One thing I love about YaYa is that he isn’t afraid to try new things. New things seem to intrigue him.
This is why he has decided to try out for the men’s lacrosse team at school. Across the JV and Varsity teams, they only have 52 spots to fill. YaYa says that he’ll try out and if he doesn’t make the team then he will at least have learned something new.
When your child leaves the nest, it is hard to suddenly not be able to check on them at any given moment. When they are overseas, it’s hard not to worry about their safety.
Fortunately, advances in technology allow us to see with our own eyes that they are indeed okay. I remember joking about phones that allowed you to see the person on the other end. At the time, I could not see how this would be useful. Now, I can’t imagine how it would be without this luxury.
Thank God that I don’t have to wonder and worry. I get to see with my own eyes — my boy is okay.
Here we are, half way through a 10 mile hilly trek. We’re still smiling, even YaYa who got up before 9 am for the first time since his winter break started.
At this point in our trek, the climbing is literally all behind us. From here on out… it’s all downhill.
In my year in review post, I mentioned some plans I’ve got cooking to cross off another item I’ve had on my Bucket List. My list has grown in a cross-off-one-item add two sort of way, but this particular item has been on since the very beginning.
Originally, I envisioned just visiting this place with my boys. After my backpacking trip to hike Half Dome, however, merely visiting this majestic place seemed inadequate. BoBo stopped by there to gawk at it’s grandeur on his drive across the states. He snapped a photo, sent it to me, and drove onward. I hardly seemed adequate but he was on a tight deadline with orders to check in for his new assignment in only a couple of days. I decided that I wanted to do it differently; I want to trek into the backcountry and really experience the canyon from inside and out.
I began making longterm plans which included sending YaYa to backpacking camps each summer for the past few years. I feel like the time is now for him. High school will soon be demanding everything of him and hanging out with his mom will be of less importance. As for me, I learned as much as I could from theMAN on our backpacking adventures. I also started collecting my own gear so that I wouldn’t have to buy it all at once when the time came to go. I’ve learned a lot, but I still don’t feel like I can go it alone…
So I’ve signed up for a group trip where the itinerary, meals, and even much of the gear is provided — along with a fearless leader. Now, all we need to do is get there (airfare and hotel for before & after), oh yeah, and TRAIN FOR IT.
Every year, for quite some time, I’ve chosen a little word-of-the-year for the 12 months to follow. At the beginning of 2013, I chose “self-awareness” as my word(s) of the year. These words were chosen from the stand point of injury prevention but also with the broader view of the Noble Eightfold Path from where right intentions (thoughts, words, and actions) are aspired to be followed. With the year coming to an end, it is time for me to look back and take a closer look at the year from the vantage point of self-awareness and following a path of rights.
A trend which I have noticed in the past couple of years is that choosing a word of the year in no way guarantees that the year will be filled with the virtue of the selected word. Take last year for an example: At the close of 2012, my year-in-review exercise revealed that not only was 2012 a year of “balance” but that the quest for balance had the a component of “self-preservation” included with it. This was similar to the previous year (2011) where my chosen word “health” went hand-in-hand with “patience.” There seems to be a hidden twist in my word-of-the-year activity which makes the exercise a bit more tenuous than previously thought; quite honestly, it makes me wonder if I should risk choosing a word for 2014.
The year 2013 was trying for sure. Rather than avoiding injuries, it was a year laced with a chronic pain and a multitude of injuries revealing my areas of vulnerability due to scoliotic curves, weak joints, muscles, etc. The pain and injuries did force me to go within and assess whether I was following the right path or whether I was headed down a path of misinformation and misaligned actions. All of this served well in becoming more self-aware albeit trying.
With the year coming to an end, I shake my head as I look back through my posts, here and on Keeping Balance (the companion blog). There are a few words I could use to summarize what my quest for self-awareness brought to me, but today I choose “contentment” for all the frustration and awareness of my shortcomings, misaligned priorities, wants, and yoga postures, as well as a tendency to push the edge when I shouldn’t have forced me to be content …or suffer.