and done, are they?  Always a work in progress, I guess.

Sometimes I get all stuck in my own problems. I guess everyone does from time to time. I worry that I’m not doing, or completing, the tasks I’ve set for myself. I’m wasting time or resources or something. That kind of thinking spirals me down into that nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel position that, even as the old joke goes, makes it impossible to actually work.

So sometimes I know there is value it standing up straight, looking around and reflecting on where I’m really headed.

For me it has to be about more than just Leslie’s Job 1. When someone gives me directions to a new place, first I want to know the address. I must know where I’m headed before I can begin to process the directions from here to there.

I also have to believe there is some value at the destination otherwise it’s easy to put it off and put it off, never starting and certainly never getting there.

So, I’m working to get clear on my destination. What do I want? Because I know that then, and only then, can I figure out how to get it.

Geez, I hope this is progress.

Well, I’ve started on the “body work”. 

Bone density scan - done.  All ok.

Abdominal ultrasound - done.  All ok.  I do not appear to be apt to “go” from the same hereditary malady that killed my father.

Gym - back on track.  At least for now.  I try to go every day and I won’t go with more than one day “off”.  And on the off day - like yesterday - I seriously walked.

Cardiologist follow-up appointment - done.  With an EKG classified as “norma”. Normally not a word I enjoy, but I’ll take “normal” to describe my EKG.

Blood work to determine exactly how elevated my cholesterol is and the dreaded colonoscopy to go!

And look below - I’ve figured out how to put my signature in!

Leslie sent me a note yesterday suggesting I check out this book: A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder–How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman

Actually, I wrote about the project here when there was something about the project in the NYT in December of last year. I don’t think the book was available then. But maybe I just didn’t look for it. Anyway…

Leslie sent me a link to the book at Amazon. OOOH, the temptation to BUY something new that most certainly will fix all my problems. (NOT!)  But that same evaluation of year end expenses that I talked about yesterday shows me just how much I did spend on random stuff I didn’t really need. I gotta get that under control.

So I thank Benjamin Franklin for invention the public library. And I thank the Baltimore County Library System for having the greatest online system for finding books in their system. I know they HAVE the book in stock and I know it’s checked out. So I’ll wait until it comes back (the due date is also public) and then I’ll go get it.

Thanks for your continuing poke at me to keep working on this project. I guess, in the end, that’s what friends are for!