Recently, I celebrated 9 years since my first blog was posted on this site May 31, 2017. That entry was about the beginning of taking Solo Journeys with that first trip to Sedona, Arizona after breast cancer treatment. Since that time, I’ve written 515 more and many have been about the 18 journeys that followed.

This week I was reminded of my third blog post. It featured my journey to the Northeast to Massachusetts. I chose to go to Martha’s Vineyard because there was a hostel and a shuttle bus that serviced the island. I was 52 yrs. old and staying for the first time in the international community of a hostel. There were lots of interesting places to explore and one was the town of Oak Bluffs. It had a large neighborhood of old Victorian cottages near the site of the famous tent revivals of the Methodist camp meetings beginning in 1835. The amusements down on the waterfront featured a famous carousel.

“I stood at the edge of the crowd of adoring family and friends cheering on the riders of the Flying Horses Carousel at Oak Bluffs.  My coworker from Boston, had told me that when she was a child, her family came here every summer.  It was a popular spot on Martha’s Vineyard.  I could just see her in little-girl-braids, sitting atop one of the horses that remained stationary while the carousel went round-and- round.  She, like the other riders, would have reached out and tried to grasp one of the lucky brass rings to earn a free ride.

Before my trip, my friend told me, “You have to try for a ring, Connie.”

But I held back and remained an observer of the oldest operating platform carousel in the United States.”     

                                               

Later, I looked back over my day and questioned myself:

“Now I asked myself, “Why didn’t I get on and ride?”  After going all that distance, my first solo trip to Massachusetts, why did I stop short of my goal?

That fourth journey had taken a lot of initiative, especially planning my transportation: by air to Logan, then charter bus to Woods Hole, followed by ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, and shuttle bus to the hostel.  By that day at Oak Bluffs, I had explored most of the island, so why didn’t I just hop on that carousel?  Was I afraid that as a fifty-two-year old woman I would look foolish?  Could I have felt like I failed if I didn’t capture a brass ring— kind of like missing a grounder when I played softball that summer after high school?”

When I read that post I’d forgotten how I compared it to making an error on that softball team. I’d only played softball with family and friends — never in a competitive league. I took the game seriously and definitely had ‘performance anxiety’ — holding myself to a high standard.

“Not trying for a ring didn’t ruin my trip.  There’d been many enriching experiences since my arrival on the island.

So why did I still feel something was missing?  I think I knew.

The carousel represented half-lived experiences.”

I considered my life, how I’d always been part observer-part participant. My pattern as the second-born was to let my older sister go first; I’d watch before I stepped out and took a risk. That continued outside of my family when I let other more vocal students or coworkers go first. I remembered that pattern had finally been forced to change when I had breast cancer:

“But when chemo made my hair fall out and I had to do work presentations in my itchy wig, I couldn’t retreat.  All I could do was step forward.  While I didn’t like having cancer, or a toxic job, I was grateful that God helped me through that time and worked inside of me to give me greater boldness.  Sometimes that happens when you feel you have nothing to lose.”

A new courage was forged in me through that difficult time. I eventually saw that I’d gone from being “bald to bold, from self-conscious to self-confident.” I tried new things on those solo journeys, depending on myself to follow through and carry out experiences that previously I would have been scared to do.

Now I see that missed opportunity of grabbing the brass ring was an important lesson for me at that early stage of taking journeys. I’ve made mistakes, missed some opportunities, but overall I’ve fully-lived my life.

My hope is that we’ll all continue to live fully no matter our age. Then we can look back on our lives with satisfaction, with many rich memories of stepping up to the opportunities that came our way.

Best to you,

Connie