I learnt a lesson this past year. Don’t wait for the “Right Occasion” to wear your best shoes, outfit, jewels, etc. or live your best life. Make everyday special in as many ways possible.
Precisely when you feel the dullness of life is about to obliterate you, is when it’s necessary to guard against losing your passion or taste for the new. I’ve always ridden the vagaries of life with confidence and optimism. I was shocked when I looked back and saw how close I’d come to disappearing. It had never happened before, so I hadn’t considered the effort in reappearing.
This is my final post for In My Shoes, and I believe the most important words I have to say.
It started with joggers. My old joggers even worn only sporadically were no longer fit for use. I was measured for & purchased a beautiful new pair of expensive joggers but they gave me blisters, foot cramps and my first instinct was to stash them in the back of the cupboard & ignore the fact mentally & physically I benefit from a daily dose of exercise. I was able to keep up my ostrich-like attitude for a while as life kept me busy but a move to a new neighbourhood adjacent to a fabulous park and eventually the thought of wasting cash niggled at me and forced me to improvise & try wearing the new joggers with 2 pairs of socks. Success.
It occurred to me this was an analogy of how my life had been also for the duration of my ownership of the joggers. I’d stashed myself away because my life didn’t fit the way I thought it should. It wasn’t comfortable but I wasn’t prepared to work at something new. I’d emerged from the cocoon of a long term work project which ended with a distinct lack of fanfare and was propelled into a post GFC workplace. Simultaneously, extreme tiredness was diagnosed as glandular fever and left me physically & mentally befuddled. The neighbourhood move was forced & reluctant and… my long term goals weren’t approaching as quickly as I thought they should.
Just as I got to the point of hanging by the fingernails to the edges of my sanity, my survival instinct coughed & spluttered and I adopted as my mantra the Julian Cameron quote “Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are.”
Courtesy of a hiatus in workflow I gave myself a D.I.Y. course in WordPress blogging, which by luck led me to the Women in Focus Global Blogger Search and necessitated the challenge of acquiring further skills in social media beyond Facebook. I created a Twitter account, resurrected & used my LinkedIn profile. My writing skills improved. I was having fun… omigod.
With enthusiasm born of nowhere-to-go, I moved cautiously but resignedly into a new workplace role, and looked hard to find things I liked about the new neighbourhood. Serving two purposes, one to realign myself and two, my idea in blogging was to write about the world around me. I couldn’t write about it if I couldn’t see it for the dull, dense fog of disillusionment I’d cloaked myself in.
Blogging ignited a passion which gave off enough spark to enable me to re-engage with my workplace & colleagues and life in general. It was forced. It was an effort… in the beginning. Now I can’t believe I spent so long in the pit of doldrums-ville.
So, Women in Focus [& WordPress] thanks for the ride. It’s been enlivening. Truly.
Shortly after I began WordPress blogging I came across Commonwealth Bank’s Women in Focus Global Blogger Search Competition – In My Shoes. It was a great opportunity to practise blogging and continue my D.I.Y. social media education. For me the prize was the process, although it would have been a hoot to travel to New York or Mt Kilimanjaro with Mrs S.
Fortunately several elladee post ideas leant themselves to the theme. Now the competition has ended I’m posting them as intended, with a few edits thanks to wisdom of Robin Coyle.
This is post 4 of 4 of my blog “one foot in front of the other”.
daleleelife101.blog 
great post elladee, we do tend to appear and disappear in life, we get lost between the little I and the big I, who are we, what are we supposed to be doing?????? so wonderful to relax and realise life just is, it is always the right place, the right time, the right moment 🙂
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Thank you. I realised I was waiting for la dolce vita to come along, but it was there already 🙂
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Nice piece of writing today. Thanks for sharing.
Here is a great writing opportunity I recommend to all writers. It was a great decision for me. Have a great day.
Writing Jobs – Writers Wanted
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Thank you. I just came across a wonderful quote “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene
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What a terrific quote. Says it perfectly.
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So many people spend their lives waiting for things to be ‘better’, they don’t just realize they can enjoy what they already have. There is always a silver lining and a dark cloud, you just have to choose which way to go.
I am so glad that blogging has reignited your spark, the positivity and community at WP always surprises me, it is a good thing to be a part of. It is amazing how a little thing like that can change our outlook for the better too, isn’t it? 🙂
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Thank you. What I described in my post wasn’t like the usual me at all. I’d gotten there via an unfortunate combination of circumstances and I’d just picked myself up when I started blogging but it gave me purpose, direction and motivation to keep going. I’ve “met” wonderful bloggers, and my horizons have broadened immensely – the WordPress community garden is a wondrous thing 🙂
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A grandma-aged woman said to me,”my husband gives me jewelry for every occasion. I wore it only on special occasions until I realized that everyday is a special occasion. I wear my beautiful jewelry to remind me of that!” Excellent words to live by.
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Thank you. I agree, excellent philosophy and words. Right now I’m wearing my favourite boulder opal earrings just because 🙂
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A fantastic quote. You’ve certainly had a journey and it’s a privilege to hear your lessons learned.
