During this two-month break
from my experiment, I learned something very important. For a non-writer, I missed writing. My lifestyle in theory doesn’t avail itself
to the constant grind of needing to be creative on demand and generate new
material each night. And yet, I miss
it. I miss a lot of things about
it.
I miss the outlet. And while most normal people would just take
to a conventional journal and continue it that way (offline), I have learned
I’m not normal people. I have not
forgiven myself for not finishing what I started. I need to do that, so today, I am powering
on.
I am going to tie my new
project – You Need Passion – into the original one. Maybe it’s the appendix. But ultimately, I’ll take a break from normal
thoughts on Sundays and share another bit about the virtual "Road Tour" to living the
passionate life we all are capable of living.
Maybe at the end of the 365 Days, with that tacked onto the back (though
it will integrated throughout now) it will be something of value for me to look
back on and say, “hmm…girlfriend, you actually lived what you suggest to other
people.” At least I hope I do.
So with that reintroduction,
a brief catch up.
That last two months have
been pretty crazy. I can sum it up with adventure
and illness.
I took my daughters to Italy
at the end of August. We had one week, three
cities, and lots of pasta. It was an
amazing trip for a number of reasons.
For one, I went back to my favorite place. I haven’t been since the kids were small, and
I have been quite eager. Secondly, I did
it on my own. It’s the third trip I’ve
taken them on since E left, but the first were lower key…California and
Jamaica. It’s not hard to manage sitting
by a resort pool or kayaking on the ocean.
International travel with planes, trains and automobiles was a bigger
undertaking.
I’m proud of all of us. My kids can now order gelato in Italian. They have seen the works of Michelangelo, Da
Vinci and Botticelli. They have sat in
an outdoor café and watched people walked by and just chatted as a family –
without any electronics. They walked
everywhere without bitching. And they
drew in front of the Uffizi in Florence – something we always talked about doing. It might be my favorite vacation ever.
I also got very sick. I’m still sick. I had an unidentified illness that took two
weeks and a lot of blood work to diagnosis.
I’m fine now – what my doctor thought was something really bad just
turns out to be the Epstein Barr virus.
Like mono on hyperdrive. And it
takes several months to get through your system. I’m supposed to rest and lay low...not so easy for a person like me. It was a good wake up call. I can’t do anything to make it go away – it
just needs to run its course. But I’ve
learned that I need to take way better care of myself. When I eat, I eat pretty healthy – but the
operative phrase there is “when I eat.”
Eating for me, like sleep, is a luxury.
I had a really illuminating
conversation with an old mentor of mine the other morning. He was conveying a poignant story of his own
personal battle with a cancer diagnosis and how he started taking better care
of himself. Thankfully he is healthy
now…but when I started sharing my story of the past year, I said “I have so
many things on my to do list, I realize I can’t do them all. You can really only have 3 things on your
priority list. This year, I chose to
focus on my kids and my job. Everything
else had to take second priority.”
To my shock, he said,
“Christina, do you realize you said “Top 3 things, and you only listed 2? You forget one. Yourself.”
I was dumbfounded. I have been thinking about that conversation
for days. I never think to put myself as
a priority. I have always heard you
should, because if you are happy and healthy, everything else in your life will be. It just seems like the ultimate selfish act
to me. I’ve got to change my thinking on
this…not just on the selfish part – mostly because I think it’s contributing to
my health.
I’m good. I’m happy.
I’m getting healthy. My kids are
in a good place. I love my job, and I
have some amazing people in my life.
Nope, no “special someone.” – that will come when it’s ready to
happen. I’m in a good place.
I’m back…In a whole bunch of ways.
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