THINGS I DECIDED TO DO

I wrote a short Thankful Friday entry last week about a goose who has laid eggs in a precarious place and the whole nature vs nurture thing. I didn’t post it because I never really finished it. It was sort of done. Then I got busy and Friday rolled in. I technically could have finished it Friday afternoon, but instead I took my new camera lens for a walk to the Kauffman Gardens and then rushed back to help someone and finish up on some work. So, Friday’s gratitude post just didn’t get posted and the thing is, I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Back in October, I rented a camera lens to take with me to Woods Hole. It was one I was considering buying and camera lenses are not cheap. I thought that renting it and spending a week with it would give me some idea about want vs need. Would this be a whole lot of money spent on something I would only use on occasion? Or would this be the lens I would want to use most of the time, setting my zoom lens aside for those times it would be unsafe to get too close? I did not take my zoom lens with me and relied only on the rented lens. On day one, I was already starting a mental list of what I loved about the lens. It’s light weight, making it great for travel. Handles low light situations better than my zoom lens which allowed me to use faster shutter speeds, and all the pictures I took that week have a dreamy look about them. I counted maybe five or six times when I wanted a zoomed image. By the end of the week, I knew that this lens was a need. Okay…a wanty need, but a need none the less.

The rule for big ticket item fun purchases is that one must be paid off before buying the next. So, we paid off the last big “fun” purchase, a TV, and then headed out to buy my lens. Except the place where I was going to buy it, didn’t have it in stock or online. I had to go to the computer store that I hate with my whole heart. They didn’t have it in stock, but I could order it online. This actually turned out to be an easy, smooth purchase and I didn’t leave the place fuming. Side rant: I have not once gone to this particular store and been helped by anyone other than a condescending (male) computer know-it-all. This was the first time I have ever walked into this store and been treated like I actually knew what I was talking about. In fact, I was so surprised by the experience that I even said to the sales clerk “Wow! This was a way easier and a more delightful experience than I expected!” The camera lens arrived on Wednesday of last week, but my schedule didn’t open up until Friday for me to take it out for a spin. Then I started pointing it at things and remembered all the reasons why I fell in love with that lens in the first place.

Using my camera brings me joy and I am investing in my joy, not just with fancy new gear, but by making space in my day for my camera. I had zero plans to photograph the eclipse, but made some last minute adjustments to my camera and schedule. I set myself up at the top of our parking garage and while I don’t think I got anything spectacular (we only got 90% eclipse), I had a great time doing it. I used my phone as a remote device for my camera and laid back and enjoyed the sunshine and the view. As the eclipse reached 90% the parking garage filled up with people. Then I had a number of people chatting with me about what I was doing and how I was doing it. And while I wasn’t wowed by any of the pictures, I was able to compile a short time lapse of the event.

Skipping out on a Thankful Friday entry is by no means a sign that I had nothing to be grateful for last week or that I’ll stop doing gratitude posts. This is a gratitude post. I’m grateful for being able to invest in the things that bring me joy. It also has me thinking about how I can invest in other activities that bring me joy like yoga, bicycle rides for ice cream or plain old snuggling on the couch with Josephine. What does investing in those things look like or even mean? So much of that investment is time and making space for those things. Well…it means really learning the power of the word ‘no’ and really paying attention to how I feel when I say "yes” to something.

I feel pretty good about saying yes to investing in more joy.

DOING THE THING

All the inspirational memes I’ve seen have been about not being afraid to do the thing. There are workshops and motivational talks on getting one’s self together and doing the thing. When I say ‘the thing’ I’m referring to that life goal that you might have set on a shelf because you don’t have enough time, or don’t feel like you’re prepared, or you don’t know how to get started, but you know some day you want to do it. It’s the activity you want to do but have a million excuses for not doing. There are loads of advice out there on how to move past those excuses. But what happens when you finally get past your own excuses and do the thing?

A thousand years ago, I sat down to write up a Life List of one hundred things I’d like to do. The list was not necessarily a ‘bucket list’, but more of list for just living. It was not meant to be stagnant. If you did something on the list, you crossed it off and maybe added something new. I struggled with separating the things I wanted to do from the things I should do. I’d always end up writing something about getting organized on the list, which is stupid. Sure, there are parts of my life not organized (photos and albums), but most of my daily life is organized. I know where all the things are. My calendar is up to date and color coded. There is no need to have anything about organizing on a Life List. Still, I struggled and it took weeks to finish a list of one hundred fun and enjoyable wants.

The Life List was abandoned when Chris died. There have been times when I thought about rewriting it, making a new one that wouldn’t involve him, but I have yet to make some time to do this. One thing I know is that having a showing for my photos would probably not end up on that list. It has turned out to be something that has fallen into a gray area of something I should do and the thing (goal) or want to do. After all this time of taking photos and posting and creating my art, sharing it in a tangibly public way seemed like the next step. So I did it. I did the thing. And now I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m looking for the motivational memes that would tell me how to process having my first artist reception. It’s a large bag of mixed emotions that I feel needs to be organized and compartmentalized. I am appreciative of all the praise but simultaneously cringe from it. It’s a good feeling to know I am so loved, but also want to put up walls to block some of it out.

Those motivational memes, those workshops on accomplishing goals don’t ever talk about the after you do the thing because getting you to do the thing is easier than suggesting ways to process the mixed bag of feelings you end up with after doing the thing. So here’s my motivational after take. If you are cringing at praise being given to you, it is because you have an inner critic telling you that you do not deserve the praise. Those walls you put up to shield away love are walls built from feeling inadequate to reciprocate that love at the same level as what is being flung at you. If those who came to the art showing were insincere in their praise they would not have spent money on purchasing my art. The last one is a little harder, but I hope my friends and family know how much I love them.

I am not likely to ever add “art showing” to any kind of Life List, but I am not ruling out the possibility of doing another showing some time in the future. I only say this because I can envision what I want for the next showing. I not only know what I’d do differently for the next one, I know how to make those changes. I’ve learned to separate my wants from shoulds.