Don’t get me wrong I am enjoying being referred to as a bad ass for taking the leap and jumping out of a plane but prior to the skydiving experience I was just a normal 50 something year-old woman struggling with what I want to do in this second phase of life.
This morning I woke up and thought, How did that shy girl that I was with the coke bottle glasses get to the point that some people would refer to me as a bad ass? I never, ever would have used those words to describe myself! Hey, but maybe I am!
Since the jump, I’m been driving Bernie (my husband) crazy by walking around the house singing the Tim McGraw song, “I went sky diving I went Rocky Mountain climbing…” Now he is always super supportive of my endeavors but I find that he just shakes his head and says how much longer are you doing to do this? To which I either respond by adding a dance or selecting the song on Spotify and singing louder. So this behavior might go on for some time.
I have found I feel so joyful and carefree now. It’s something I have not felt in a very long time. I feel like as we age, we take less chances and we become more serious. So many of us focus on our ailments and what we can’t do rather than embracing where we are and what we can do. We are so much experience and many of us have put off what brings us joy because we were focused on raising our families, our careers, cooking dinner, running errands, etc. that there was no time to think about what we “want’ to do but now many of us have the time and resources and still feel stuck.
As a young girl, I remember the dread of standing in the line to be picked for a team. UGH, I can still remember that feeling because I was not the most coordinated person (and still am not) and was just thinking in my head “please don’t let me be the last person to be picked”. One thing I will say is even through I felt this way, it never stopped me from trying. I always figured if I kept trying, I would eventually find something I was good at.
Action Step: In this past year, I have started to reflect on that young girl and thought what brought me joy. Today we encourage you to take the step to think about your young self and journal about what brought you joy as a young girl; you may find that it is the inspiration for your “next” step.
