Gearing up for my first “thing” this Friday night. I mentioned in my last post that I might go with axe throwing and I went ahead and did it. Yesterday I Googled around and asked John if he wanted to join me (date night, ooh la la) and asked my parents to watch the kids and I booked us in for a one hour session of throwing pointy things at walls.
This is generally how things happen for most people, I suppose (although probably less stabby)… but I actually did it. I have a sweatshirt that says “Let’s Stay Home” that I bought BEFORE covid if that tells you anything. It’s party, party, party over here.
And then something curious happened: Today rolled around and on the fly I went and booked something else and that something else was 5-pin bowling. My family and I rocked up to a well-loved bowling alley in the basement of a strip mall with scruffy, clicky rental shoes and fountain 7Up. My kids were thrilled.
And I am guessing my husband was more than a little surprised that this kind of doing was actually initiated by me. (Translation: I’m boring. It’s okay, it’s why we’re here, I’m working on it).
I used to Do a lot of things. Get up, go to class, meet for lunch, debate something, get a new job, pack a suitcase, take a flight, get lost, take probably unsafe scuba diving trips, eat Häagen-Dazs for dinner or eat a proper dinner swished down with a bottle of wine and danced off with high high heels.
And now I Intermittent Fast and sigh when I can’t find the scissors and I make sure to drink enough water.
Don’t get me wrong, I know I should try to be healthy and I am lucky, lucky, lucky (I have worked hard but I am well aware that I have a whole lot of luck and privilege that has fallen at my feet)… but I have absentmindedly let my flip-flops slide off the pedals, it would seem.
Is something missing? I think there is something missing.
And this missing is on me, I know.
It could be that what I am missing is “What is My Why” related. Right? I am sure I am lacking a certain flurry of passion and purpose but I suspect that there is something more mundane at play here.
One word: momentum.
From what I have seen x often begets more x.
Not always, of course, There is a lot of unfair shit going around, communities stuck in a Newton’s Cradle that was not of their unfurling.
But in some situations…
Laughter begets more laughter…
Opportunity beget more opportunity…
Ideas beget more ideas…
And I think my lack of peeking around new corners has begot a lack of me peeking around new corners. I get up, do my routine, and then I go to bed and do it all again the next day.
And it doesn’t need to be that way.
I am lacking a certain amount of new and momentum.
Perhaps my willingness to 1) initiate something as small as knocking some pins down* with my kids AFTER 2) going ahead and booking that axe throwing session for Friday is a tiny bit of evidence to support this momentum hunch.
We shall see.
*ha ha just kidding there was no risk of any pins tipping over in my presence
I am conducting an experiment: I challenge myself to try something new each month in 2022. Here are my (self imposed) rules. Let me know if you have ideas on fun/interesting/novel things I could try in the comments. Or join me, that would be fun too…
This Is My Thing 