Today I’m sharing some thoughts on being another year older.
Happy birthday to me! I’m officially a whole year older today – I’ve been on this planet for 37 years now. I’m definitely experiencing the aches and pains of getting older. I have a tight hip, one of my ankles gets stiff, it’s those little things that I didn’t have to deal with in my 20’s that I’m noticing now. On the other hand I’m pretty healthy otherwise so I’m very grateful for that.
In terms of birthday celebrations, I celebrated earlier this week with some friends who also include two people who also have birthdays this month. It was a lot of fun to combine our birthdays and get to see everyone all at once. They’re actually a group of friends that I’ve had the longest – we did the math on Monday night and we’ve known each other for nearly 25 years. Now that made me feel old.
I’ll be celebrating with my family on Monday. The plan is to order food (I’m thinking either Indian or shawarma – they’re both favorites of mine and I’m having a hard time choosing) and then have birthday cupcakes.
Looking back over the last year makes me realize how many highs and lows there have been.
Grief
The last year has been a tough one to be completely honest. I lost a family member in December. It was a really tough winter last year because of that and I feel like I was in a fog of grief for a few months. Losing someone you love and has always been there for you is hard – really hard.
It wasn’t all bad though. My family and I had so many people reach out afterwards and it made me realize how many people cared and did the nicest things for us – everything from bringing food over in the following days to checking up on us to see if we needed anything.
Becoming a yoga teacher
Some exciting things happened on the fitness professional side of things for me. I completed my 200 yoga teacher training in March and I officially became a Yoga Alliance certified teacher. I’m planning some yoga classes that I’ll be teaching starting in January, so be sure to check out my yoga page to see my schedule and where I’ll be teaching.
I went into teacher training thinking that I would learn more about anatomy and the poses, but I ended up learning so much more about myself. I wasn’t expecting the journey to become a yoga teacher to be an inward one, but it definitely was for me.
I shared recaps of my yoga teacher training weekends here if you’re interested in finding out what we covered each week. I also shared my final thoughts about teacher training a few weeks after I finished. I’m so glad that I ended up deciding to do a training that spanned months instead of just a few weeks. I’m one of those people who likes to take their time to really understand and let the knowledge sink in, and I knew that it wouldn’t have worked for me if I did an intensive, full time training instead.
Starting my own business
I started my own business this year! It’s been a slow process – slower than I was expecting it to be. There’s so many things that I didn’t realize I would have to do and of course they all take time to do. Like I mentioned above, I’ll be sharing my teaching schedule shortly once I have everything ironed out. My plan is to offer 6 week registered classes starting in January. Classes will include intro to yoga, restorative yoga, yoga for bigger bodies, and flow yoga.
Make sure to sign up for my mailing list if you’re at all interested in learning more about taking classes. That’s where I’ll be sharing all about my teaching offerings.
Winston
Although this thing isn’t technically mine, it’s been so much fun to get to know my boyfriend’s English Bulldog dog, Winston.
His gotcha day was last week. It’s hard to believe that he’s been in my life for a year already. I had no idea how attached I would get to him and how much personality would be in that little puppy body when my boyfriend first brought him home.
He’s grown so much in the past year. It’s hard to believe that he was ever so little like in that first picture of him. He’s grown so much, learned a lot (he knows quite a few commands), and has gotten to know the entire neighborhood. The liquor store gives him (and all the other dogs) in the neighborhood treats, the servers at a pub always come out to give him a pet when they see him go by during his walk, he’s a hit with the employees at the tattoo place, and one of the people at the consignment store said that he’s practically the neighborhood’s mascot. Yep, he gets a lot of love and attention on his walks.
It’s been one of those years that has felt like it’s simultaneously gone by so fast and also really slow at the same time. So much as changed – both good and bad – and it’s sometimes still hard to believe that those changes have happened. I’m hoping that the next year will be full of lots of good things for me though. I’ll be growing my business, spending lots of time with my favorite people (family, boyfriend, and friends), and just enjoying life.
When is your birthday? Do you have a favorite birthday meal?