The last few years have been a long, hard slog -- we've had too many deaths among family and friends, too many close brushes with cancer, and too much surgery.
But that's just the way life is these days. We've reached that age where it is what it is.
You can either fight it or accept that this is the way things are going to be going forward, and come up with a strategy to make the bumpiness of the rest of the ride a little more manageable and a lot less jarring. I vote for that, because just hitting choppy water over and over again at full speed has proved to be far too exhausting.
Here's the truth: there are always going to be health problems, deaths, tough spots at work or in your marriage or your own personal life or with your family...pick a problem area, you'll pretty much always have it to some extent. The key is coming up with a way to better manage it so that it is less of a problem, right? At least that's what all the so-called self-help guru people tell us.
So here's my plan:
1. On the personal health front: Better food choices. Every day. Healthier fuel in, healthier body going forward. I'm going to work on the Mark Bittman philosophy: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." More real food, which does not include processed crapola. Smaller portions of healthier, real, clean food. And a lot more fruits and veggies. I can do this. My rotund behind will appreciate it if I follow through...and so will I.
2. Get exercise of some sort every day. I'm not saying I will run a marathon -- don't think I could with my knees and my lupus issues -- but I surely can walk or stretch or do yoga or some other cardiovascular or weight workout for at least 15 to 30 minutes every day. Stop making excuses and, as the Nike commercial people say, just do it.
If I follow through just on numbers 1 and 2? No matter whether cancer or some other health issue strikes, I'll at least be able to say I've been doing a lot better taking care of myself. And intellectually and emotionally? I can tell you from recent personal experience, that will mean a LOT.
Having recently undergone that melanoma surgery, I can tell you firsthand that you relive all the times you forgot to put on sunscreen, didn't pack your plate with antioxidants, and didn't exercise properly to help with a better, faster recovery. The worst part is, I'm now living with my mistakes in slow motion as I heal a lot more slowly that I should be because I hadn't properly taken care of myself on the front end.
Never again do I want to be in this position. Next time? If there is one, and there almost inevitably will be because life is long and I'm always going to get older, right? I want to be able to say I took really good care of myself and there was nothing I reasonably could have done that got left on the table.
3. On the personal end of things: I'm going to work on patience and acceptance of the way things are. I think this will help not only my marriage and my parenting (duh! because when momma's not happy, no one is happy, right?), but also will help my satisfaction with myself. I don't like being impatient, but it slips out and colors and clouds everything when I get in that particular resentful, easily triggered funk.
Strategies to deal with it? Deep breath and a mommy time out for a bit (when that's actually possible). Planning a little more self-care into my weeks rather than just giving, giving, giving and not taking time to take care of me -- that's a recipe for disaster and one I have to stop doing if for no other reason than our daughter needs to see that taking care of her own needs has to be as much of a priority as taking care of everyone else.
I need to BE the example, not just mouth the words of it.
4. Dealing with clutter and day to day duties more effectively: Spread the work around a little better so it isn't just me picking up and doing. I need to make a list and divide up the duties a little better. Henceforth, I refuse to be a Winky the House Elf martyr to the mommy cause, invisibly going about my duties invisibly in the background and happily asking for more crap to be piled on my duties plate. That just makes me cranky after a while, and I'd bet that's true for you, too.
But I also refuse to become the ogre who enforces a home "work farm" for the rest of the family while sitting on her bossy, crabby perch. We are going to have that "we are in this together because this house is ours" discussion and hopefully we'll be better about working on all of this together. I need to come up with a good incentive system to get this rolling up front -- if folks have good ideas that have worked for them, I'd love to hear them.
One thing I plan to do is to declutter quite a bit over the course of the next couple of weeks so that we are starting with a much clearer slate at the outset.
Honestly? I think that is plenty. If I can master even two of these things I'll be in much, much better shape next year. What I want is to make better choices for myself and my family -- it all boils down to picking the better path going forward, every single time a decision comes up.
(Photo by Christy Hardin Smith.)
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