Me Time.

So, today I nursed a hangover that came from top shelf convenient store white wine I drank last night with a good friend.  Because of this awesome hangover, I didn’t go hooping. You know I felt bad because I live for Thursday hooping. I love turning up the music really loud and letting go, being surrounded by my fellow beautiful hoopers,  having all the space and mirrors to see how something might look and how I might make it better. I love Thursday HoopJams. 

Anyway, I did something today that I have not done in a long time. My schedule can be a bit nutty just like the next person’s.  This is not a complaint, because we all have our stories. We all have our high highs and our low lows right? Anyway I seem to always have somewhere to go – do not mistake me, this is not a bad thing in my world – I like being busy. However, because I have places to get to I rarely have the allotted amount of time for myself.  So today, instead of going hooping which is my most favoritest thing ever in the whole wide world, I took my time getting ready for my day. People, when is the last time you all have done this?  It’s pretty awesome. I had no where to be. I took a super long perfect shower, painted my nails, wore a face mask, had a pretty awesome day.   I may not have gone hooping but I did get so much me time today. (Mind you I still kind of have a hangover as I write this article so it isn’t all that perfect, but I smell nice and feel super clean. Huge plus.) I just reminded myself today that hooping is my favorite me-time activity, but taking really long showers and pampering myself is probably second. And Hangovers aren’t anywhere on that list.

What is your favorite me time activity?

The Right Amount of Hoopiness

I have a dear friend who uses the word compartmentalize often. She somehow can take hooping and put it into a compartment in her brain and go to it when she needs it. I am fascinated by this. I struggle with keeping hooping out of every single compartment of my life. I want it in every single aspect of my world, but I’ve come to realize that it just doesn’t fit sometimes. There are people who don’t want it in their life who are tired of me talking about it. But if I can’t share hooping, I often feel like I can’t share me. I struggle with this balance more than anything. And this may sound crazy, but what is more important to me? Hooping or friendships? How important is moderation when it comes to hooping?  Do I need to learn to compartmentalize? Do I need to put a muffle on my passion?

There are moments when I make myself step away from the hoop. Sometimes, my body needs a break, mostly my brain does. It’s such a fine line to walk and I realize so many hoop business owners struggle with this. Hooping can easily stop being a practice and start feeling like a job. That’s when my flow gets all out of whack and I have to take a minute, step back, adjust my balance. However, sometimes my breaks from the hoop last way too long. I can go maybe three days without a hoop, by that third day I am jonesin for it.

I wrote an article back in January about Understanding my Tight Rope. And here I am almost five months later still trying to figure it out. I’m not surprised at myself or disappointed. Because I know that I am getting closer and closer to maintaining that balance. The Dalai Lama says, 

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

And we have to work at it. And for me, I realize it starts with finding the right amount of hoopiness for my happiness.

Where does it start for you?

Hooping is My Bag

Hooping is My Bag

This is what I have almost convinced myself of: I think I have split my personality. I met someone the other day who is just as obsessed about hooping as I am. I find this nearly impossible, actually so impossible that I think that some of my personality split off of me and formed another person. My obsession for hooping got so big that it had to split off of me and formed an entire new human being. This person probably doesn’t really exist. I’m not sure yet. It seems too good to be true. Finding a person that you can geek out with about the one thing that brings so much joy, it’s amazing, and absolutely surreal. Could it be real at all?

Meghan Daum wrote a great article called Music is My Bag. I read this in a nonfiction class when I was in college.  My professor asked all of us what our bag was. In 2003, I didn’t have a bag. But along the way I found it. Did my hooping bag get so big that I had to create an imaginary person to talk it over with? Maybe it did, but in the end I don’t really care. I’ll hoop with an imaginary friend any day.

What’s your bag?

3 AM Pajama Hooping

3 AM Pajama Hooping

Last night I did a little 3AM hooping in my garage. I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t been able to sleep for a few days now. I think the universe is trying to tell me something. I’m trying to listen, but honestly I don’t want to. I have feeling in the pit of my stomach that makes me uneasy.  As I hooped in my pajamas, I closed my eyes and listened to the music losing myself in my movement.  And like someone shot me in the gut a feeling came over me.

You are going to have make some very tough decisions. This is not going to be easy.”

That was not what I wanted to hear.  Normally, I can hoop my way through whatever emotion I need to figure out. This is different. Bigger. In need of attention. It’s taking me out of my normal flow. I know I haven’t opened myself up fully to what I need to, but I’m not sure I am ready.

Maybe after a few more pajama hooping parties, I’ll be prepared to make these tough decisions.

What helps you make your decisions?

The Story of 3 Long Sleeve T-Shirts

The Story of 3 Long Sleeve T-Shirts

I just can’t help but think that this is the stuff that sliding doors are made of.  I’m constantly amazed on where I am in my life.  It blows my mind to think that if one certain thing never happened a whole list of events would have never been there to remember.

I’ve been blessed in my young adult life.  My chain of events have placed me in a very settling, and exiting place, which is exactly what I want and need in my life right now.

I am sitting in my garage at this very moment. (God bless, this amazing garage. I am extremely thankful I have such a great place to hoop in.) Anyway, as I started to clean this garage, I came across 3 of my long sleeve t-shirts. That means ladies and gentlemen that I was out here at least 3 times in this garage moving.  I probably hooped so much that I got sweaty and I had to take off my long sleeve shirt.

When I went back to Effingham (yes, for those of you who didn’t know, that is a real town), IL, several people mentioned to me I had lost weight. I have had a gradual weight loss and I‘m not going to lie it felt good to get compliments. People wanted to know how I’d lost the weight. I realized just now after picking up those three shirts that that was how. I come out to this garage, put a hoop around my body and move and move and move. I find tunes that make me move and I move it. I rock it sometimes. I rock it most times. Hell, really, I rock it every time. I freakin rock. And I’m straddling the thin line on whether I’m talking with arrogance or confidence. I don’t care what you call it, but it’s working in my life.  I am happier and healthier than I have been in long while. Not only do I thank hooping, but my friends, my family, and every single event on that long list of things that I remember. Without one of those things, I could be someone else. Maybe instead of a hula hoop business, maybe I could have been a rocket scientist. Who knows?

What do you think? Where would you be?

 

Don’t you Remember.

I love it when I find music that I just can’t help but dive into and swim in for awhile. Adele’s new CD is packed with super sad songs that make me want to cry, but I can’t fight the need to play it again and again because there is something super satisfying about feeling emotions so intensely.  And when music really hits me, I need to move.  It’s like my body can’t get all of the emotions out unless I move.  And then everything flows out of me. Like I am really wrestling with something and I have to throw it down. And then I feel better when it’s over.

What does your flow look like today?

I can Write about Love

The Hula Hoop and Dr. Carson

You have awakened me from a darker place.
The revolution leaves me dumbfounded,
amazed how you so innocently changed my life.
I think back to what I was before I met you.
I stumbled with a lack of knowing,
with a slight stench of self-doubt.
But you set me straight by circling around me,
pushing me to challenge my entire being.
The bigness swallows me up.
and it’s because of you
that I can write about love.

****************

Dr. Carson was a poetry teacher of mine at the University of Evansville. I wanted to be able to a write a poem I was proud of before I graduated. I wrote a terrible poem about a boyfriend.  I remember Dr. Carson saying, “I can’t tell if you love this person.” He was kind of angry. Frustrated I think. I thought about what he said and I wondered when I would be able to write about something I loved. Almost six years later, I started hooping and I understand now.