Yes, in Fact it is All About Me

Recently I read somewhere “What if I make myself a priority? What if I make everything else second or third or fourth and focus on ME first?”

Well, what if you did? One of my mantras, as I trudge through college one class at a time, is the semester will come and go whether I took any classes or not. I take one. That’s all I have time for. I took time off to live, be married, have a baby, live a different life. But…my baby is grown up and is a woman herself. The husband is gone. I still have a life, just a different one. Different friends, with a couple of long time hold outs that will grow old with me, like Gail and the invisible one. A different man, a good man, (a rock star!) a definite trading up occurred there. A different job and one I actually adore. Different pets. A different house. A different car.

Buried under all that different stuff is the same old me. The writer. The talker. The worrier. Time changes things and I have learned to listen more and talk slightly less. I try to write more. I try not to stress about tests and things with college but I do. No one makes me take college classes, I choose to. I like to learn. I want a bigger degree…and at this point in life it’s a bucket list item, not a career changer. It needs to be checked off my list. So next semester I’ll take two classes in an effort to speed this along already. And invariably it will cause me stress, self inflicted stress that I will talk about openly but hopefully in a funny way. I asked my current professor if there was extra credit or if I should just swan dive off the building…I was joking, which is what I do when I’m stressed. We laughed and life moved on.

I work one night a week at a second job. I don’t need to. I want to. I love working in the yoga studio. I love the people. I love the vibe. I love the owner. Sometimes having to do two jobs in one day is stressful. But I choose to. It makes me happy and I know I would miss it and the community if I didn’t.

I made a weight room out of a spare bedroom in my house. Having a spare room is a luxury I’ve never been afforded in life before. Should I have made it an office? Why? I had no plans to sit in there, really. I can do my bills anywhere. I don’t work from home. I like to write, and I can do that anywhere too. So…I made it all about me. I wanted a room on my main floor I could go in and lift anytime I wanted. And I do. And I love it.

So every day we have choices about what we are going to do, or not do. I’m always trying to choose grace and happiness, in spite of myself sometimes. But like I always tell my daughter, we always have a choice. We are never stuck. And it’s okay to make it all about you. You are the most important thing in your world, and if you’re not, you’ve got a little work to do! I’m no psychiatrist but really…who is more important than you are?

Seize the day, friends. It’s all about you.