Rebel Self
Press Play & Strut — III
Back to my roots
With my past 36 months of singledom, at fifty two, my true self flows more and more through my veins.
My lighter soul ascends and expands while undergoing an inner deep retrospection for exploring and discovering the real me, deep down inside.
After years of common and loving-compromising life, I am, for the first time in my life, living alone since I was twenty one years old.
All this time alone is gradually transforming myself and I sense the long forgotten inner rebel self, waking up and affirming herself on a regular basis.
I chose to listen entirely to my body’s needs without following any robotic routine.
I eat when hungry using the Spanish tapas meal approach. No diets for me, never did and never will. I eat whatever I want and when I am hungry without remorse.
I always was an active girl, but in a 50/50 relationship it is hard to maintain a constant active program. When I say active, I mean a minimum of 1–2 hours of activity per day. For me walking/hiking and cycling does the trick.
Being regularly active every day for me is still a must. If I skip a day, I feel it badly in my head and body so the next day I naturally extend my activity to compensate. No regular routines either for sleeping. I only go to bed when I fall asleep and I wake up naturally with the 7–8 hours my body needs to rejuvenate my body.
My assessment for the past three years, I focused only on the positive. I am slowly recovering from all my griefs. Starting in 2017, I woke up the Forrest Gump part of myself walking roughly 600 km.
In 2018, in solo, I sweated and exorcised all of my pain out of my body by walking/hiking a total of 1237 km (i.e. 1,875,000 steps) and cycled 1724 km. In 2019, I beat my 2018 walking spree as I had a total of 1750 km but cycled a little less.
In 2020, I had not set a goal but I knew I wanted to continue to strut and I kept my daily walks and so far since January I have walked roughly 1000 km. Since April, I added my camera to capture whatever beauty I can discover on my routes.
My slogan is ‘walking at a minimum pace of a weekly marathon, which for me is equivalent to a pleasant walk now. You may think I am intense, but no, when you break it down, a marathon is 42 km subdivided by 7 days comes out to a little 6 km a day. I generally walk 8 km a day now.
All this walking and cycling have transformed the curves of my body by turning my aching pounding pounds into pretty powerful muscles of beauty.
I have a lost over 30 pounds on the scale, keeping and wearing my old leather belts to remember, I have added an extra 8th hole in April to adjust it to the new me.
Slowly, but surely, without any planning, I started opting naturally for the rebel punk rocker attitude and look I had through high school and college. I’ve always kept my hair long since I can remember. I opted for letting my hair grow even longer and mixing the whites with enhancing blonde highlights. Wearing free wild hippie-style gypsy bracelets and earrings. My tight rocker’s jeans and T-shirts/blouse has returned to be my one and only style.
All these judgments about our age imposed on us by society. My age has never stopped me from doing whatever my mind was set up to do. For me, age is like the weather, nothing we can control, so let’s not fuss about it.
I do not want, and never will, adopt the old madam way of living and looks, society dictates a fifty year old single woman to be. Nope, I am a true dynamic person who refuses to embrace the accepted stereotypes.
I feel much better now.
I still miss not sharing my life with someone and I know life is not meant to be lived alone. But my online dating flops, that is yet another chapter of my life, I will share some other time.
For 2020 I have written my own new life slogan:
My beauty has finished resting. Press Play & Strut…
My rebel self will ensure my genuine rocker’s heart will always be alive and kicking.
Got a man of the people Says keep hope alive Got fuel to burn Got roads to drive
Keep on rockin’ in the free world Keep on rockin’ in the free world Keep on rockin’ in the free world Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Songwriters: Neil Young / Frank M. Sampedro
Francine Fallara 2020
Michele Thill, I discovered your ‘Moving Forward’ and it inspired me to finish my pending Press Play & Strut series.
Thanks for your ongoing strutting motivation.
If you stumbled on III missing I and II….
Continued in Press Play & Strut — IV…
