Swampwater Debutante

People are gonna come here from Hooping.org and see I haven’t updated since January OMG.

Um. So. HI. Another post saying I AM STILL HERE. Well. Not…here. But around! Alive! Writing and playing and trying to balance being a grown-up with being myself.

I still haven’t hooped much lately. I will be this weekend as a favor for a friend. I’m way out of shape and out of touch and just…yeah. Between work and the gluten problem and depression and stuff, I’ve fallen out. And that’s bad. I inadvertently ended up being a sort of mini-poster child for how hooping helps depression and then I let myself fall out. I’m not good at coping with attention at all but that’s no excuse.

Anyway. I took part in a super fun hooping video when Jess asked me to, and it did remind me that hooping was very, very good to me and I met a lot of really lovely people that I miss a lot, and I left people in the lurch when I disappeared.

I want that back. I really loved hooping once. I keep getting tempted to put it behind me and move on but then I’ll pick up a hoop when I’m listening to BBC 1Xtra and the bass drops and I remember.

It’s going to take work to get back to where I was, but the more I stick to a gluten-free diet – the more I accept that This Is How Life Is Now – the more energy I have and, surprisingly, the less depressive episodes I suffer. Things are coming back. Slowly. I don’t like how I look when I hoop, I’ve gained a lot of weight back, but I have to remember that it’s how the movement makes me feel that’s important, not how I look to others on the outside.

Wow, this wasn’t meant to turn into a paean to how I love and miss hooping but there you go. I do. I fully plan to get back into my Hoop Path swing next year after taking this year off. I am sucking up a deep breath and trying to tackle my inhibitions head on. I’m just…crossing my fingers and stepping back into the circle and I am hoping.