Back in the Saddle, Again…

Having just spend the past 12 days trying to get over a flu (which arrived, mysteriously, two days after my first-ever flu shot) and have found that being stir-crazy is no way to end a year.

I’ve binged on Netflix and Hulu, cleaned every closet in the house and yesterday, spent the first hour of the morning cleaning all of the faucets fixtures in my apartment. They are glistening like new, but I’m not sure what that says about my sanity. No, wait, I do. I like clean fixtures.

Now that the new year has finally arrived, I don’t feel bad telling 2014 that I won’t miss it. Not in the slightest. I mean, it wasn’t the worst year, ever, but it was up there in terms of loss and starting over.

Losing two friends to sudden illnesses was not something I was prepared for, possibly because you’re never prepared for death, even if you think you are. And, honestly, to learn that after five years of therapy that I’m only now able to use the words “I’ve been sad” was harder than I expected. Those words, spoken on hour 16 of a 48-hour round-trip girls’ only road trip to attend the funeral of a good friend, were harder to process in my head than they were to speak out loud.

I’ve been sad. I said it and realized that no one, not even me, noticed.

How could I be sad when there’s so much going on? The real question is why did I put so much on my to-do list instead of dealing with the sadness in the first place. Easy: I didn’t want to slow down. I wanted to be so busy that I wouldn’t have to spend the time I needed to understand all that has happened over the past five years. A divorce, college for my only child, a hysterectomy, a major career change, starting a business, writing and trying to write more. Right when I thought I was on track – bam, my back when out because that’s how it works, right? When you try to pretend that things are great, your body will give away your deepest thoughts.

In my case, just over a year ago, my body said ‘enough’ and left me in a hospital bed for a few days to sort out what I didn’t want to admit. I hate to admit that I needed the time-out.

These past few weeks have been a blur – from being sick, to starting a new round of epidurals to finally, once and for all, getting that I need to change my life in order to change my health – it’s all been one reminder after another that I’m way too old (and too young) to make the same long-term mistakes I used to make.

I’m finally the age where, if I listen to Douglas Addams, I not only have the answers – I am the answer – the answer to the universe.

Thank you, universe, for helping me get here.

Now, what to do with all of this 42-awesomeness? I honestly don’t know.

Last years, I started 2014 looking for a hobby. I really didn’t believe I’d find anything that would stick, but I was so wrong. I found fishing – or fishing found me. It took eight months before it hit, but when it did, it hit big. I’ve lost count of the numbers of hours I’ve spent in bodies of water from New Jersey to Massachusetts and I’m happy to say that I’ve been so lucky to be adopted into a tribe, complete with a leader, who lets me ask millions of questions over and over again just because I really need to know what’s happening out there – in the waters all over the world.

I wanted to wear more red lipstick – then realized that I moved to pinks a few years ago because they made me happy, so I just wear more pink. It’s close enough to red.

I wanted to run and had to learn to love it all over again – but the beauty in running is that every new step is magic.

And, of course, I wanted to write – and I didn’t. I couldn’t put words to paper no matter how hard I tried. I blamed it on work and insomnia and all sorts of things, but what I really knew was that I wasn’t writing because I’d grown tired of writing about love. Or lack of love. Or both.

The closer I got to the end of 2014, the more I realized that I missed everything about writing and that love looks like so many different things all at the same time. How could I be tired of writing about it? Maybe, just maybe, I’m supposed to be looking at it differently this year.

That leaves me to the ‘revolutions’ for this year – that’s right, no resolutions for me. Like Lent, I try to make the change be a little more permanent than a new thing for a new year.

So where does that leave me? I’ve got three things to work on this year (aside from working, of course, because that’s my real passion):

Fly Fishing. Have you seen the perfection that happens when you watch someone fly fish? It’s one of the most beautiful sights in the world to watch this line that was, just a few seconds earlier, slack, make its back and forth arc and land, softly, in water. It’s even more beautiful when a fish picks you, but to be honest, I’ve got so many hours without a ‘fish on’ that I know that what I truly love is simply being out in the water, letting my mind have some peace and quiet.

Surfing: Yes, this girl still wants to learn to surf and I’m making it a solemn mission to find a camp this year that wants to welcome a soon-to-be 43 year old newbie.

Writing: Why do some people write, others paint and still others create music? I don’t know, I only know that they say that when you find the art you want to create, you have to do it, even when it hurts.

I’m leaving off running, because there will just be more runs. And I’m leaving off love because, well, there’s lots out there to love and I don’t know that I can narrow down one kind – not when there’s fish to be caught, stories to write and waves to find. I just have to hope that when it’s time, I’ll know. Or, maybe I won’t, and that will be okay, too.

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