A 10-year hiatus from Blogging

I rediscovered this site tonight, and read some of my earliest blog entries. Wow. I had to fight back the urge to edit them and make them less embarrassing.
It was really nostalgic to reminisce about the early days of my circus years, and the time leading up to them. Crazy.
I really wish I'd kept blogging. *sigh* I did some blog-equivalent entries in Facebook Notes, but at the end of last year those shut down and now I can't even find the old notes anymore. It would be a pretty awesome project for me to comb through them and extract them onto this site. It'd be pretty cool to have this stuff available to look back over, plus for those who are curious to read through various highlights of my life.

After I stopped blogging in 2011 I stuck with the circus for another 7 years, but the joy was steadily leaking out of it.
Part of it was the funseeking - it never provided lasting rewards. It felt too selfish & egotistical, like my personal progress as a human being was on hold while I had lots of fun and improved only as a performer & coach.
Part of it was that the group I was in was gradually taken over by someone else, and eventually he was making all of the decisions and starring in all of the routines. When I was edged out of training acrobats the last of my enjoyment trickled away and it was time for me to retire from that group and therefore performing.
And part of it was that I became disillusioned with the Circus Family I thought we had. I got some glimpses behind the curtains and saw things that made me not really want to keep associating with the crowd I once felt so close to and loved by.
All of these together made it pretty clear that it was time for me to move on with my life and leave the circus behind. It's been about 3 or 4 years since then, and so far I haven't regretted that decision.
I sometimes miss aspects of the circus life, of course. The excitement of being backstage! The thrill of delivering a stupendous show! The opportunities to lift so many people so that they can fly! The festivals and tours and travels! The people I met and performed with and associated with and spent time with! The fabulous costumes and makeup!
I've performed about once a year since retiring, which has been just about perfect. But my performance contacts are fading, so my professional performing days may be over... and that's fine with me. I have many wonderful memories to cherish.
It's funny, though: I don't miss the insane fun, the wild parties, the compliments, the glutting, and the prestige. Those are the costs of performing, I think, rather than the benefits. I'm relieved to have left those things behind.

Nowadays my life is much more like it was pre-circus, with two big differences that I feel very keenly.
#1, I love what I do to make a living. Building things is awesome! It keeps me in shape, and I learn constantly. At the end of the day I've made a physical, discernible improvement. I love that feeling. And coaching kids is the best job in the world. I sorta burned out on it for a while during my 20+ hours per week at !mpact as a tumbling coach... but 2.5 hours a week at Elevate is awesome!
#2, I really miss being a parent to children. I love my sons and I'm glad that they done growed up and adulted! But my heart aches for the days when I was a parent... mostly for the pre-circus days when I was an involved, active, present parent. My parenting declined steadily as my kids grew older and I grew more integrated into my nomadic performer funseeking lifestyle. :( It's become one of my biggest regrets.
I'm really grateful for Pantalaimon, my adventure buddy cat. I am his world, and he's my little one to take care of. Most of my emotional needs are met by Pan.

Next week marks the 2-month anniversary of my decision to leave behind the vices & appetites that I've indulged in for the last 15 years (plus some that have plagued me all my life.) I'm returning to the lifestyle I faded out of at 15, and only sporadically struggled back into while married & childrearing. I'm really excited about that, and Im eager to see what my life & lifestyle are like in 10 months (March of '22) when it's been a year since I firmly turned away from the stuff I didn't want to be doing.

Maybe I'll manage to keep posting updates here; I'm keeping a daily journal (which is awesome, I'm so glad I started that!) but a "highlights reel" that others can see would be pretty sweet. I don't like Facebook for that; I have 1823 Friends there (circus performers accumulate Friends at an astonishing rate) but only a handful of people that would want (or that I'd want to) read about my current life's highlights. This seems a much better place for me to express my thoughts & ideas & activities.

I'm more likely to do so if people are reading. So leave a comment or whatever passes as a "Like" here (is it a Kudo?) if you wander across it and wanna encourage me to keep releasing on this platform!