"Permission to have fun" - granted

About a month ago I asked Alex (my counselor) for assistance with an issue. I noted that I was having trouble getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. I tended to spend the early evening napping, then cleaning up around the house and sorting through paperwork. Around 9:30pm I would turn on the TV, and by 10:30pm I would have dinner. Even though I realized it was getting late each night, I would typically not get to bed until 1:00am - and then my alarm would wake me at 6:15am. I had two weekends in a row where exhaustion caught up to me by Saturday and I would crash on the couch for the entire day!

Alex reflected on my question for a moment and then, well, stated the obvious.

He said from where he was sitting, it appeared that I had been through a very tough, stressful year. He suggested that I "give myself a break". Take time to do some fun things. Let go of the paperwork and the household chores. Don't nap in the evening, go to bed on time! Get out and have some fun, unwind, visit with old friends and make some new friends. Holy cow - how long would it have taken me to figure this out! ;)

Well, that was golden advice!

I started to do some bike rides with the local club. I met a nice woman who bikes about the same speed as me and we now do bike rides together nearly every week. One night we went out to dinner and she was explaining to me the technical difference between traversing glaciers and ice climbing (and the different gear that's involved). She's done winter adventures in South America, the Northwest U.S. and Alaska (Mt. McKinley)! Holy cow!

In addition I've been getting out to dinner at least once a week with friends. On the weekends I've flown several times with friends just to go somewhere for breakfast. I've also been meeting friends for coffee every couple of weeks. (How convenient that an independent coffee shop just opened up a mile from my house, and a Starbucks just opened up near my workplace! As usual I'm in alignment with the universe!)

One morning I met a friend for coffee near home and I expected to be there about 20 minutes. Before we knew it nearly two hours had gone by! We chatted about all kinds of topics. She noted that she wished she had spent more time getting to know Robin because she seemed to have been such a positive force in the world!

I've been so sociable lately it made me wonder why I didn't get out this much before. I came to the conclusion that my life had always been so full between doing things with Robin and pursuing various personal interests that I just didn’t make the time to meet with friends.

On a recent bike ride with my cyclist friend we passed a horse farm with many new foals - most of them seemed to be only days old. One of the young foals couldn’t resist running around the field, bouncing on his skinny, stiff front legs like it was his first day using them and he couldn't contain his excitement!

I do realize I've experienced a shift in my own life. Nothing will go back to the way it was before. Life will never be the same, the way I think about things will never be the same, the things I focus on in life will never be the same - but so far this new life feels like an exciting new adventure!