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Day One:  How To Come To Terms With A New Life Because Your Old One Left You Behind
or
Day One:  New Starts, Small Starts and All Things Modest

Here it is.  My spankin' new blog.  First post.  Onward!

(Silence)

Anyway...
I am writing a blog.  I am writing it because I have all these ideas that swim around in my head about health (physical and mental) and wellness and bodies and aging (gracefully and otherwise).  I wanted to write about them.  Put them down someplace somewhat public and thereby engage in my greatest love - storytelling.
Now before you dismiss me out of hand, please know that I do have SOME degree of experience.  In both storytelling (I was a professional actor for 18 years) and health (I graduated from massage therapy school in 2012 and currently work at a hugely popular SoCal day spa in addition to a mobile massage service and my own private clients).  I went back to school because I could no longer support myself on a career that had been paying the bills for most of my adult life.  And paying them rather well, I might add.  It was a "Dream Come True" kind of job.  Until it wasn't.
So back to school I went.  And I felt tremendously fortunate to have found something that I loved and was excited about.  I jumped into my new career passionately and with loads of hope and enthusiasm and great, BIG dreams of success.

I'm getting some perspective.

This career - like all careers - takes a lot of work and more than a little initiative.  Two things I had felt comfortable with due to my former career.  Acting is a job that takes all kinds of discipline and dedication.  And really thick skin.  So I thought, "No problem!  The first year or so will be hard but I'm good at this.  It's worth it and so am I!"
One year later and I already realize how naive some of that was.  Notice I say "some".  Because I do feel that even though this job as a massage therapist is a lot less heroic than I had imagined - I'm not saving anyone's life neither am I hoisting Olympic athletes onto the podium with my Wizard-like bodywork skills - I am doing what I set out to do.  Make money as a professional massage therapist and make people feel better.  When I keep my goals humble, things are SO MUCH EASIER.

Which brings me to a great topic to start with!  (See how this works!)
Humble Beginnings!

Whether you're starting a new career, a new wellness plan, a new exercise habit - or a new blog - "starting" is the start.
It's a noun.  A person, place or thing.  It's little.  You can hold it.  Shape it a bit.  Dream about it.  Stare at it.
But then you have to blow some life on it.  You have to take a chance and let it go.  Let it grow.  And pretty soon, you've got a verb on your hands.  Action.  Movement.  Momentum.

Take five minutes today and find your noun.  Find your start and let it be small for a while.  There's plenty of time for verbs later.  When you've gotten the hang of your start, when you know it so intimately that it becomes an extension of you and who you are and most importantly what you really truly WANT, then you worry yourself with the doing.

So today my start was:
The idea.
The idea that I can sit down and combine my love of creative things (writing, performing, strorytelling)  with my love of wellness (massage, bodywork, healing) and maybe inform, maybe entertain, 5 or 10 or 500 people.  See - I'm going big again! But that's OK.  Because the other part of all of this is the "hoping".
Hope.
There's a magical word.  An elixir for success.  For youth and vibrancy.  For beginners.  And I want to constantly and always be a beginner.  A person who makes mistakes.  And we all know what mistakes really bring.  Children.  KIDDING!  (jeez - calm down)  They bring information.  And I for one need a lot of information to keep going.
I'm hitting a landmark birthday in about three weeks and I have to say I'm more than a little scared.  Granted, I'm very grateful for lots of stuff - a healthy body, a roof over my head, lovely friends and family - but it's sobering and scary and sometimes a little bit sad to realize you're looking at the back half of probably 80 or so years of existence.
SIDE NOTE: Yes, yes - we all know that person who insists that they "really prefer" this time in their life to their 20's and 30's and "wasn't bothered at all" by their birthday.  They also leap tall buildings in a single bound and can only eat ONE Lay's potato chip.  Good for you.  Seriously.  Congrats.  Now shut up and let me mourn my firm upper arms.
Back to my point -
I'm making mistakes.  (Sometimes, like, 27 in one day.  All related to clothing.)  Hopefully this blog isn't one of them.
I'm making new starts.  Hopefully this blog IS one of them.
I have a job that I appreciate - even if I don't always love it - and that is enough.  I will grow and learn and work hard and be willing.

I hope this works!  I'm certainly humbler about it than I was one year ago.  Or even 10 years ago.  Turning 40 does that to a gal.

Next time...
Turning 40:  How Not To Turn Your Birthday Party Into An Exercise In Self-Loathing and Regret.  (Hint:  Avoid gin.  And fortunetellers.)