It's June. My rose bushes are sending up bloom after fragrant bloom. The California Towhee on the other side of my office window is singing its little heart out. All over the country, my fellow LGBTQIA+ folks are enjoying Pride celebrations. I am allowing myself to follow suit, more than I have in the past. I am a perfectionist by nature, plodding along like the Capricorn goat that I am, assessing each mountain until it feels like I'll be able to climb it with ease. Some of my past success has come as a result of this careful assessment, to be sure. As a young person, I found it easy to get good grades in school, and I spent all eighteen years of my formal education proving myself over and over. I had the same dogged determination with playing the violin, selling electronics, and even teaching students. 

Retirement is different, though. I have a chance to try new things, a chance to stop identifying with success or failure. A chance to learn how to enjoy the process.  I started writing a novel over eighteen months ago, wanting to see whether I could live up to the challenge of finishing. I finished, got it professionally edited,and have been querying agents and small presses in hopes of getting published. I've had a lot of anxiety over this publishing business, as have many of my fellow writers. It's tough getting a manuscript noticed, tough getting an agent or publisher to think that it will be worth their time to take on a new client. What to do?

For now, I'm continuing the search, but am branching out and having fun with other aspects of writing. I enjoy writing short humorous pieces, both fiction and nonfiction, and am letting myself do that now. Some will make it into this blog. One has already made it into my Substack newsletter. But some will just be for me, just for fun. And that's ok. It's a lot like my exercise. For fifteen years, I've judged myself by my ability to run certain speeds and certain distances. Today, I'm relaxing and enjoying whatever I can do each day, be it a walk, a short run, or a trip to the gym to use the elliptical trainer. The old "good, better, best/never let it rest" adage is a hinderance more than it is a help to me at this point. 

Happy June. Happy Pride. May you enjoy the flowers, listen to the birds, and see all that is good in the world. If we wait for things to be perfect, we'll miss a lot of that good-both within ourselves and everywhere around us!