The sign I wasn't looking for

An unexpected win that I didn't know I needed.

Life is crazy around here. Managing my health with client projects, teaching classes and two part time jobs so I can get out from under this medical debt - the chaos is real. I feel like I went from celebrating getting out of bed, getting dressed and keeping a little bit of food down, to feeling like every second of my day is accounted for. I am grateful for all of it - all of the projects and the work! I love it all and feel a sense of purpose that goes beyond getting out of bed every day and managing health symptoms.

I am, however, craving some creativity in my life. Yes, I am in the midst of writing books, editing and finding creative ways to market books and businesses. That is absolutely considered creativity in several forms for sure. But the creativity I crave is getting my hands dirty with paint. I don’t usually care what I paint - walls, furniture, a canvas or something else that tickles my fancy. I hadn’t engaged before because quite honestly, I didn’t have the energy, and now I don’t have the time. I feel like indulging a hobby when I have so much work to do feels irresponsible at best.

In 2018, I bought a fixer-upper and wanted to do most of the work myself. There was so much to do, and I didn’t even come close to finishing all that I wanted to before I sold it 2.5 years later to move to Cleveland. Between the home renovations, my love for painting things and working part time at Home Depot, much of my wardrobe was paint stained jeans, t-shirts and sweatshirts. I was also slimmer then. I did plenty of physical work and exercised a bunch. For the majority of that time, I had decent muscle tone and weighed closer to ninety pounds than one hundred. The sledgehammer was my favorite tool and so was a pallet jack. If anyone would have told me I could move pallets of flooring from one end of the store to another by myself, I would have never believed you.

By the time I landed in Cleveland I had started taking Prednisone to help with what were thought to be symptoms of Lupus. It was like a miracle drug, and it did help me feel better. It also caused weight gain. Thankfully, my new home in Cleveland was move-in ready and I had no need to wear my paint-stained work clothes. They have been sitting on the shelf in my closet collecting dust. Two years ago, I painted the living room and hallway and couldn’t get the pants on because I had gained so much weight. At that point it was about twenty-five extra pounds that definitely was not lean muscle.

This round of gut problems has certainly helped me shed some weight. I don’t love how it came off, but I am happy to be rid of it. Twenty pounds down and I have been strength training a couple of times a week while making sure I get at least 6000 steps in per day and at least a mile of it on the treadmill at an incline. Most of my “heavy” clothes don’t fit anymore. I am soon going to have to go buy new pants after caving last year and buying larger pants because none of my pants fit me. I assumed that menopause was going to keep my “skinny” clothes from ever being able to fit again, so I donated most of them. I couldn’t fathom ever being small enough to wear them again.

I did keep the paint clothes. Not because I thought they would ever fit, but I didn’t even see them on the shelf. They had become background noise and nothing that garnered my attention because my gaze glossed over them for so long. This morning, I felt the desire to paint so strongly. I rationalized that thinking about why I couldn’t do it was taking up more time than actually painting. I grabbed the stack of paint pants to see if there was anything that might come close to fitting. If there wasn’t, I was going to need to break in a new pair of larger ones.

To my absolute shock and awe, I managed to get all of the pairs of paint pants on and zipped; I don’t feel like they are too tight while sitting or bending either. It has taken five years to get back to a size that I never thought I would wear again. I am taking this as a sign that spending an hour or so painting today is not only going to help my living environment look better and improve my mental health, but it will also ignite my creativity when I get busy working later today.

My spirit soared not only because I can fit into my paint jeans again, but because I will get dirty with paint today even if I have put a time limit on it. Of course, I took time out to write this too, but it was a win I wanted to share. June was all about finding joy and today I will find it in more than one place. The month of June has been good to me and for that I feel joy and gratitude.

Cheers!