Skip to main content

Renewing my vows~


I recommitted myself today.

I'd been so sure I'd remain faithful to my vow. In the honeymoon period, I was involved and invested. I made my promise the focus of my life. I thought I'd be one of the lucky ones to maintain a long-term relationship, not just one of the failures.

I'm talking about that New Year's resolution I made at the stroke of midnight January 2007.

Same old, same old: Lose weight and exercise more. What else?

I remember when I didn't need to "resolve" to do this. I just did it. It was a life style. I'm not sure when it became such work, or why.

I'm sure it had something to do with having three kids, working full time, ending a marriage, starting another, caring for a dying parent. Stress increases cortisol, they say, and that causes weight gain. So does getting older, and being betrayed by slowing metabolism. Oh, and not sleeping well, my fallback excuse, which is now supposed to make one gain weight.

The bottom line? Those are all excuses. I know they are. They may be factors in weight gain, but if I don't counteract them, they are nothing but excuses.

On the way home from school today, I stopped at the college track and walked laps.

As my muscles warmed and my limbs loosened, my mind opened too. Thoughts that had been tangled like a twisted in a skein of yarn, pulled free and flowed. Like I was traveling in parallel worlds, I was both on the track and somewhere else. Moving automatically in my physical body, I went from past to present and on into the future in my mind.

And when my sunglasses fogged and I felt a trickle of sweat run down my spine, I stopped. Why do I resist this? It felt good.

I'm going to make my New Year's resolutions in April from now on, when the earth really does feel fresh and new. When hope springs eternal.

Comments

Frances Mackay said…
I empathise with this Ruth. Funny, you are on the other side of the world but April feels renewing here too. Guess because the long hot summer is over. I didn't know so many things put on weight.
The exercise may be part of the feeling of well being but I bet the other part is because you feel good that you finally started it. Frances
Unknown said…
Forget white. Not snow. Not dandruff. Not sheets and pillow cases. Not even Don Imus.

Forget white food. Eat nothing white, except things numbering two:

1] Plain low-fat yogurt.

2] Egg whites, which aren't really white until they're influenced by heat.

No refined flour. No refined sugar. Sweet potatoes rather than white potatoes. Wild rice rather than refined rice. Whole grain bread rather than white bread.

Sad to say, a Snickers, in spite of its surface disguise, is white: refined sugar inside, don't you know?

If you're a real fanatic, you'll also quit meat. None. Zero. Nada.
Oh, okay, have a piece of fish once a week. Not fried. Broiled. Without butter. Butter is yellow, not white.
Get your protein from peanut butter (natural, rather than the kind made with added sugar), eggs, and -- a tip from Mexican culture -- a mixture of beans and corn, the pairing of which incorporates the amino-acid make-up of meat.

If it doesn't work, I'll buy you a case of Pringles and a boat-load of cream-cheese-and-onion dip.

Popular posts from this blog

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

Killing time~

I'd woken feeling stuffy headed, slightly allergy-ish, puffy-eyed, and a tad grumpy. Lots to do, little time in which to do it, school issues keeping me in a state of angst, I considered not going to David's game. But it was Saturday, the game fairly close to home-- Salem State College-- an hour or so north through Boston to the town of Salem, famous for the 1692 witch trials that saw 19 suspected witches, many of them social outcasts, hang on Gallows Hill. A change of pace was what I needed whether I wanted it or not, so I went. I squeezed in a walk around the block that enclosed Salem State's O'Keefe Center while waiting for the game to begin. Just to kill time. I get so few chances to do that. Others walking, too, passed with no eye contact, no greetings, just sharing the same planet. Two were coming toward me. Still unfocused in the distance . . . one was tall, the other short . . . two men . . . loose clothing . . . like army clothes, camouflage . . . beard and lon...

Missing Becky~

Becky~ August 19, 1991 to April 26, 2010 She was so loved, this gentle pet of mine.  And how she loved us back. I've been alone in my house before, of course. Those days when my husband took the kids out for the day, being able to vacuum without a baby in one arm and a toddler, riding the vacuum cleaner like it was a bronco, was solitary pleasure. Later there were quiet days as the kids were at camp and my husband at work. And then came the bittersweet aloneness when kids left home for college and a life apart. Still, I'd always liked being alone, knowing it was short lived. This morning, after my husband pulled out of the driveway with a day full of plans,  I stood in the living room feeling alone in a way I never had before.  An unfamiliar emptiness and silence surrounded me. Yesterday we put our 18-year-old cat, Becky, to sleep. The decision to do so was surprisingly easy. The vet had told us Becky would let us know when it was time, and somehow she did. But ...