Inspired

This time last year, I was probably already a fixture by the pool, well on my way to summer bronze, pink only around my strap lines. Two weeks into this pool season, I have yet to stop by the pool for my pool pass. I haven't even brought my chair up from the basement, although I did repack my pool bag for a day at the beach (that we spent bundled up in the back yard--having fun nevertheless).

It was not until the third weekend in May when I finally felt the way I typically do in mid-March. Two days in a row of sunshine and seasonable temperatures, one of them spent walking around Boston, and I finally began to feel winter thaw from my bones and my spirits lift a notch above major clinical depression. 

Two weeks later, on a day forecast today to be "top ten," I did not gear up and hit the pool today.

No, I didn't have a skin cancer scare. And I'm not getting more insecure as I age. (But don't worry. I'm also not giving up on myself and ordering muumuus on line.) I definitely still have an aversion to other people's Ill-behaved children near 5 feet of water surrounded by cement (nothing relaxing about that), but that's not it either. This year I have a new life plan, which at present seems to be diverting me from some of those old, unproductive habits. 

In a few years I hope that my life no longer cycles as it has for the last several : 42 weeks of misery followed by 10 weeks of bliss and avoidance.

Unless aliens have abducted Joanne and I am just pretending to be her, I will eventually, definitely, get my tan on. But today, instead of getting by the pool hoping for peace and quiet, with ear buds on the ready just in case, I went to the bookstore and bought a book on floral design and took myself out to an al fresco brunch. While I created my own peace,  I stirred new life into my spirit. 

I am hopeful. I am inspired.