End of Summer Vacation

Vacation always takes me back to the time when I was a kid and had very few responsibilities.  (At least looking back now I realize it was very few responsibilities!)  Isn't that a great time in life?   When the biggest worry was getting home before dark on your bike, making sure ponies had water and lamenting the current school girl crisis over clothes or boys.   This vacation has been a real kid vacation where I have shirked all (well maybe not all) my adult worries.   I let myself fall into the easy life of running everyday, kayaking on the open waters of Lake Kamaniskeg, reading trashy magazines (AKA Cosmo) and very good self help books and eating ice cream almost everyday!   Really, isn't that what adult shirking of responsibilities looks like?  :-)

Lots of thinking time to reflect also happens on holidays for me.   Time to recharge, revisit areas of my life that need some rethinking and also ponder what moving forward looks like.

DH and I have enjoyed this same cottage for, I believe, 10 of the 13 years we have been together.  Every year the place feels the same but the vacation never is the same from year to year.  I think that is in part to the growth we make as humans over the course of years and the changes that we experience in our lives and in our relationships.

This trip has definitely gave me some time to think about how I have changed or grown or maybe even took a few steps backwards in the last year or more.   As I look back on the last year I can see that for some reason the year 40 has been a year that has set forth a great amount of change in me.   I feel it from the inside out.   It may not be visible to some or it maybe very clearly visible...I don't really know as I have never mentioned it to anyone...but I feel it.   I strongly believe that the number 40 has very little do to with this new insight into myself but was just how the universe planned my path and I made the choices I have made, to lead me to where I sit pondering this 'me' that I am today.   I feel more gratitude.   I feel more love in many capacities.   I feel more free to speak.   I feel fiercely independent.   I also feel more vulnerable.   I feel that at times my world is spinning very fast and at times I am only holding on by my fingertips.   I feel ok to express my emotions...I'm ok with crying when I am happy or sad...it doesn't define me in any negative way.   I've tried to mend broken friendships and I have let go of trying to keep people in my life that do me disservice.   I've come to a point where I believe I am a work in progress and I don't need to be perfect...even tho my perfectionist tendencies still try and shape my reality.   About a year ago I read the book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown.  It's a good read and one that I have since given to a few of my close friends.   I have since read several more from the same reading list and have learned a lot about my tendencies, my insatiable appetite for understanding connection (both between humans, animals and the world at large) and in general how happiness, love, shame, vulnerability, resilience and living wholeheartedly all make a contribution to living with authenticity.

“People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis,” but it’s not. It’s an unraveling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.” - Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection.

I am unravelling...but I really don't feel like I am in a midlife crisis! 

Now that I have got that out there....let's see a few pictures from the vacay!!

DH and I have spent several hours out on the lake paddling.

We have eaten far too much and by that I include ice cream everyday with the exception of one so far!

We have hiked several trails in Algonquin.

DH was a crazy nut and went swimming!  Which lasted all of 1 minute or less!

Look at that face!

...and I am pleased to report that I have ran every day so far and have not made a stop at the Baykery at 21 Bay St in Barry's Bay on a single run yet....Only because they are open later now that the summer season is over!!  LOL   I did however, enjoyed the best Glazed Twist straight from the fryer yesterday...dear Lord I know I have a processed sugar addiction...please help me!

Enjoying a BLT with cheese and mayo after a morning run!

As always the sunsets are marvellous…

And the super moon was even more stunning…at 10pm. xo Me