My life nowadays seems to be continually changing. I have always declared a deep disdain for the ideal of a "schedule," but I am, at heart, a true Virgo, and I honestly have a deep and abiding love for routine. It keeps me grounded, it keeps me sane. My sweet Gemini husband is the one who forces me to stay on my toes and gets me to stop being so cemented in a schedule. He also keeps me from hyperventilating when my routine gets shaken by the almost daily curveballs that accompany being a working mom.
Interestingly enough though, I have recently found myself changing my routine of my own volition, and I'm completely okay with it. In the last few weeks I have done some interesting things to shake up my life. I am taking a leave of absence from a part-time job that I have held for more than 8 years--a singing position that I am removing myself from, in no small part due to my third bout of tonsillitis in less than two months. I'm taking a day off this week and didn't plan it out a month in advance, and taking a short, but long overdue road trip, to see some friends for the day. I signed up for kickboxing classes, and it's AMAZING. God, I have never sweated and hurt so much in my life, while simultaneously feeling like such a sexy badass. It's incredible, and has done wonders for my self-confidence, which I actually didn't even know needed help.
Yep. I have pink boxing gloves. Go ahead, make fun of me. I dare you.
There are some other things that I have fallen into as well, but I'm not quite ready to talk about them yet, so I'll save those for another post, if they come to fruition. The point is, I feel like I'm moving. I feel like I'm going forward. I'm about to be 38 years old, working harder than I ever have before in my life, balancing a full-time career with being a wife and mother of two young children, and I can honestly say that I am making a real difference. Not just in my life, and the lives of my kids and family, but in my community. That's big. It makes me feel as strong and confident and sexy as kickboxing does, and I couldn't be happier about it.
As I stated in my last post, I'm doing a LOT of reading right now. I am currently in the middle of ten (10!) books, of varying genres. Book of the week this week is one I'm not even finished with--Once Upon a Time in Russia by Ben Mezrich. If you're into non-fiction, history, mob stories, political thrillers, murder, mayhem, and/or truth being far more bizarre than fiction, then this book is for you. It is the true story of the rise and fall of the oligarchy in post-Communist Russia under Boris Yeltsin and his successor, Vladimir Putin, told primarily from the perspective of Boris Berezovsky. It also gets into the background and story of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB and FSB officer who fled from Russia in fear of his life after accusing the FSB of ordering him to assassinate Berezovsky; he gained international attention in 2006, when he was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. He died three weeks later, a seeming victim of Putin's far reaching power. This is the kind of stuff that you can't make up, and it HAPPENED. This book is just amazing, and it reads like a Tom Clancy or James Patterson novel (I assume--I'm actually not well versed in their books).
ANYWAY, I look forward to continuing onward and upward. Fighting my own demons like so many others is exhausting, and right now I'm really, really good. I hope I can continue to just keep swimming and fighting, and helping others as they fight as well. There are so many of us struggling, but there are reasons every day to keep on.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go enjoy one of my favorite examples of just how beautiful life is--Vin Diesel is on The Tonight Show. Yum.
Seriously. That.
