Category Archives: enjoying life

Over forty and feelin’ fine

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Age can be a fickle creature.  Being over forty has radically affected the way I eat and what I choose to ingest.  I began a new, healthy lifestyle two years ago – no more processed food, nothing that I thought could harm my body.   If I can’t pronounce the ingredients, they are not a part of my food selection.  Those simple four and five syllable additives that I thought were harmless were doing my body a supreme injustice.

Once I made the decision that I, and I alone, would be the only one to create the ingredients I absorbed and not rely on pre-packaged meals, I immediately noticed a spike in my energy.  My body was not wasting precious moments of efficiency trying to break down those foreign particles I had been ingesting for so long and figuring out where to store them if they were unbreakable.  Because my body was only required to process real foods that it recognized and could break down easily, it affected not only my weight but my skin and my general sense of well-being.

We have to know our bodies, know what is a normal feeling and what should send up red flags in our comfort level.  If you are in your fourth or fifth decade, your body will start to turn on you.  That truth is inevitable.  The foods that you loved for oh so long, will become the enemy.  Those pre-packaged meals that are so convenient to buy are conveniently stored in your fat cells because your body will not recognize the preserving ingredients as food. There will be more of a discomfort after eating and there will be a general feeling of lethargy.

As we age, our food choices become far more important.  I am now very cognizant of not only the ingredients, but the foods themselves.  Natural foods serve a greater purpose than just nourishing our bodies.  The correct foods can help stabilize our blood sugars and ensure that our organs are working to their optimal level.

With my 45th birthday creeping around the corner, I must strive to maintain these ideals.   Sure, there is the occasional misstep in the new food regime (especially during the summer), but I am made painfully aware by my body that I made a bad choice.  There will be things I refuse to give up – like my morning coffee – but I have replaced a few of those cups of Joe with water and lemon.  I have fallen off the food wagon a few times over the last few months and my body has sent nasty reminders making me all too aware of my bad choices.

Aging is unavoidable but now that I have learned to listen to what my body wants and needs, I am going to give everything I have to make that process last as long as possible.   The lemon is in the water and the whole foods await.  Bon appetit!!

Turning left

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From mid-June to Labor Day weekend, for all intents and purposes, I live in a city.  Our dormant, sleepy town of 1000 grows exponentially with the summer residents who flock to Muskoka and our numbers burst at the seams sometimes feeling like 50,000 residents.  Unfortunately, unlike a city, we are not blessed with more than one lane of traffic in each direction so something as simple as turning left onto the main street is most often unforgiving and arguably frustrating.

To keep up with the non-stop stream of unfamiliar faces, local stores expand their business hours to keep up with the ever-increasing population.  Faces I recognize can only be found shopping for groceries after 9:00 pm long after the collective band of tourists have closed themselves behind their expensive doors for the night.

I wrote a post about how life changes in our little gem of a town but yesterday my world regained some semblance of normal.  Yesterday I drove away from work knowing that my drive home was going to be different.  My car meandered through the canopy of trees that mark my way home and when I got to the end of the road something magical happened.  The echo of my car signal bounced through the car as I looked left and right and saw nothing.  There was no waiting, only foot to the gas, the easing out of the clutch and a seamless entry onto the main street.  I felt my demeanor change instantly because I knew we had survived another summer.

empty streets

(image credit: margaretperry.org)

As I drove through town I looked at the lakes on either side of the bridge.  There was no congestion on the lakes or a myriad of boats fighting for docking space.  I’m sure if I stepped out of my car there would only be the distant hum of a lone engine or two.  Peace had swallowed our town and digested any remnants of the craziness from the last two months.  The silence will be short, however, as the masses will return for weekends until Thanksgiving, but, until then, locals can finally have a chance to regroup, to de-stress and to enjoy the sounds of nature that have evaded us for two months.

State of mind

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I am in a very zen state right now.  I’ve just come back from having a Hot Stone Massage and the tension that used to ride shotgun on my shoulders has dissipated to nothingness.  Although the August temperature is a mere 15 degrees, my body feels warm and I can feel the blood coursing through my newly relaxed muscles.  I am gelatin.

I had a blog post in mind when I left my house but the words have just fallen away.   I have a writing deadline looming, but I cannot conjure the idioms that are required to complete the task.  And the most glorious thing is – at this precise moment I don’t care.  I want to bask in this feeling of nothingness.  I want to close the laptop and absorb the sounds of nature that soothe and enhance this suspension of reality.

The wine is poured, the windows are open and I am on a journey to seek nothing.

Not the cone!!

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For any of you that have ever owned a pet, you are familiar with that hateful plastic cone they have to don as part of their wardrobe after a surgical procedure.  It’s a tragic piece of equipment and it’s as painful for us to watch them wearing it as it is for them to carry it around.  I just went through two weeks of it with my dog.

