As I walked home from the train Monday after work, I saw a woman on roller blades skating along, holding a dog with each hand. She certainly had balance, one thing I really lack.
I've never been good at roller skating,ice skating or other balance sports. I can ride a bike, but have trouble turning corners sometimes.
In other aspects, I'm not exactly a balanced person either. When I get interested in something, I go into it with all my might. I remember when I started going to Bingo, I collected all the little doo-dads to put on the table next to my cards to bring my luck - little brass dogs, even a cupie (Is that how to spell it?) doll with hair sticking up. I bought a great bag with holes on the sides to hold my dabbers of varying colors. In those days we also used magnetic chips, so I had little boxes of those to go in my bag, along with a magnetic wand to scoop them up.
That's one example of how I'm unbalanced. Another is blogging. I'm so addicted to it I feel compelled to blog daily no matter what. I also feel guilty if I don't visit the friends on my blogroll.
I'm also unbalanced when it comes to writing. I've spent the entire night going through the edits to get my new novel, Killer Career, in order. I'm almost through, but not quite. I still can't give it up. I rarely watch TV anymore, since I'd rather write.
What about you? Are you balanced or unbalanced? Confess, please.
Unbalanced.
ReplyDeleteI can do roller skates, but at the ring thing, I'd be the one practically clinging to the railing for the first 30 minutes, before I trust myself to let go.
I have super productive intense days, whether it's writing or helping a friend paint. Then I have days that I am surprised I even bother to get dressed and getting the mail can be put off tomorrow. Super lazy days, super intense productive days. Lazy not depressed though, just my body convincing me to rest from the super intense days.
I have not figured out how to balance out the two so I can be at least decently productive on a daily basis.
Morgan,
ReplyDeleteLike you, I don't do anything in moderation. But I have a good excuse for being unbalanced. A stroke destroyed the balance center in my brain, and I am physically unbalanced. Of course I was unbalanced in other ways before that happened, but I pretend I have an excuse now. :-)
Lillie Ammann
A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye
I am always unbalanced--both physically and in my projects-I get involved in something and it becomes nearly an obsession.
ReplyDeleteThe chaos of my life IS my balance now, Morgan!
ReplyDeleteAnd like you, I am an all or nothing kind of person. Once I become passionate, I go after something with everything I've got. My husband used to call it obssessive, but now he admires that trait, as it's helped so much with my speaking and author duties.
And I can honestly say that I can walk down a ten foot wide hallway and still manage to careen into a wall at some point!
L. Diane Wolfe
www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
www.spunkonastick.net
www.thecircleoffriends.net
I can balance on a beam, but my life has an odd balance - it's emotional balance not the balance of time. My head and thoughts are balanced - I know my priorities and place them, I put kids before writing and writing before chores. That soothes me and for me that's balance. But if you look at the unfolded laundry, the lack of a social life and the treadmill that so nice holds hangers, it's apparent I'm not so balanced - at all.
ReplyDeleteYou should have asked me this when I was younger. I could do it all, the little tomboy that I was. Many years down the road, I can still ride a bike, and learned how to drive a scooter the other day (that was fun!), but roller skates? You forget you're taller than you used to be and heavier - it's scary now!
ReplyDeleteI'm a totally unbalanced balancing act. :)
ReplyDeleteI can do roller blades as long as I'm indoors. Outdoors I'm a mess...the bumpy surfaces of sidewalk and street give me a problem. In life in general, I do tend to get "addicted" to certain things for certain periods of time...so maybe I am a little unbalanced!
ReplyDeleteI try to balance my life. Although sometimes when there's a lot of email and posts to answer, I get off on that which often takes away time, sometimes days, from my writing. When i get tired of both writing and the internet, i ride my bicycle; by the way, I have a dog running along beside me on a bicycle leash, so I'm balanced riding a bicycle.
ReplyDeleteI'm okay with the physical stuff (I can go no hands on the elliptical machine :), but unbalanced--and struggling to be balanced--when it comes to the writing life.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I need to go to yoga class more often because somedays I feel balanced and somedays I don't.
ReplyDeleteJane Kennedy Sutton
http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/
You mean physically or mentally? LOL
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to say for me. I can ice skate pretty good, but roller blades, what seems to be much easier performance, I can't do.
I ride motorcycles, but not scooters.
I can dive under water, but swimming isn't my best thing, so obviously there is something unbalanced within me.
I write with both hands, and do many other things with left rather than right, where threading a needle or playing some games are just easier to do with left.
Im an unbalanced mess. :)
Growing up, I learned to roller skate and loved it. My one uncle owned a skating rink and his daughter taught me to skate when I was about 4-5 years old. Ice skating was a horse of a different color. I learned enough about it that I could skate -somewhat -but my ankles were on the weak side so never had really great balance. As I became an adult, gradually I learned to enjoy various craft but often I will go off on a tangent and just want to do nothing but work on stuff within a particular craft. THe latest episode of that part of me began last July and is finally starting to calm down a bit. That's been my re-entry into the world of embroidery. Sometimes I think I am more than a touch on the bi-polar side because of that aspect about myself. I'm trying now to create a means that I will have time to read my blogs, read the pile of books I have waiting, do some embroidery, some sewing, some knitting and crochet, cook supper and still have time to squeeze in a few other things every day too! With 24 hours at my beck and call, you'd think I'd be able to parcel out my time and balance those things in my life a bit, wouldn't you?
ReplyDeleteI suspect we all feel less balanced than we are. Many of my days are spent with my family taken care of and my writing on track, and then - chaos hits. Within moments, everything is in an uproar and I can't stop eating the pint of Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar ice cream, even tho it's a bazillion calories. Depending on when you asked, I might tell you I was pretty balanced or I might roll my eyes and say, "Are you kidding?"
ReplyDeletePhysically, I'm usually always balanced. I know because I don't fall down very much.
Gayle Carline
http://gaylecarline.blogspot.com
totally unbalanced. some call it being passionate about what i do but with all the trouble i get into because of it i'd go for unbalnaced.
ReplyDeleteJo Ann Hernandez
http://bronzeword.wordpress.com
I'm suspicious of anyone who is balanced. Sooner or later they're going to go whacko and go totally unbalanced and become.... just like me.
ReplyDeleteHelen
http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com
You are funny, Helen.
ReplyDeleteMorgan
Balance is all an illusion. :)
ReplyDeleteJenny
http://theinnerbean.blogspot.com/
Balance? You must be kidding! I'm always doing something I enjoy - does that count?
ReplyDeleteI'm not as balanced as I used to be, but I can still do ballet and walk a beam without killing myself. The one thing I've really lost over the years is the ability to spot, so that you don't get dizzy while turning.
ReplyDelete