It’s January 19 at 9:42am. The start of a new year. The start of a new month. The start of a new day. I’ve been wanting to get this blog up and running for some time, but it’s taken me  much longer than I thought it would. I guess I needn’t be surprised, with the life I live. To have time alone focusing on my writing/my thoughts/my needs, is not that commonplace for moi. I’ve been asked by a few people, over the past couple months, what my intention is for 2018. It’s a big question and one I’ve thought about over and over. It’s also a personal question, really. As what you think may not be what you want to say publicly. For me though, considering my time-off from a day-to-day job is slowly winding down to a close (more on that in a later post), I have an answer. My intention is to practice self-care. For the ENTIRE YEAR.

Honestly, seems easy, but or me I just don’t know much about what self-care really means, in practice at least. Being my mother’s daughter, I’ve learned since I can remember that putting others first is just “what you do”. No one told me otherwise. I come from a family of co-dependent people. I come from a family of others putting themselves second. While my mother didn’t sit me down and say, Hey, Jenn, sit in the backseat forever no matter what. I just did. Just like she did. Now, here I sit at 45 yrs old, thinking I know what self-care is, but not really knowing how to live it in the day-to-day. Being at the start of a new year, and shit, really the start of the new day before me, sitting here by myself, on my laptop, beginning this blog may just be a good way to start.

I’m in Palm Springs at an AirBnB with my Aids/LifeCycle training team. The team is out on a ride, and I’m not. I’m disappointed that I’m not with them, but it was my decision to come back to the house. It is colder than a witch’s tit out there. Of course, now that it’s later in the morning the sun has come out some, I can feel that it’s still more frigid than I’ve ever felt during my time here in the past. It was raining with sleet when I made the decision to turn around. I’m not used to riding in those kinds of conditions and I didn’t want to take any chances with slipping and then crashing. While I know it was the right call, but I still feel a sense of disappointment not being with them.  To be honest I had hoped one other team mate might make the call to come back too. To no avail. Again, here I sit…while warmer, knowing it was the right decision for me I can’t help but wonder, is that self-care?!

Gotta admit it feels damn good to write again. I’ve so much in my head that sometimes my thoughts runneth over. So much so, I’m not really sure where to begin. Maybe I (as I partake in stream of consciousness) I can organize my thoughts first — consider what I want to get out on “paper” and then make my plan. Here we go, in no particular order:

Future Blog Posts:

• My Half-Sibling Discovery
• Todd
• Konrad
• Falling in Love The First Time
• Falling in Love The Second Time
• SJ
• My Career
• My Sabbatical
• ALC/LGBT Center
• Burning Man
• What’s Next For Me
• Athleticism
• Archive: Past Journal Entries (the fun ones)
• Archive: Love Letters (emails)
• Archive: My Stories

Pretty good start I think…there’s just so damn much. This is good though. My writing has been a long time coming. I’m living the life I want and am excited to share it.

-JJ