Your Life Is Right Now
September 1, 2009
Once again, I was caught off guard. Even with the sunset showing up incrementally earlier every evening for most of August and with the wisp of crisp air first thing in the morning and when I let the dog in at night, you’d thing I wouldn’t be unsettled by the ending of summer. And don’t get me wrong-it’s not a bad thing. There are two 15 year olds and a driver’s license-wielding 16 year old in our house this summer so it’s been long enough. I learned a few things, like how to stay awake until I hear my son pull into the driveway even though that’s a good two hours beyond my bedtime. and that traveling 800 miles for a baseball tournament doesn’t sound too far if your kids like baseball enough and that no teen can, with good conscience, replace the toilet paper roll on the spool. It’s just not done. Changing TP rolls is for old people.
So I don’t mind that I find myself back at my viewbicle (that’s a cubicle with a view) pondering fitness topics. Should I write about Meno-pooch or BOB (Belly Over Belt) or BOB’s cousin, BUB (Belly Under Belt) not to be confused with FUPA (Fat Upper Pubic Area) or would you like to be reminded about how many calories are in that Venti Frappicino? I could also rant about the latest fitness research. And don’t get me started on the recent idiotic article in Newsweek suggesting that exercise does nothing for weight control. Don’t those authors realize that exercise is an urgent medical necessity? If exercise were a pill it would be the hottest drug on the market. It’s free , easy to do, and the single biggest thing you can do (besides quitting smoking )to avoid chronic and/or fatal diseases not to mention that it lengthens your life as well as the quality of it.
But no. That’s not what’s on my mind today. Today,the theme that keeps pushing it’s way to my frontal cortex is this:
Getting Older Keeps Getting Faster. Aging is Accelerating.
One day, I’m 3o-something years old, juggling work and diapers and dinnertimes, then all of a sudden two decades have passed. This morning I saw a baby in the grocery store and and I was side-swiped by reminiscent thoughts of how time has evaporated, what a precious gift life is and what a crime that I’ve wasted my first half. Nome sayin’?
Life really is like a roll of toilet paper. Seems like one morning the roll’s so fat it won’t even spin on the spool without tearing. At CVS you walk right by the paper goods section confident about your TP inventory. But then the next time you sit down (especially with three teenagers around) you’re down to the last few squares.
In her book A Short Guide To A Happy Life, Anna Quindlan says that life should be lived like a terminal illness. That we shouldn’t wait until we find the lump or get the call with the biopsy results or hear our spouse say “Honey, sit down. We need to talk”in order to wake up and to start living life like it’s the tenuous gift that it truly is.
It’s easy to be dissatisfied. I heard a comedian do a routine once called “Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy” I often feel this way myself. Ugh, another day. But every now and then I catch a bird’s eye glimpse of my life out of the corner of my eye and it knocks the wind out of me. I married this man! I had these children! I get to go to a job I love and they pay me for it and then I come home to this house where the world’s most fabulous dog greets me at the door. I created this!
But just as quickly that moment passes.
Are you happy with your life? with your body? your health? your energy level? If not, this is your chance to fall AWAKE. Let me suggest that you either love where you are and what you’ve got (that means stop complaining, either in your mind or out loud) and accept your limitations- Love your lumps, People!
or CHANGE IT.
Consider this your wake-up call. I will email you this Friday with the game plan. Weigh-in is Monday (yes I know it’s a holiday). The first 4 weeks will focus on small diet changes-getting rid of soda, things like that. Then the next 4 weeks will be exercise- how to begin, maintain and break through a weight-loss plateau. That will bring us to November which will focus on lifestyle habits and small changes that make a big difference. You will have the best holiday season you’ve ever had. Because life is right now. And little decisions you make today add up. So decide to start falling awake to your fabulous life. Today.
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