Self-improvement

Groundhog Day

Jeanna GLeave a comment

Have you ever experienced déjà vu? It’s the sense that you’ve experienced something that you haven’t actually experienced before. But maybe the universe is trying to tell you something. Maybe you did experience it, but you did it wrong the first time, and you’re being given a second chance. What was so important about that moment that you’re being made to live it again? What is the impact you’re supposed to make? What should you have done differently the first time around?

Back in college, my buddies and I drove from Penn State to Punxsutawney to witness the strangely fascinating celebration of seeking the meteorological predictions of a groundhog. I was telling my daughter about that trip. and then suggested we watch the movie together. Afterwards, I asked what she would do if she got to live the same day over and over again, and she answered like a normal 10 year old: eat a ton of candy, act crazy, get away with stuff. I, on the other hand, would hopefully take the route that Phil eventually took and become a better person.

Maybe we’re stuck in the same place until we make it better. Maybe we keep running into the same people because we’re supposed to help improve their lives. Maybe we’re not supposed to keep moving on so that we can actually live in the moment. Maybe we get stuck because we keep missing the point.

The days don’t actually repeat themselves like they did for Phil, but sometimes they sure feel like they do, except we continue to get older, and the calendar pages continue to turn. We can reminisce about our younger days, like I obviously like to do, but we can’t actually relive our youth. But let’s just say you woke up and time was repeating itself. Would you know why? Would you know what you had to fix, or who you needed to help in order to move on? And what if you got to pick which day you could live over and over again? What has been your best day? And is that the best you can do? Maybe we all need to be a groundhog for a day and ask ourselves, “When I get pulled into the light, will I be afraid of my own shadow?”

Just Like Riding a Bike

Jeanna GLeave a comment

I loved my 10-speed bike. I rode it to the park, the swim center, my friend’s house. I even rode it to school one evening, without asking permission, to watch my 6th grade crush practice basketball. (I got in a lot of trouble for that one.) Bike riding was my hobby. I loved tearing through town. The best rides were the ones with no destination, the ones on which I could just coast, hands-free, and enjoy the scenery of my beautiful town.

Then my 10-speed got stolen. And then I started dating a guy with a license and a car. And then my best friend got her license and a car. And finally, I got my license. No more bike rides.

Then I went to college and got a bike because campus was huge. But then my bike got stolen.

Later on I moved to Maine and made daily bike trips to the beach, and I was reminded of why I loved it so much. But then my bike got stolen.

Then I had a baby and bike rides weren’t even on my radar. Until…

My daughter and I flew out to visit a childhood friend and her wife in Chicago. They got her a babysitter, and they got me a bike. Together, the three of us tore through the city on a cold November night, stopping to hydrate at the local tap rooms. It was a blast! The sights whizzing by, the wind in my hair, trusting my body to move in ways that I forgot it could. All good things, and all the result of being reminded of how I choose to love life.

Life is full of distractions and we can easily find ourselves out of our elements, and the things we love to do somehow get sidelined as the humdrum takes the field. The good news is that remembering how you love life is just like riding a bike. We can take off where we left off, we just need to start pedaling! It helps to have old friends who remind us of who we are, but how we love life should come as second nature. So get your wheels turning and reminisce about what makes you happy, then change gears, and enjoy the ride!

Auld Lang Syne

Jeanna G1 Comment

2020. A year described by many as the following: A dumpster fire, shit show, kerfuffle, nightmare come true, omnishambles, hullabaloo, all hell broken loose, catastrophe, three ring circus, royal fuck up, comedy of errors, bizarre, unrivaled, hellacious, apocalyptic, calamity, and a world turned upside down.

WHO reports that, as I write this, over 74 million people have contracted the virus worldwide. I read in the Wall Street Journal that a quarter of all US jobs were disrupted as a result of the pandemic. The election divided us. Racial inequities lead to murders and riots. Fires and storms wreaked havoc on and devastated our habitats. Our ways of living, communicating, and interacting have all been upended and recreated. It’s not surprising that there has been a collective yearning for 2020, and all that came with it, to end and to never be thought of again.

But should old times be forgot and never brought to mind?

Uncertainty, worry, and feeling useless all took their toll and caused depression, an old acquaintance of mine, to rear its ugly head. But as time has shown, I’m a survivor who does not relish in pity parties. I also can’t be idle, no matter how often I think I ought to give it a try.

And so I move. And I do. And I retrain my brain to think positively and make the best of a situation. And that takes work. And it’s because of that energy and movement that, despite the headlines, I am grateful for this year.

This year has gifted me with the time and permission to think. I mean really think. Like not just about what I have to do that day, but go deep into the recesses of my brain and think about all of the things I usually don’t have the time or energy to think about. And there is a lot of stuff in there! I wrote some of it down in this blog, which I’m happy to have had the time to create this year. Other thoughts I wrote in the journal I’ve been keeping for my daughter since I was pregnant. Others I shared with my friends, because they also had time to just sit and think and ponder life with me. And some I just shared with God, because at the end of the day it’s just me and Him, and I can’t fool either one of us. I wonder if having and spending all of this time thinking is how the Ancient Greek philosophers felt in their day-to-day lives.

For the last few years, life was moving so quickly, and I didn’t feel like I could keep up at times. This year, time seemed to slow. I had time to play with my daughter. Time to try new things. Time to reintroduce old things. Time to contemplate and assess where I had been, where I was, and where I was going. And it has all made me feel a lot better about life. What began as a joke between friends became the mantra “We Are Here,” which we now repeat at our get-togethers. There’s something to be said for living in the moment. And so in 2021, as life starts to speed up again, my resolution is to make it a point to slow down and make time for the important stuff that, for reasons I still need to think about, I had put on the back burner.

And so 2020, for auld lang syne my dear, I’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.