When Things Fall Into Place

You guys! Life has been changing so much in the past few months, and so much of it has been positive! I’ve been slightly exhausting myself trying to keep up with all my activities, but of course they’re worth it most of the time. Improv, yoga, swimming, rock climbing, trying new healthy recipes, squeezing in friends, catching up on sleep and The Bachelor (I kind of hate it this season but I can’t stop watching regardless)…. It’s making wintertime go by so fast, which I love because winter is NOT my season, but I don’t want to rush the time away either.

Rock climbing with my friend Beth!

I finally feel like I’m getting back into the groove of the single life. I find myself pretty happy and thankful to be at this place in my life. Don’t get me wrong, love is pretty much my favorite thing in the world and I do, of course, want to find it again. And I want it to last. But even in my early thirties, I feel like I’m still finding myself. Or maybe I lost myself and I’m finding myself again. Either way, I’m happy to be here, even if I still have sad moments and confused moments. And also, I’ve remembered how much fun being single can be! Life seems so full of possibility!

It’s interesting the way that some things seem to fall into place when you need them most. When Rich and I were still together, I knew I wasn’t happy with the way the other parts of my life were going. Yet for some reason, I felt helpless to fix them. Once my relationship fell apart, I no longer had a choice. I had to sink or swim, and I SWAM. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. I definitely still have my sad moments when I miss him. He was the closest person in my life for two years; it’s hard not to think about him sometimes. In a way, I still very much care about him and it’s sometimes still weird to think we’ll probably never have a real conversation again. In fact, I saw his roommate (who is an extremely nice, non-threatening person whom I actually quite like) at a restaurant the other day and I swear I almost fainted right then and there. I couldn’t even go over and say hello because my heart was beating so fast and my hands were shaky. And Rich wasn’t even there! I’m still lonely sometimes and afraid sometimes, but more often than not, I’m happy. Life is now about finding my way.

I spent the month of January largely concentrating on my health. I *almost* got through dry January, gave up desserts (with the exception of hot cocoa) for most of the month (so hard!), joined a yoga studio and started going regularly, got comfortable using the public pool down the street and best of all, started rock climbing. I’ve been paying more attention to nutrition than usual (though I’m generally always a healthy eater anyway) and really ended the month feeling physically better than I have since my back injury. I will say, it was a month of hard work well-spent.

Chia pudding recipe from The Minimalist Baker.

However, I found myself feeling restless by the end of January. One of my friends actually just mentioned the other day an analogy that she’s heard, where you have four “burners.” You have your family, friends, health and career. You can have all of these things, but your burners will only be halfway on. If you want to fully have any of these, you have to turn off two burners. So in January, I think I had my career and health burners fully on, so everything else fell by the wayside. It was wonderful, but not necessarily sustainable right now.

Some people are more dangerous to rock climb with then others.

In February, I’m getting social again! In fact, I made a new friend this past week! I’ve really been enjoying my improv class; it feels so right to perform again, even if it’s just in a classroom. I was pretty into theater back when I was a teenager and I think I’ve always sort of missed it. Anyway, not only does my improv class make me laugh and get me out of my comfort zone, it’s also full of some pretty cool people. Deciding to take initiative, I asked a girl from my class out for coffee last week, and we hung out last Friday. It went so well! Back when I was new to DC, I took making friends pretty seriously, and whenever I met someone that I felt like I could connect with, I’d ask them out for a friend “date.” Back then, I actually met someone for five minutes at work once and asked her for drinks and she turned into one of the coolest people I met in DC! Until she moved to Australia. Wah wah. So, I think I’m going to start that up again. I could always use more friends and more light in my life. I just need to find the balance with all the other parts of my life too.

Anyway, I know I’m rambling with this post, but I’ve been slacking so wanted to get in a quick update. 2016 is going swimmingly so far! Some things I’m looking forward to are getting deeper into yoga and rock climbing, attending my first Lean In Circle meeting next month, learning and growing more in my improv class and, of course, planning some amazing vacations for the year to come. I have even been approved at work to take a photography class this spring. Life is good! If I could only stop having dreams about all my ex-boyfriends I’d be all set.

How’s 2016 going for the rest of you??