All too often, people seem to go through life with an invisible version of that very cone.  A compacted mass of concealed particles shrouds their peripheral vision. It keeps them so focused on only the tunnel they can see when the world is revolving around them out of their line of sight.

cone

There are so many things that are missed because we refuse to look beyond our interpreted field of vision.  We forget to study the bigger picture.  So many things go unnoticed because we either refuse to look or hide in the cone that we have created for ourselves.

Pets do nothing but strive to find a way to release themselves from the cone.  They connect with furniture, drag it along walls and even fill it with dirt and mud outdoors trying to scrape it along the ground to release themselves from the binds of selective blindness.  Humans, on the opposite end of the spectrum, try to keep themselves bound in that discerning lack of vision and don’t want the freedom of external sight.

Take the blinders off!!  If you have to scrape your head along the pavement – lose the cone.  Let yourself see everything you are meant to see and learn from the lessons life has to offer. Look in all directions. Any decisions you need to make will be better served by having that entire field of knowledge at your fingertips, not just the portions that you choose to see within your cone.

Sunset – Trifextra Challenge

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Blood orange dripped from the sky as the water lapped eagerly at its jagged edges.  Songs from the night creatures serenaded the sun’s descent from the sky.  The horizon willingly swallowed it whole.

~

Written for the weekend Trifextra Challenge:  give us a thirty-three word piece that has a color in it.  Use the color to describe anything you like, or use anything you like to describe your color, but keep it creative and keep it short.

A morning of bliss

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I am seated comfortably on my deck, coffee in wait, watching the day come to life. I have no Internet connection but I am still compelled to write. My iPhone is lending its support while I enjoy the only bearable temperature the day will afford.

Summer has arrived with a vengeance. Working at a resort on the water allows me to embrace the cool breezes that surf the top of the water but today I am home. Today I am far removed from those refreshing winds and bracing myself for the scorching temperatures that are predicted to reach 37 degrees Celsius with no reprieve from a breeze. (for my American friends – that equates to effing HOT!!)

The lawn is cut, the umbrella is up and the air conditioner is back in its rightful place in my window. Let the day off begin.

Learning from Ancient Wisdom

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Buddha said it best – “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful”.

Truer words could not have been spoken. How can we expect success if we cannot find joy in what we are doing? Whether it be our career or our personal lives, for us to be truly successful in any relationship we must be authentically satisfied with the path we have chosen. We must relish every part of our contentment and let that euphoria help pave the path of our success.

We will never attain great success if we cannot first achieve that absolute feeling of satisfaction that comes with doing something we love to do. So many go through the motions of a daily routine just to get to the end of their day. It is the few and far between that thrive in their lives because they truly love where they are and what they are doing.

I feel that success on many levels. I am, maybe for the first time in a long time, truly happy with my life. I am independent, I am good at my job and love being there and I have many family and friends that are there to remind me of my happiness if I temporarily falter from my bliss. Sure there are many days that do not go as well as intended, but at the end of those days I am still able to see beyond the lower points and know that tomorrow holds the hope of being better.

I sincerely love what I do. My job allows me the opportunity to meet many new people and I crave those relationships. And my writing affords me the freedom to express myself in ways that I cannot during my work day. I have the best of both of my worlds.

My genuine happiness is composed of all of the aspects of my life. And my true success is the fact that I can embrace that happiness and excel at what I do. Regardless of others opinions of my achievements, my happiness remains intact and my prosperity breathes new life every day.

Find your happiness. Within that feeling of contentment lies the path to your true success.

I almost mastered nothingness

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Everyone is entitled to have a lazy day every once in a while.  It recharges our batteries and gives us a much-needed to chance to store up the energy needed to face the days that follow it. Sometimes we just feel unproductive and unmotivated – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, within reason. If your lazy days start turning into lazy weeks, you may want to rethink your strategy.

I used to have a real problem letting myself sit and do nothing. My brain always kicked into the guilt gear and I was forced to get off the couch and do all the things that were nagging at me from the back of my cranium.  I’m over that.  I am now able to embrace the feeling of not accomplishing a single thing.  There certainly are moments of boredom encompassed in that lazy day, but if I take that moment to remember the fast pace of any other day, that boredom is replaced by bliss.

(image credit: Bill Watterson)

The lazy day becomes about taking time for me and not stressing myself out if the laundry doesn’t get sorted or the dust accumulates for one more day.  Although today was not a completely lazy day.  After giving myself permission to actually sleep in, I did clean the house and I vacuumed the inordinate amount of dog hair from my carpet that seems to increase exponentially!!  But the rest of it was spent in a suspended state of oblivion…..and it was just what the doctor ordered.  I focused on what I needed instead of what needed to be done.

