It’s been a *hot minute* since I’ve had clarity around purpose. I’ve been happily riding the tsunami of stuff happening to me for the last several years.

Therapist finally got very real with me today. “Sarah – when you’ve told me you’ve felt the best, happiest, most like yourself – you talk about three things: exercise (particularly Zumba or running), some kind of creative project (funny photo shoots, overly themed dinner parties, quarantine newsletters) and writing.” She continued, “You already have the map to feeling better, you’re just not following it.”

Yes. That felt right. She told me I’ve been identifying with work too much, so when it’s been stressy and overwhelming and I’m not feeling like I’m doing enough, I’m taking that a little personally.

Back in 2012 I had a very purposeful year. If it wasn’t school, running or work I wasn’t prioritizing it.

In 2016 I had a similarly awesome year. If it wasn’t health, work project or creative friend stuff I wasn’t prioritizing it.

I sort of thought 2020 would be another big mojo year. Alas… it was instead a pandemic.

So here we are, where I feel I’ve been a million times before. I thought my word of the year would be Curious. I wanted to be curious about myself, what was interesting to me in this new phase of life, where my passions were now. I think instead the word should be Heal. There are obviously things that continue to pop up. Therapist says I’m great at disregarding my feelings… knowing they are there and then discounting them.

So she has assigned me, the strongest language she’s used in our time together, to spend one hour a day on the things that make me light up: happy exercise, art endeavor, writing. Plus an extra 10 minutes a day on clothing / closet management because it’s gotten to be a real issue.

Around 6 I actually logged off, even though there is more work to be done, and got my bike out. I biked to the new park about 2.25 miles from my house and back. Less than 5 miles of biking should not have been that taxing. Alas, here we are. I spent about 30 minutes biking. I took a selfie of me with the bike afterwards – my artistic attempt for the day. And now I’m sitting at BrewDog where the big doors are wide open to the patio and it’s sunny and lovely and I have this insanely delicious berry cider beer and I have my lil Chrome Book for the writing. I tried to do longhand journaling again. It’s just not for me. It comes through my fingers on a keyboard or not at all.

I downloaded a habit tracking app. I added my 4 things: move, create, write, closet situation. And we’re off.

In other news, remind me to talk about gamification and if we’ve taken it a little to far in future posts. Because I will be back here. Soon.