Despite my being positive in the previous entry, I started to feel frustrated and sad again. Often I use this journal to write down what frustrates me, which helps getting it out of my system. But the last couple of days I got upset about even small things, so I want to focus on some positive things.
First of all, I started to learn to juggle. It is as hard as I imagined. Every day I practice a couple of minutes and every day I get a little bit better at it. It’s great, because a) it requires my full concentration and keeps my mind off other things and b) getting better at something I thought I would never be able to learn makes me happy. It makes me feel less stuck.
The second positive thing is that I’m using one of the skateboards I got for the children to learn tricks. Before you think I’m a mean dad stealing toys: I got two more boards so the kids don’t have to use my longboard when I get it out—I bought them for me, so we have enough for the three of us. Also, with tricks, I mean one trick that I can’t do at all yet. Again a physical activity requiring concentration and something I never thought I would learn.
I now wonder what else I’ve convinced myself I’m bad at but could actually learn. I mean seriously, skateboarding!! Until a few years ago I would never have thought I could ever learn that. Ever since I was little I never thought I could learn that. And getting closer to age 40 I somehow started to believe it’s hard to learn new things altogether. That it’s not worth the effort and more better to improve the skills I have. My five year old is learning faster, but that doesn’t matter to what I can learn. What matters is what I want to be able to do and I’m starting to feel it’s a lot more than I ever thought.