Hello!

How are you?

I’m doing just fine, thank you.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I had a great day. I got to spend the day with my husband and our two young adult children. My children are at a stage in their lives where they don’t live at home permanently anymore, so I’m exulting in the fact that they both are in-town for the summer. The four of us went to church, out shopping, and then to dinner. It was a wonderful day!

In between church and our shopping and eating adventures, I went to a new aerial class.

So for my birthday in 2024, I took an 8-week aerial class: Intro to Vertical. We did mostly aerial silks and a little bit of work on aerial ropes. I enjoyed it so much. And I was so bad at it. Like really bad at it. I simply wasn’t strong enough to execute any of the positions. I only managed to get a correct foot lock once, and my classmates applauded when I did so. Some of those classmates could have been my grandchildren, and all of them easily could have been my children. They were very encouraging of my minor triumph.

Lest it seem like I’m down on myself for doing poorly in the class, let me correct that notion. Quite the contrary is true. I feel like I did amazing in class. I took my newly minted 50-year-old body, challenged it to try something new, learned a lot, and had so much fun.

I wanted to keep up with the aerial classes, but none of the classes were at times that worked for my schedule, so fast forward to my 51st birthday when I enrolled in Intro to Horizontal. In the horizontal class we learned sling, lyra (hoop), and dance trapeze (not flying trapeze, which I actually have tried, as well). Horizontal was much more my jam than vertical. Like my Intro to Vertical class, I was the oldest student, but this time I was only a generation older than the other students, instead of two. But you know who I wasn’t older than? My instructor! She looked like she was about my age, so after class I asked her old she was. It turns out she is a few years older than I am. Hello role model!

I did the 8-week Intro to Horizontal class two times in a row and fell in love with lyra. Who would’ve thought that I would fall in love with writhing my body around a steel hoop hung from the ceiling? Who am I kidding? That is definitely on-brand for me.

So yesterday was my first class on a specific apparatus – lyra. I learned enough and made enough gains in my two Intro to Horizontal classes that I was able to level up into the Beginner Lyra class. Ya’ll, I am so excited!

I had a great time in lyra class yesterday. I learned new positions and transitions, and I even fell once. Obviously falling is not the goal, but I fell because I put a lot of power into a move, over rotated, and propelled myself right out of the hoop. I didn’t know I could muster that much power! I laughed on my way down to the mat, I wasn’t hurt, and I climbed right back into the hoop. Later in the day, as we were walking around the outlet mall, I realized I wasn’t afraid to fall. That was a milestone for me. That meant I trusted my body enough to try something and know that I would be ok if it didn’t work.

And as with most things, a lot of the struggle in aerial is mental. You have to learn to calm fear and anxiety, so you can trust yourself and your apparatus. Learning to calm fear and anxiety is good for aerial, and it’s good for life.

After my mother died, I started experiencing anxiety in a way I never had. Everyday things that never bothered me before would ratchet up my anxiety. This caused me to live very tentatively for a season of my life. I learned anxiety is a stage of grief that often isn’t discussed. And even though I already knew God was a heart and mind regulator, I learned it in new ways by working through this grief-induced anxiety.

So to be able to trust my body and a thin steel hoop enough to laugh while falling highlights how much God has been working in my life. And it’s also a testament to the “don’t stay in your lane; make your own lane” spirit my mother embodied. She always said she was excited to see who I would be in my 50s. She knew not only the sort of adventurous person I am, but she also knew how women in their 50s stop caring about what people think and start living in all the uniqueness that God designed in them. She didn’t live long enough to see me in my 50s, but she would be so excited about how my next chapters are unfolding.

So that’s my bit of creativity for today.