A New Start

As I await my trip to Bali I decided to go to Vancouver for a week and check out what my options would be if I decided to live in Canada.  I love Vancouver for the mountains, the ocean and the laid back feeling of the city.  My friend and I have been  taking  walks along the sea everyday and watching the trees change minute by minute.  The weather has been kind and the sunsets magnificent.  The smell of the sea air here is much different than in Los Angeles.  I can feel the nip in the autumn air and I realize why I love an obvious change of seasons so much. Even   this picture feels somber awaiting the winter snowfall.  I love it.  Some people may think it depressing but I welcome the feeling of change in me anticipating the inevitable.

We decided to take a drive up to Whistler as I had never gotten a chance to visit.  The beauty of going somewhere without working is that you can come and go as you please.  Usually I feel guilty if I am not working or have my family with me to justify my trip but I am trying to alleviate the feeling and just enjoy myself.  Funny how difficult it is to really relax when you have always put others first. This is a new choice for me to do things just for me and I have to admit it is getting easier the more I do it.

I’d be lying if I said I don’t wake up in the middle of the night sometimes worrying about what the future will hold.  But as I’ve said before the greatest lesson to learn when changing is to trust a power higher than you to know it will work out exactly the way it should.  Trust has always been an issue for me and as much as I would like to tell myself I’m getting better,  my past will sneak in every now and then to doubt the person or the situation.

My friend, her beautiful daughter and I had a lovely day in Whistler.  It was more built up than I would like to have seen but wonderful all the same.  We strolled through a farmer’s market and stopped by the local bakery in Squeamish (on the way to Whistler)  to get some goodies for the Canadian Thanksgiving that was this weekend.  The bakery was run by a family and had some of the most delicious sweets I had tasted in a long time.  I don’t know if it was the fact that it was made by the people in the shop or whether I was enjoying the fact that I was in a smaller town surrounded by beautiful nature.

I’m not saying that there aren’t wonderful places in bigger cities but the sheer size of the shop reminded me yet again of what we seem to be losing in our lives.  The drive to Whistler was a reminder of how vast our world can be and how beautiful it is when left to its own beauty.  Where everything has remained the same for years and years. I am guilty of enjoying the convenience of  a coffee shop that is familiar to me or a grocery store that stocks my favorite crackers.  There is something to be said for feeling safe in the known.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that even at my age it would be much easier to stay where I am and live my life in the expected.  I was hoping that with all I have done in my life it would be a given to constantly stir the familiar pot and not be so tentative.  One of the only things I purchased in Whistler was a cup of espresso from the same coffee shop I always go to wherever they exist which is in a lot of places.   Old habits die hard.  I go along and think I’m being brave.  Then it takes a trip to Whistler to realize I’m pretty vulnerable but determined to put my toes in the uncharted waters to still feel alive.

On to Bali…

It’s a number that can mean so many things.  A number on a sports shirt, number of people in a room or just the number.  Sixty.  Or age.  My birthday is coming up in the next few days and yep that’s the number I’ll hit.  Don’t know how I feel about being that age.  There are many who don’t want anyone to know how old they are but I sort of wear it as a badge.

I have tried to make sure I have taken care of myself the best way I know how.  When you’re younger you don’t think about what it’s like when you’re sixty.  You think you may possibly have reached your full potential in your career.  You have worked hard and been rewarded.  And you have missed out.  You have had to learn how to roll with the punches that life gives you.  And sometimes those punches hit hard right in the gut.

But you bounce back and know that the only choice is to figure it out.  To try to put the pieces back together, be thankful for the lesson and move one.  Or not.  I have not moved on in some things.  What I thought I have forgotten or at least let go of from my past will unexpectedly raise it’s ugly head when I least expect it.  It will come up as impatience or anger or defiance.  I will dig my heels in and refuse to admit that I still don’t have it all figured out.

And now I am more frustrated than I am angry.  I still am affected by what people think of me and how I have behaved in the past.  There are times when it has not been my finest hour.  They say you mellow with age and let some things go that would have been monumental only a few years ago.  I don’t know if I have mellowed as much as I have become more insightful.  I step back more and look at how I could have handled it differently.  I still have my steadfast beliefs in what I think is the most respectful way to handle situations but I am a far cry from sainthood.  I still screw up  a lot and let my emotions get the best of me.

And that’s where the child I seemed to have never found sneaks into my heart and I find myself more weepy than usual.  I don’t know if it is from sadness of not having discovered things even at this age or whether I’m weepy about just not knowing how.  I don’t really know what direction I need to go even after all this time.  The word surrender keeps whispering in my head and I’m wondering if that means it’s time for me to focus on me.  To uncover the wonder of what it’s like to completely trust in that higher power my Catholic upbringing has taught me to go to when I’m in need of help.

I think back of my mother at this age.  I remember having a hard time understanding what she was trying to tell me about how people will treat you and how you will treat people.  I have to say that there are times when I feel like the outsider who didn’t get the joke.  Or wasn’t let in on the joke so I could feel included.  It’s no one’s fault.  It’s the gap that happens when life experiences are the only way to explain the punchline.  And you have to be with other people who seem to have the same life experiences.  Or I should say age experience.  I will never be able to “hang” with my son’s friends for any length of time because our life experiences are different.  We can share with each other what we think but will never be able to fully understand how each other feels in their age appropriate skin.

And with that I quote something a dear friend said to me when we were discussing how to finally surrender and let that higher power guide you.  “An open mind sees the way.  A conscious mind finds the way”.

So here I am ready to move into my sixtieth year of life.  Get ready conscious mind.  I am determined to find my way.

I have to admit recently I have been struggling with my life and what I am planning to do.  I have gotten to an age where I have done one thing for a long time.  I am grateful for the places it has taken me and the opportunity to be creative.  It’s been a great way to make a very nice living.

I am looking for another outlet to keep me motivated and excited which will not replace the work I am doing but enhance it.  There’s only so many conversations you can have about the “business” and all the changes it is going through.  It is definitely not like it use to be in the way that it seemed more of a community.  I don’t think it is just in my business.  I think it is the world in general. A lot of times the conversations on sets are about the tax incentives and when or if the jobs will  come back to California.  People are hoping that this new bill will give California a chance to claim some of it’s glory and jobs back.

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