retooling

It feels like I am in a constant retooling of my perspective and expectations, and this is a good thing. Life, the world and the Universe is in constant motion. If we stubbornly keep the same mindset, it may not apply to the new form of things. I have retooled things big and small.

I have retooled my career goals a few times. As a child, I wanted to become a doctor. I was inspired by the kindness of my own pediatrician who always had a little koala holding onto her stethoscope; an animal I adored as a child (The koala may or may not have swayed my earliest career goals). Come junior high and high school, my desire shifted towards art. I had planned on attending community college to complete basic courses at a better dollar value. (I was blessed to have parents that funded my entire undergrad education and I did not want to overtax their wallet...Sorry, mom and dad, about choosing a private college for junior and senior years, but it was a great school and I made sure I worked hard at earning good grades because of that.) Within the first week of college, I changed my major to Deaf Studies and interpreting. Career choice three: sign language interpreter. During the course of my Deaf Studies degree, a Deaf professor mentioned that the Deaf flock to psychologists that can sign since they would not have to have a third person (the interpreter) in the room while discussing their personal stories. The seed was planted and I studied psychology for my BA. After working as an interpreter for about six years, I began feeling like a paid parrot and started working over the next six years at various jobs. AIDS education, public relations, physical therapy aid, equity theatre ticket sales, science educator and office management, though not careers, became part of my resume. I had to retool my approach to work for each and every one of them. All of this non-career work prompted me to refocus on career. Back to school I went to earn my MA in Counseling Psychology. Now I am retooling my focus on the next career goal: private practice and the eventual return to school.

I have retooled my idea of where I wish to take up residence. After leaving New York to pursue my MA and life in Colorado, I had planned to end up in or around Oregon. As life and relationships changed, the plan became returning to the East Coast, close enough to Long Island, but NOT Long Island. We landed in Rhode Island, which is a great little state to reside in but the economy started to tank there before the rest of the country. Groovy had plans on returning to school so our thoughts were retooled to residing again on LI for a few years. As wonderful as it is to be near family and friends, it does not feel like the right place for me long term. Having experience the mountains while being too far from loved ones and being close to loved ones but too far from any mountains (yes, Bald Hill certainly does not count), my thoughts have been retooled towards upstate: closer to mountains but not too far from loved ones. This feels like an appropriate retooling.

We have retooled the apartment in which we currently live (a few times). Most recently, the dining area of the kitchen (which we had rarely used for dining) has morphed into an art, bunny, reading nook. The space is again being used.

I have retooled my approach towards fitness and eating. Fitness was about competition in sports alone, not about what is best for my body and mind. Food was strictly about what I wanted. Yoga has become a daily necessity since beginning my challenge. It does not matter if I get it in at midnight, my day is not complete without my practice. After experiencing a month of raw foods, and realizing that one hundred percent raw is too much for me to sustain, incorporating a higher percentage of raw foods is doable. I am now trying to retool my approach food as nutrition. When I allow a food for pleasure, I will enjoy it at such in order to feel satisfied. All of this is different from my approach of the past.

Each view and approach that I retool is not set in stone, for the World and I will continue changing. It is all part of the adventure that is life.