Day One

Starting a new blog is an interesting process. My first blog was/is dedicated to my random thoughts, to sharing some of myself with the world and to learning about this method of communication. I began to think about creating a new space when I could not correctly insert a music player with another host. I began to think it might be nice to have a focus, though I didn't know what I wanted that focus to be.

I'm not sure what brought me here, today. What made today the day the I would really start this blog? I don't even completely know why I am starting it. I'm feeling my way through, trying to be an earnest observer of my Life so that my reflections have meaning. Trying to understand what I want to have happen and how much say I have in what actually does happen in my Life.

I'm going to be 50 in less than 6 months, That's the one thing of which I am sure; the one thing about which I have clarity. Oddly enough, after all this time in my skin, I don't feel like myself. I don't feel powerful or confident. I feel grossly overweight, slow. A woman with creaky knees and chin stubble.

I am going to be 50 in less than 6 months and I feel as if I don't have endless chances. As if there was a lesson I was supposed to learn that I missed because I was distracted by petty emotional desires. I feel apologetic for wasting time. A woman with graying hair and middle aged paunch.

50 in less than 6 months and I wonder what happened to all that potential I possessed. What did I do with it? I know I had it, once. Maybe I have it still, but I'm not sure.

I am going to be 50 and I have decided to do a few things differently, to change some things about the way I operate.

I suppose I could use this blog to list them and keep track of how well I do them and beat myself up when I fall off the path I have chosen. But, I don't want to do that. That's what I always do.

I want to do a new, but largely unknown thing. Walk some path that I don't know the way of and can't see the end to (oooh, a sentence with two hanging prepositions). I want to speak in a new way, swing my hips to a secret rhythm of my own making, smile at Life's jokes without the cloud of disappointment that I see swirling through my Life.

I want to walk in grace and care for myself, as a forethought. Do the small things that signify that I care for myself, Love this brown-skinned Life of mine, appreciate breath and laughter and even stumbling. I want to honor these things in everyday actions like brushing my teeth for 3 minutes or eating well, exercising, learning something new and interesting.

I want to fall in Love with myself and I guess that is why I am writing this blog. To somehow capture in words this process of my heart. To hold to this path of Love, simple Love that doesn't need grand gestures or rhetoric, sweeping changes or half-truths. A Love that only needs to be real - that's what I want the next 6 months to be about.

My name is Gayle, I turn 50 in six months and I want to learn what it feels like to Love myself.