optimism

Two Miles, Two Thousands Words and Whatever Comes Next


Last fall I couldn’t run a mile. As a matter of fact, I had lost so much weight because of gallbladder issues that by the time it was removed, a year ago today, I could barely manage a half hour of walking. A good deal of the weight I lost by that point was muscle and I couldn’t see how I would ever regain the fitness ground I had lost in the few short months since the summer when I had put time and effort into regaining that ground. I also couldn’t write. Stringing more than a few sentences together, and on rare occasions a paragraph or two, was taxing. I had started to blog but my effort was sporadic even though I began blogging in the hope that I could jump-start my long dormant inner-writer. And as for what was coming next in my life, I hadn’t a clue.

Today I can easily run two miles and walk another mile or two besides. I lift weights again. I have regained muscle and even though that has pushed up the number on the scale and put me back in a size ten, it is were I was at my fittest ten years ago. Tone and level of fitness are what has always mattered. I can’t say there wasn’t a secret thrill in weighing in at 138 lbs, which I did at one point, but on my almost 5’10’’ frame it was alarmingly thin. And I didn’t like not being strong. Or able to run or swim. It just wasn’t me. I am 44 in just a bit over a month, and these are the years that truly can decide what one’s senior and elderly years might possibly look like. There are some things that proper nutrition and exercise can’t protect us against but they can help determine whether how active we will be able to be. I don’t want to be one of those 60 year olds hobbling about with too much weight on them, plagued with all sorts of preventable maladies and unable to participate in life to the fullest.

I am also able to write again. A great joy that I don’t think I can find the words, ironically, to really express. There is a line in the children’s novel, Harriet, the Spy, that talks about Harriet’s thoughts “limping along like crippled children” because she has been forbidden to journal in her notebook after it causes an incident at her school. That line about sums up my feelings about being unable to really write. I can fairly easily knock out 1500 to 2000 words at a sitting now. I blog daily for the most part, and thanks to the inspiration of Nanowrimo (National November Write a Novel Month), I am almost half-way through a complete first draft of my novel. I am really very proud of myself. Back in the dark days last fall, I knew that I wanted to take my experiences and generate a fiction novel from them. I hadn’t a clue where to begin though I did write a few short pieces that I am now expanding on or incorporating into my present work. Caregiving and then widowhood have been such growth experiences, and I know that other widowed people would find it appalling that I appreciate what I have gleaned from both, but I think that most people would acknowledge that even when you wouldn’t choose to experience tragedy on any level in your life, these experiences can change you for the better. They can provide you with insight and the basis on which to hopefully be a better person.

Finally, there is what comes next and who knows what that might be. My horoscope for yesterday told me that it is time for me to confront my fears, many of which have no rational basis, and get ready for the future. I don’t know how prepared a person can be for the unknowable future but planning and being open to all the possibilities is near always an excellent place to start. A lot of good people and things have come my way this last year. I am more grateful for them then I will ever be able to express. More things are coming, I believe, and I am going to strive to take them one at a time and be more appreciative than freaked out (which is my wont when I am feeling overwhelmed at the light speed my life seems to travel at anymore).

Whatever comes next. A Canadian winter. Houston in the New Year perhaps or a publishable novel that someone might really want to read. I am ready.

Bliss


ob sent me Mark Morford’s SFGate column on Bliss the other day. He would like to start a “Bliss List” in response to the Bush Administrations “Terror List” or whatever it is called. It’s the list that the U.S. government has, and is still, compiling that names people who could have terrorist ties. Of a frightening length now, it targets people seemingly at random and does more for forwarding Naomi Wolfe’s argument that America is well on its way to becoming a totalitarian regime than most people care to think about. Anyway, Morford’s idea was to fight against the “darkness” by creating a list of people who live blissfully. He had a long list of criteria that could qualify a person for this list but the following paragraph caught my attention:

“Is there someone in your life who engages the world and thrives on books
and media, who works to understand the woes of the world and the yank of
politics and the guilty pleasures of pop culture, right along with the
sadness of war and cancer and divorce and yet still, somehow, manages to
wear really cute underwear and shrugs at contradiction and orgasms with
their mouth open?” (M. Morford)

Normally, I wouldn’t consider myself a blissful person, but the cute underwear and the shrugging sound a bit like me. I can’t vouch for the open-mouthed orgasms though only because there would have to be a mirror on the ceiling and that is just creepy. But I like the idea of a anti-list of those of us who are struggling to stay up in a down world. Doing our tiny bits to help ensure that the whole of existence is swamped by those whose sole focus in life is looking for reasons to be fearful and negative and to spread that fear and negativity to others. Which, I suppose, bring me around to attitude and optimism. Blissful people would say that a positive outlook is tremendously important in staying afloat in life. Those opposed would counter that sometimes life deals a hand too crappy for good attitude and rosy-tinted glassed to overcome. And while it is true that there are people who live sad and difficult lives, my experience leads me to conclude that while somethings in life cannot be avoided, many of the awful circumstances people find themselves in can be traced to decisions they made or avoided making at some earlier point in their lives. Much as one would like to say that people are sometimes victims of fate, it’s just not true the vast majority of the time. Using myself as an example, there was no life insurance money when my late husband died. The reason being simply that at the time we looked into it, we were in the midst of fertility treatments and though we could have come up with the extra cash, it would have tightened our budget quite a bit. My late husband talked me into waiting on the life insurance and by giving in I helped create the situation I found myself in when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness not quite two years later. Life insurance premiums are expensive, but probably less per year than what most people spend on their cell phone or cable TV bill. Neither of which is the necessity that life insurance is. Of course I am not an extreme example. As a teacher I saw single mothers who were living those quiet lives of desperation we so often hear about and it wasn’t hard to feel sorry for them. Yet, the majority of them had landed where they were by not finishing high school, for no reason other than they didn’t like school and thought it would be nothing at all to find a husband to support them in the future. Of course, life isn’t like that. Drop outs associate primarily with other drop-outs. They engage in behaviors that usually end up getting them in trouble with their parents, employers and possibly the police. These women ended up pregnant, a lot of times intentionally, thinking that it would net them life-long partners. But it didn’t. They were usually working multiple jobs and on some form of public assistance and wringing their hands trying to figure out why their children weren’t doing well in school and always getting into trouble. Probably an extreme example, but perhaps you see where I am going with this. Our lives are our responsibility. Bad things, and good things, happen throughout but it is our response to them that makes the difference. Optimistic people see where their choices are taking them. They accept that sometimes they will struggle but are confident that struggle is worthwhile and is taking them somewhere better. Pessimistic people see only the past and the now that their past has created.

All my life I have been a dreamer. As Yoda once said of Luke Skywalker “Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing.” That could be said of me. Hopefully I am a bit more mindful of my now than I was twenty or thirty years ago. And hopefully if I keep reading and reaching and dreaming (and wearing really cute underwear), I will one day be worthy of a mention on the Bliss List.