Kissing frogs

And life goes on. At this stage, I need to start my blogs with that phrase! Strange time for me – I’ve been at home for 8 weeks and life is very different to when I worked in my most recent job, at Eurocentres Language School. I can now see how that one change became the catalyst for quite a few others, and I have to say that almost every one of those changes was positive. Yes, I’m still unemployed and yes, I do need to find a job as soon as possible, and yes….. the end of November is going to be a very sobering experience as the usual monthly overheads loom, with my income limited to some gigs and some piece-meal work I’ve picked up. I guess we’re about to see the quintessential stuff hitting the fan. Hectic!

And yet, coexisting with all of the above is an amazing set of circumstances: I can honestly say I’m in a much better space than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve been swimming a lot and the results are far-reaching. I’m enjoying the feeling of working in a disciplined and committed way towards a goal, the physical effects are inspiring, and it seems to be affecting my overall confidence. I feel like I’ve rediscovered myself. Many years ago, exercise played a huge role in my life, but somewhere along the line, I lost it. Life happened, as they say: I got married, became a mother, did the crazy juggling act of being a working mom, struggled for 7yrs to make a troubled marriage work, got divorced, spent the next 10 years in different phases of survival mode, and when I looked, I had gained 19kg! Yes, right now, I’m 19kg heavier than when I got married. How the hell did that happen? The journey is what it is. Time and circumstances resulted in my losing my fitness and figure, and now time and circumstances are the very factors enabling me to address this part of my life. It’s not my goal to lose 19kg – that’s unrealistic; instead, I’d like to lose 10kg. I stopped eating bread one and a half weeks ago, I’m very conscious of what I eat and drink, and I’m determined to maintain these lifestyle changes, to move towards my goal.

Some of the changes I had to make, when I lost my job, were not easy. I miss my guitar lessons intensely, but I practise a lot, because I want to keep improving, keep making better music. More than that, playing guitar keeps me in touch with who I am. I’ve been playing guitar since 1978, and it’s as much a part of me as my freckles! Trying hard to score a weekly gig (or two!), but right now it seems to elude me. I’ll keep on trying. Made publicity packs for the duo, including a not-too-bad demo CD, and I need to get more of them out to establishments.

Having so much time on my hands has also brought me back to one of my old hobbies, gardening, and I’m enjoying seeing the results of my hours of work. So rewarding, so full of promise. This is something I’d also like to keep as part of the way I proceed along my journey from now on.

The way I relate to different people in my life also seems to be changing, and I’m at peace with the fact that this is an inevitable part of a more introspective and reflective time. More and more, I continue to find myself less interested in the glitz and glamour, the mindless money-intensive pursuits, and more at home in my own skin, gaining self-knowledge, stripping away the façade, sorting out fantasy from reality.

And so, as I deal with this curious combination of issues – and much more – the best thing that I can do to get through this phase of my life is just keep on keeping on, in the only way I know and choose to operate, believing that everything is happening as it should, that there’s a beautiful plan for my life, that even when it comes to what we want from life, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. :-)