Finding my Way Back to Me

It's been so long since my last blog post!  As my desire to blog has slowly returned, I've debated whether I should try to revive my poor, neglected Baublicious, or whether I should simply start fresh with a whole new blog.  In the end, I decided there have been enough endings and transitions in my life this year, I'm not ready for another.

That elimination diet I mentioned in my last post, back in January?  The one that was supposed to last 30 days?  Well, I ended up having to stick with it well into April, continuing to refine and eliminate additional foods until I could find a stable spot for my body to start healing. The good news is it has worked.  My health has improved significantly in so many, many ways.  Even areas that I simply took for granted as 'the way things are', like seasonal allergies, haven't been as bad as previous years. 

The only fly in the ointment is I can't stay on my very restricted diet forever, and I'm still having significant troubles reintroducing foods. Yep, I'm still in stuck in the reintroduction phase - it's slow going. I still have bad days, when my body decides to reject the latest food reintroduction.  Thankfully, the bad days are interspersed amongst the much more frequent good ones.  The bad days help me remember just why I embarked on this journey in the first place. 

The good news is that for the first time in forever, my mind keeps turning to creative endeavors not because I feel like I 'have to' or 'ought to' do them, but because I truly want to.  At the same time, I feel like I'm relearning how to be creative.  Rebuilding my creative muscles and stamina.  Last month I focused on daily sketching.  I signed up for a 30 day "Find Your Flow" workshop with Karen Abend, and committed to drawing for at least a half hour every day through the month of June.  My biggest challenge was giving myself permission to create wonky, imperfect, and often incomplete sketches, and simply enjoy the process.  So far so good! 

This happened to coincide with an invitation from my mother-in-law to join her on an Alaskan cruise earlier this month.  So I have plenty to blog about!  I just need to retrain myself to put blogging into my routine.  For so long, it's taken all of my focus simply to accomplish the must-dos on my daily lists.  It feels amazing to have energy enough to reach out for creativity, for friendship, to find my way back to the me that makes me smile.  Makes me feel like dancing!