reflection and change

As you all know – I took a break from writing, blogging, and twitter.  I’d stop by occasionally but for the most part – I didn’t bother.  I can’t say that about Instagram.  While I might not have posted too often, I would visit daily and I found a lot of beauty on my feed.  I loved that.  

I turned fifty in 2017.  It wasn’t traumatic.  It was in many ways, just another birthday.  But for a person who has a goal of being a centenarian, fifty is a possible midway point.   And that was cause for reflection.

My life has been blessed.  Oh, I’ve suffered my share of bumps and bruises along the way but the good has outweighed the bad.  That is something for which to be grateful.

Changes, however, needed to happen.

I embraced a more minimalist approach to life.  Don’t get me wrong – I still like my stuff – but it’s amazing how much you can part with.  There’s less clutter in my closets.  There’s more room in my cabinets.  After all, most of the time stuff is just stuff.  

My health has become more important.  Getting up thirty minutes earlier to exercise isn’t the sacrifice I thought it would be.  It’s more of a gift to myself.  It’s me telling myself that I am worth the effort.

I took photography classes at the local community college.  

I decided to start writing in my journal again.  Journaling has never lasted because quite honestly, I’d get bored with the whole “my day was”…   This time I invested in a book of weekly prompts.  It’s helping! 

I knew that writing would again be in my future so I carried my laptop in to be serviced.  I had saved the two stories I was working on along with a ton of pictures I’d taken to a thumb drive.  I told the computer tech to wipe my computer.    A couple of days later, I was up and running.

The time came.  I felt like I was ready, that the fountain within had started trickling once more.  I inserted my thumb drive and nothing.  I tried another – no books – no pictures.  And a third thumb drive revealed the same.

Frustrating – yes.  That’s a lot of work gone.

The end of the world – nope. 

I’m not sure what happened.  Did I misplace the thumb drive or did something go wrong when I saved?  I just don’t know.  Fortunately, I had printed off most of one story so over the next few weeks, I’ll be retyping and making some much-needed changes as I go.

I guess that’s life – It doesn’t always go the way we plan and that’s okay.  It’s still good!

Here’s wishing you a wonderful week!

-Deb