I blogged quite a bit about my Summer of Reset at the beginning and the middle of summer, but then I started drowning and the blogs ended as I was too busy dogpaddling in a vat of excrement to write about dogpaddling in a vat of excrement. Actually, it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t particularly good either. Oh, there were some great moments… wine tasting with family, a couple of lovely parties, attending a comedy show with my hubby and a six day trip to the mountains with my hubby and granddaughter during which we saw a mountain lion and watched an eagle steal a fish from an osprey… but mostly it was dogpaddling in excrement.
Of course, resets usually are, aren’t they?
Learning Spanish was much harder than I thought it would be. I actually thought I’d walk out the door after my first class with my mind buzzing with the beauty of a new language and singing sentences. I don’t know why…perhaps because I’m a writer and love languages and I thought they would love me back? At any rate, I really had to stretch myself because it was like the instructor was speaking a whole nother language or something. Actually, he was, because that’s the entire point of an immersion class–you have no idea what anyone is saying and you feel like you’ve landed on an alien planet. Seriously, there were times when it almost made me cry. I also had to deal with the fact that my teacher friend—who is also fluent in French—picked it up and retained it much faster than I did. It was a good thing because we were able to study together, but it was still surprising and a little frustrating. It didn’t help that my Spanish teacher was incredibly disorganized. While I liked him and his teaching style in the classroom, the disorganization created a lot of unnecessary frustration. And when you’re disorganized in two different languages… OMG. The experience made me realize that I needed to focus more on the process and less on the end result. While I purport to live that way, learning Spanish really drove it home for me. Lesson learned.
Before I knew I’d have an entirely new job, I did what I usually do in the summer and set up some freelance workshop gigs at my local libraries and such. While the kids were great, I had two different disasters, (of my own making) that I had to work around. The presentations took up a ton of time and my hubby had to drive me to two of them because I don’t drive in some parts of Portland. (Mild driving phobia.) Add that to redoing my office, trying to learn my job before school started, the shit show that is our government, and I was more stressed than relaxed. Seriously, the most carefree I felt I all summer was when I was sitting in the middle of Little Lava Lake in a borrowed inflatable kayak with an icy cold beer. (An experience which actually ignited a new passion. The kayaking, not the beer, though I’m pretty passionate about beer, too.)
As the summer of reset closes, I’m coming to grips with both the successes and the challenges.
Challenges
- I’m not running
- I’m not ten pounds lighter
- I didn’t write a proposal for a new book.
- I didn’t meditate enough.
- I didn’t declutter my whole house.
- I had some startling friendship issues.
Successes
- I found a new passion and my husband and I will be purchasing kayaks and learning to float together.
- I’m well on my way to speaking another language…a bucket list item.
- I grew my editing business and added a coaching component.
- I’m learning my new job and loving it.
- My husband I have started doing resistance activities together.
- I finished revisions on a novel that’s the best work I’ve ever done and my agent went out with it.
- We’re almost finished with cleaning out, decluttering and reorganizing the garage.
- I am eight credits closer to having a degree.
- I have a beautiful work office that’s already filled with the memories of my husband and myself working together, laughing together and overcoming obstacles…together.
As I reflect back on this past summer, a few things really strike me…my husband and I, for whatever reason, are growing toward one another again. Not that we’ve ever had more difficulties than any other long term relationship, but we’ve re-prioritized our time together. With this commitment comes the surprising revelation that there are a few outside relationships that just aren’t, for a myriad of reasons, sustainable any more. And that’s okay.
I’ve also learned more about setting goals for myself and being okay with not reaching them. I can always make them anew. In fact, I’ve learned that reset is infinite and can happen all the time.
In other words, I’m now in the autumn of reset and the reset is good.
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