The Mid Year Gap.

Yesterday, I saw a woman practicing on roller skates at the park.

She was on the basketball court, holding on to the wire mesh fence when she needed balance. She would move a little, steady herself, then try again. My husband saw her too. Then he looked at me and said, “You see? She’s out there practicing. When are you getting back on your skates?”

I laughed it off and made an excuse I don’t remember.

Every morning, I stare at the goals I wrote down for the year. They are taped on my bathroom wall right next to the mirror. I have four areas for the year: personal, health, business, and relationships.

In most of those areas, I can point to progress. Business is going well. I’m hitting the gym regularly. Life is pretty good right now. I have kept more promises than I have broken.

Then there is bullet number two under personal.

Learn to roller skate.

I haven’t been back to the roller skating rink since last year.

It’s June. We are exactly halfway through the year. Which means it is time to do the thing most people avoid: look at the actual distance between where you said you would be and where you are.

My goal is simple. I need to get back to the skating rink and make it around three times. That is how you move to the next level. Three laps around the rink.

I have not been back since last year.

The goal is written down. I stare at it every morning, which makes it hard to pretend this is about forgetting. I did not forget. I stopped choosing it.

That is the part I have been sitting with as we hit the middle of the year. By now, most goals have a story. Some have become routines. Others have become good intentions we keep walking past.

It would be easy to call that failure and move on, but I do not think that tells the whole story.

The gap tells you what sounded important when the year started. It tells you what stayed important once life got full. It tells you where you built structure and where you relied on desire. It tells you what got your calendar, what got your energy, and what got pushed into the blurry space called later.

For me, skating was always about more than skating.

I wanted to learn because I wanted to practice being a beginner again. I wanted to do something where I didn’t have to be prepared, experienced, or in control. I wanted to get comfortable being awkward and keep moving anyway.

That sounds good when you are writing goals in January. It feels different when you are holding on to the wall at the rink and everyone else seems to move across the floor effortlessly.

I’ve been that person. I think that is what I have been avoiding.

The feeling of being awkward in public.

I have made progress this year. Real progress. I want to honor that because it matters. One missed goal does not erase the promises I have kept.

But progress can also give us cover.

We can point to the areas where we are moving and quietly skip over the places where we stalled. We can say we are doing well overall and use that as permission to avoid the one thing still asking for our attention.

I know because I have been doing it.

I can look at other parts of my life and see momentum. That is true. I can also look at the skates and see the gap. That is true too.

Both truths belong in the reflection.

That is what makes the middle of the year different from January.

By now, your calendar knows what matters. Your habits know what matters. Your choices show what matters. The goal list on the wall may say one thing, but the last six months have been saying something else.

The middle of the year gives you a chance to listen.

I do not need a new goal. I need to return to the one I already wrote down.

Three laps around the rink. That is it.

There’s something about returning to the thing you keep walking past. It breaks the quiet agreement you have been making with avoidance. The one that lets the goal stay on the wall while your choices move around it.

Find your bullet number two. The one with the best excuse. The one your progress elsewhere has been covering for.

You do not have to fix the rest of the year. You just have to stop walking past the one thing still asking for your attention.

I am going back to the rink. What are you doing?

Until next Tuesday,
Ceaneh