Walking It Out

Hey y'all,

This has very little to do with you, and instead is all about me.

As 2015 began, I realized I had a lot of unnecessary stress in my life. And it wasn't the kind of stress that can be productive - I mean, I'm not an elected official going to bed fretting about how I'm going to improve the situation in the Middle East. I'm a mom who was waking up in the middle of the night irritated by what a girl I haven't seen since the 10th grade posted about the measles vaccine on Facebook. I mean, that's the kind of thing that didn't/doesn't even need to be on my radar. I didn't feel particularly healthy, and I just felt mentally exhausted all the time. 

So I started making incremental changes that soon paid big dividends. Over the years, I'd gotten myself subscribed to dozens of e-mail lists; it seemed every store in America was e-mailing me every day about a sale. So Step One was unsubscribing to all of those. 30 fewer e-mails a day in the inbox. Great.  I've all but quit Facebook... Cute pictures of my friends and their kiddos? Great. A constant stream of news stories about everything that was wrong in every quarter of the world? Not great - for me. 

Then I got one of those Fitbit fitness tracker/watch thingies and a hipster headband and I started walking. At first, my goal was 10,000 steps a day. Then some of my friends also got the Fitbit and we could sync our walks on our phones and challenge each other and joke with each other as we exercised. Every week, we do a "Workweek Hustle" challenge to see which one of us can take the most steps from Mon-Fri, and the winner gets to pick a prize. Because my perky friend Julie won a few weeks ago, we're all scheduled to karaoke tonight at a bowling alley. Awful. 

Then your dad gave me some earphones and I figured out how to put comedy albums and podcasts on my phone, and now I walk around town listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR and giggling to myself. Or listening to the great interviews on Nerdist.  Or books on tape that I'd been meaning to get to for years. Or just talking to Peg Peg as I hustle around town. I'm walking about 7-10 miles a day lately. Since I started tracking my walks on Dec 1st, I've accomplished this:

I went two months (I think) without taking a single picture. I had taken so many photos between Oct and Dec of last year that the photographer portion of my brain was fried and I just needed to set my camera aside for a while. Instead, I started gradually taking photos with my phone on my walks - more to entertain myself than anything else. Then, just to kinda share my love of Missoula and its various nooks and crannies, I started posting the photos on Instagram. (If you're an Instagram kind of person, you can find me here).

I have no idea if this is all going to last, but in the meantime, I'm happier, healthier, more centered, and constantly on the lookout for things I can jettison from my life in order to make me more focused and present. 

There's probably more New Agey/self helpy words in that last sentence than I've used in my whole life. 

Love,

Mom

Q, R, S, T, U, B...

Dear Hagen,

I'm sorry to tell you this, but you have become your sister's trained monkey. You guys play so well together these days, because she concocts these elaborate scenarios and then gives you your line reading - "What if you said, 'I can't go under that bridge - there's a troll down there?'" - and you mimic it exactly. Recently, she's added musical performances to your repertoire; she sings a little and then points to you when it's your time to chime in. She is Gladys Knight and you are all the Pips.

Your dad and I have decided to let all this slide, because:

1) It doesn't seem to bother you.
2) You're actually learning songs in record time.
3) One day, you are going to be the World's Most Patient Husband (and your sister will turn up at all your romantic anniversary dinners to remind your future spouse, "I taught him that!")

Love,
Mom