Those rest of those chores will still be beckoning  me tomorrow, but today the deck furniture and the couch won the argument.  Today is about my three favorite “R” activities – reading, red wine and regurgitating the countless words that whirl around in my brain. (there may be a movie thrown in for good measure)

I hope you all take the time to let yourself breathe – spend a lazy day doing the little things that make you feel human again.  And if you have any suggestions for things to do on that day of nothingness…..feel free to send along some suggestions…..I’m always looking for new ways to achieve lethargy!!

Hurt people hurt people

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Life itself is a study of human behaviour.  On any given day we are subjected to a barrage of human emotions and we are forced to choose how we are affected by the cacophony of those desires, disturbances and agitations.

I have realized more and more as I spend time with people on a daily basis that our moods can blanket a crowd.  Our feelings can either stifle a room with their despondent nature or they can lift a room with their positivity.  And within those moments of truly understanding how moods can be like waves encroaching on a shore I have come to realize a very important truth – hurt people hurt people.  Whether it is their true intention to drown those of us on the shore with their pessimistic approach to life. it seems to assuage some of their unsettled feelings if they can make others feel that same sense of repugnant emotion.

waves on a shore

I can only understand this phenomenon because I approach it from the other side of the behavioural spectrum.  I am a very optimistic person and when life doles out those proverbial lemons I am never upset by the bitter gift.  But for a great number of people out there,those lemons don’t ever have the hope of representing anything as beautiful as what I envision them becoming.  There is no lemon meringue pie, no lemon curd trifle – they see them as nothing more than lemons – sour, porous sponges awaiting a multitude of bacteria to invade their outer skin.

When I am presented with that undue sense of adverse emotion I can only respond with empathy.  I know that the root of that misguided emotion has to do with something much deeper than anything I could ever comprehend by just being on the receiving end of their stinging barbs.   Those people who hurt so deeply want nothing more than for others to feel the pain that they are governed by so they don’t feel so alone in their misery.

Perhaps I have watched one too many crime dramas and understand the true affliction of unhappiness and ingrained sadness.  Or perhaps I have seen first-hand how every day life can try to drain every ounce of positivity we hold so dear.  Whatever the reason, I will always reserve the belief that people’s emotional lives are not linear.  One sudden event cannot bring the peace that they are seeking.  But if we can inject one small amount of good will, some semblance of positive energy into their lives, perhaps we can help eventually right their wrongs and swing the curve of energy in their lives back to the positive side.  Each of us has the chance to inspire goodness every day and who wouldn’t want to wield that power?  We may not be able to make them forget their sadness but, just maybe, we can help them see that within their past angst they can learn to create a new happiness and finally make something good out of those lemons.

“Though nothing can bring back the hour of the splendor in the grass, glory in the flower, we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind” ~ William Wordsworth


					

		
					
			




				
					


	

		

							

					Feeding the right wolf
				

			
							
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It never ceases to amaze me when people make gross assumptions about single people and feel that they must be missing something in their lives.  Not all single people are lonely.  Just as not all people who are taken are in love.  Some things we see on our own would completely escape our attention if we were with others.


Single is not a status.  I am forging through this life unattached again by choice.  That decision took some deep soul-searching on my part but in the end it was the best decision I have made in a long time.  My willingness to be on my own again only solidified the fact that I am strong enough to live and thrive without having to depend on another person to perpetuate my happiness.  There were days during my marriage that I felt more alone than I do now that I live on my own again.


For some reason my change in marital status brought to mind the story of the elderly Cherokee speaking to his grandson and explaining about the two wolves that reside within each of us.  One is evil.  It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment and lies.  The other is good.  It is love, kindness, humility, hope, empathy and truth.  When the boy questions the grandfather as to which wolf wins, the grandfather simply replies, “the one you feed”.


two-wolves


By choosing to end my relationship and live on my terms I chose to feed the good wolf.  Once again I feel surrounded by a sense of peace that I have not enjoyed in a while.  I do not hold any ill will towards my ex whatsoever but he was the oil to my water.  He had a heaviness in his emotions that felt oppressive and suffocating and it began to change the person I had been.  We make much better friends than we ever did marital partners.  By choosing to untangle the knot of our union I gave myself permission to begin a new journey.  I allowed myself to delve further into my psyche than I had ever done previously and really focus my attention on who I really am and what I really want.


On that journey I have discovered many new things about myself as well as rediscovering some things that have been long since buried.  I have gained a confidence that I never knew I had and have developed a new respect for the strength I possessed to make that great leap of faith to cut the ties that bound me to the person I had become.  I now feel weightless.  Some days I wish I could truly float out of my body just to gain more perspective and give myself a thumbs up.


Single is not lonely.  Single is exploration.   Single is permission to simply be.  It is not a sentence but a rare opportunity to give ourselves the chance to really get to know who we truly are, warts and all, and to really embrace the qualities that make us unique.


The wind at my back is my yesterdays tickling my skin with the promise of today and gently pushing me into tomorrow.  Whether I enter my tomorrows alone or with another my contentment will be at the forefront of the decisions I make.  If my choice is to be single, I will never be lonely.