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Thank you. I’ve always owned the words “”If you can’t be a good example then you’ll just have to be a terrible warning.” 🙂
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“and looked hard to find things I liked about the new neighborhood.” Great phrase and good advice for just about anything. YEA YOU!
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Thanks for the “yea you”… one year on, I still miss my old ‘hood but this end of town has some endearing features: Sydney Park, great street art, excellent croissants, and the best neighbourhood cats 🙂
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Someday I will get there. Sounds like all the good stuff is within reach
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Wonderful post – I love the Julian Cameron quote!
Now I’ll ust have to find you on Twitter 🙂
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Thank you. You can tweet me @dalelee11… but I rarely (aka never) tweet… I’d love to read your tweets though 🙂
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Your opening paragraphs are gold, the very truth. I’ve experienced waking to realizing I would disappear if I kept on. And in my case I also woke to the realization I’m here like everyone else (whether they know it or not) to follow their bliss, and therefore add value to this existence. Trouble is, I also woke to the realization my bent toward disappearing was a pattern from childhood. This is the ongoing forced, effortful thing for me. Viva La Vida : )
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Thank you. I’m so glad you saw this post. You were there right at the beginning when I found OneWord and the words started coming, and when I read them I went ooooooooooohhhhhhhh… There’s always something to work on. I think it’s in the fine print of the contracts we signed for this blissful existence 😉
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Wretched wordpress not posting my fave bloggers on Reader. It really gets up my nose.
Anyway, great post. Don’t we all go down that road at some point though? Oddly had a similar discussion with my partner today about how we all lose our direction and motivation in life. It ain’t always easy but with little baby steps in those shoes, we can find our way back.
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Thank you for the lovely comment 🙂 You’ve been there a good deal of the way with me. I had never lost direction before but I’m so glad I didn’t lose it completely. Life is good, even if it’s currently reverted to being overly busy.
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You’re always welcome. But doesn’t life just go up and down? So long as we remember that, it gives us courage. And being busy isn’t necessarily bad, leaves less time to dwell on the small and unimportant things that may otherwise assume a disproportional presence in life.
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You’ve nailed it! Life does go up and down, and I lost the perspective of that. I wasn’t busy and the downs did assume a disproportional presence… a convergance of circumstances which caught me unawares 🙂
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Your post really hit on something I’ve been thinking about. Somehow I let myself disappear into myself. Sure I kept writing and interacting online but my real world life was lackluster and dull. I’m not sure what I was waiting for or reserving myself for, but I’ve finally started to realize I have to live each day. And not wait for my ideal day to come along.
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Thank you. Funny old world. This post had long been written when I read & commented on your post “The Importance of Reconnecting with Your World”. It didn’t occur to me then that what you were feeling was quite as similar to what I’d experienced. Lacklustre is the perfect world. Yes, Live (with a capital ‘L”) each day. Many experiments with that areon elladee_images 🙂
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fantastic piece of writing elladee, so so so true. i am the worst at wearing any old comfortable thing and not challenging myself often enough. It is easy to drop DOWN to common denominator living.. especially out here.. I too must get busy and improve my blogging skills.. c
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Thank you. My favourite also is any old comfortable thing but you appreciate them more when you stretch yourself from time to time, like when you have to get dressed up for e.g. a wedding, and feel lovely, but the first thing you do when you get back in the door is find a tshirt and old jeans you’ve been wearing for a week. It’s easy to drop down to common denominator living anywhere – for me, I grew up where it was the norm, and although I’m looking to return to a country lifestyle, I now understand the “interesting” people I knew back then hadn’t succumbed. Your blogging skills look fine to me, and you fit SO much into a day 🙂
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Holy fascination! I am enraptured by the life within your words, the transparency within your thoughts, the newness of your perspective–blended quite nicely, I must say, with a keen sharpness and sage-ness of mind. You share yourself like a rose shares its fragrance in maturation; primed, in full bloom, hopelessly beautiful. Quite engaging stuff here, madame! So happy to have discovered you. Looking forward to future posts. Stop by and share your loveliness any time. My blog is new, my soul is old, and the baby steps I’ve taken on my blogging journey this far have been bewildering and delightful, to say the least. I love your blog.
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Thank you for the beautiful comment. This post has touched a few people, in different ways which makes me very happy, but your eloquent comment has left me speechless. I had a quick peek at you blog, and I’m away for a few days but will be back to check it out futher. I look forward to making WordPress trips on the journey with you 🙂
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Yes! Looking forward as well! 🙂
…To touch a single life with our words; to reach into the universe and extend a part of ourselves, only to discover it was received, beyond any of our hopes for reception… Well, that’s what writing was always about for me. You seem to have mastered the art.
Good for you. 🙂
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An excellent post 🙂
We all get into ruts at some time in our lives, whether it is from an illness, an upsetting experience, or basic boredom of everyday life, some folk are happy to stay in the ruts and accept their fate, but the ones that climb out become stronger, usually seeing and experiencing life from a totally different perspective.
Do what you want, when you want, tomorrow may never come!
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Thank you. What you say is so true. A rut nearly seduced me earlier this year, so I’m much wiser this time 🙂
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