We're bowling in a league this year -- last year both of us ended up in a league by becoming subs, and we've decided to continue this year. So I've got my own shoes and a new ball, as does Tony. Not wanting to make the first night our first time with the new balls, we went this afternoon to test 'em out. Fun!
Not bad. Definitely an improvement over last year, and that's just with practice today. We'll see how we do tomorrow night, when we will establish our respective handicaps. I don't think mine will be the 120! it was last year.
On the for profit front, it is still exceptionally quiet in the market these days, which is what gives us the time to be able to go play at the bowling alley and to be able to go to the air and wheels show at our local airport yesterday. Downside is that profit is not nearly as regular; upside is that we have time to do things we enjoy (just not money!)
Hey. Bowling gets us into the community and hopefully people will recognize us from our ads, at least. It's a way of marketing.
And exercise. I guess bowling is exercise -- my arm sure feels like it's had a workout. I'll get more of that tomorrow too, with the first yoga class just prior to the league. I'm looking forward to it even though I know I'll feel it on Tuesday. Yoga mellows me out a lot, and makes me feel so righteous, too.
So we're down to whatever. Random thoughts and resolutions in all this extra time...
I've thought a lot lately about my parents and how they accepted me as an adult, and when that started... I was barely 21 when I came home from my senior year at college for Thanksgiving and pretty much announced that I was probably getting married the following summer to a man I'd been dating about a month. Mother said, "Has he asked you yet?" I said, "No, but he will."
A couple of weeks later they met him, and Mother gave him the third degree. She also apologized for that in a sweet note she sent him that week, saying that I was her only daughter and she just wanted to know more about the man I was marrying. And for the next 27+ years they treated him as family, and only very rarely made any comments. Even after our divorce Mother was welcoming on those occasions we all were together for a holiday or other event. In short, she kept her opinions to herself (and to Daddy).
I've resolved to do just that from now on: to keep my counsel when it comes to decisions or situations in which my children find themselves, and to acknowledge that they are adults capable of making their own choices and finding their own ways.
I have friends who are around their age or just a bit older, and I certainly don't step in to rescue them when they are distressed or in trouble. Yes, I'm there to listen and to advise when and if they ask, and to help however I can when and if they ask for my help. I care about them and what happens to them, but their lives are theirs, not mine.
I need to do the same for the girls.
Regardless of how I may feel about their decisions and their problems, I need to simply be there when they seek me, and to shut up unless asked for an opinion. I will not rescue anymore: they don't need it, and it is not healthy for either of us. I need to accept that I do not know everything despite my age and experiences, and that they indeed may have far more experience in many, many areas than I ever will (or would want to have).
I want to be able to accept their choices as theirs to make, to permit them to make their own mistakes without my interference, advice, or disappointment evident in any way including body language, and never again to allow my vision of who they are and what I see as their potential to overshadow my acceptance (and their vision) of who they really are and what they themselves want for their futures. And I want them to feel loved and acknowledged as adults.
It's not that I think I'm a completely interfering old biddy who always thinks she's right (and I don't believe they see me that way, either, at least mostly), but y'know, you never stop becoming, and I think I'm in a growth spurt!
My head's there, anyway. It'll take some wrangling to get my heart and emotions to fall in line every time, but I'll get there too.
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