40: a Shift Toward Nourishment

For two weeks, it was Monday and then it was Sunday -- just like that.  Fast.
Sunday morning, I paused and sat for an hour.  What had I been doing during those days that had blown by?  Where was the creating? the writing? the movement? the stretching? the focused quiet? the vegetables? the water?  the board games with Maeve?  the swim lessons?

Kitchen happy hour had started early pretty much every night and lingered.  I'd fed my brain shows and stayed up late doing nothing.  I'd made lists and run errands and felt busy, even productive.  But by Sunday, I was starving.  The next week, too.

In the middle of this, Phil Wood, our preaching guy, talked about (this is worth listening to) the place deep inside us that can get off balance and start us spinning in that lopsided, momentum-driven, wobble-spin that's hard to even out, especially because it's deep.

This had happened.  And instead of quieting and doing the work of straightening myself out, I'd gone faster, crowded my days, planned things, made lists.  Yes, there were hormones involved.  Yes, my whole family had just come for birthday and Easter and left, but for the most part, the week was normal, and I was lost in it.  And again in the next.

When I hit raw imbalance, I'm always amazed by how little we really know about each other.  We people present well.  I presented so well that even I didn't know (the most alarming part) that somewhere deep, I was starving myself.

Why is it so hard to be kind to ourselves?  Gentle?

April was funny -- the best of times in so many ways: I turned 40 (more about that later!) and celebrated all the way through the last day of the month, deeply nourished by people I adore.  And also in there, between the celebrations, a slippery sense of self-neglect was growing.

Early in the morning when I wake up (or Maeve wakes me), I really have no choice but to get out of bed.  I can lie there and pretend round two of deep sleep will come, but it won't; I'm awake; the day's begun.  And so it is with my 40 year old self.  I'm awake and there's nothing to do but get out of bed, so May is my month of reset.  I'm not going to list lofty resolutions, because who wants to read that (or be held accountable!), but it's real.  In my first month of 40, I am awake.  I'm watching how I treat myself, way down deep, watching what I chase after and what I neglect.  At 40, it is time to step into the day and nourish myself, be well-fed, way down deep.