The only difference
Posted on | January 13, 2008 |
Friday night my heart felt like a hundred rain splattered puddles: each one reflecting a different small circle of cloud covered sky; so many different things to do all in exactly the same few moments.
Friday I was a flood of hormonal mood swings before I start to bleed, and I felt anxious and sad and utterly overwhelmed. Also nearly sick again. Then Saturday came, and the sun was shining through tatters of clouds and I went for a run for the first time in a month, and dear god, why can’t I remember this?
I need to exercise.
Every day I need to feel my body move, outside, among trees and open spaces, side stepping puddles, feeling my lungs suck in cold air. I need to exercise not because I want to look a certain way, but because I need to feel a certain way. It’s the only variable I can think of that genuinely affects how I manage stress. It’s the only thing that really makes a difference: being outdoors, feeling my blood hot in my cheeks, feeling my muscles sore afterwards.
Exercise brings balance to my life, yet regularly in the winter I let it slip by. Day after day I come home, to the sun staining the west a meek orange, and the shadows already those of dusk. I feel selfish then, setting out on a run, having not spent time with my small boy.
Yet without exercise I start to become irrational. Guilt becomes an entire harbor in my heart, sheltering a whole fleet of inadequacies: I do not spend enough time with my son; I don’t cook enough or clean enough or see my husband enough; I am not a good enough teacher or writer or reader.
The only difference between days like this, and days where I feel like I’m on top of the world is that on the days where I’m kicking ass, I’ve also gotten outdoors and moved.
Seriously. It’s that easy. And that incredibly difficult. Does anyone else experience this?
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18 Responses to “The only difference”
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January 13th, 2008 @ 10:49 pm
YES…i have finally learned exercise is the key to my sanity!
January 13th, 2008 @ 11:31 pm
Yes, every day in fact. I too am completely perplexed as to why making this a priority is so difficult for me when the effects are so obvious!
January 13th, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
YES! Absolutely. The other day I was talking about this with an old friend who was once upon a time a roommate and she said, “but you always feel better when you excercise” and I wondered how she knew it long before I did. I’m getting better at it being a priority.
January 14th, 2008 @ 12:20 am
Totally! Daily exercise and meditation. Nature. Some moments in my own company. These things work wonders. Numerous times I forget that I have these great tools by my side, or I get caught up in a thought pattern of guilt because I ’should’ be doing something ‘more important’. Yet, what can be more important than a more positive and happy self?! Even if it means getting up an hour earlier or being more organized (well…that’s a whole other chapter of trial and error). Perhaps a little reminder note on my keyboard will help?
January 14th, 2008 @ 2:28 am
Oh, totally. In fact, I was getting to angry with my ailing hip that I got back out this week and started running again (thankfully, the hip has healed?) and I haven’t felt better (or run faster!)
There’s a dull edge, though; I discovered that while running maintains me for a day, a day of surfing maintains me for a week. So I still feel somewhat cramped now that I’ve been out of water for nearly a month.
We need our sitter back!!!!
Anyway, put on those running shoes tomorrow
I’ll be thinking of you when I’m out too.
January 14th, 2008 @ 6:52 am
I know exactly what you mean… it really makes all the difference to exercise. For me, it equalizes my moods and makes my body feel more in sync with itself. I usually exercise before going to work, but the winter and cold and dark makes it hard to get out of that cozy warm bed! I have to project myself into the later part of the day, imagining how I will feel more energized if I just get out of bed and hop on that machine! It works:> I think we naturally want to hunker down during these months, and I can totally understand that tug you feel about leaving Bean to go for a run after work. But keep in mind how much of a difference feeling well and happy makes when it comes to mothering!
January 14th, 2008 @ 9:26 am
YES! I ran and worked out regularly last winter - and it was by best winter ever. I’d let it fall by the wayside this year and let’s see… I cried Wednesday night, got mad Friday night, cried and got mad on Saturday… Finally went trail running on Sunday and I’m back on an even keel. I really don’t know how I “forget” what a difference it makes and why it’s taken me so long to get myself back out there.
January 14th, 2008 @ 9:44 am
Oh my god, I totally know what you mean! It is a daily struggle to make myself be active. Yet I know that I will feel better. Still a struggle. Day after day.
January 14th, 2008 @ 10:46 am
Yes, yes. The world outside feeds us, makes us more complete, and lordy, I need to exercise more. It’s strange how exercising gives you *more* energy.
January 14th, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
Oh goodness, this speaks to me. I wish, wish, wish that I could keep it in mind. Exercise, the great outdoors, feeling your body move and stretch and bend the way it doesn’t normally do … that’s the stuff we need to keep in mind.
What can we do to help ourselves remember this?
January 14th, 2008 @ 6:51 pm
Yes! That’s why I don’t understand why I don’t make exercise a priority when I know I feel better. And outdoors is the best way to get it for me. Same with making good food choices. Eat well, feel well, and yet I so often don’t. Thanks for reminding me and thanks for sharing.
January 14th, 2008 @ 10:18 pm
totally
completely
yes yes yes
totally
completely
YES, oh yes it does!
January 14th, 2008 @ 11:45 pm
Yup. Every day! I dream of climbing and stretching against the warm rocks despite cold the air; to feel lean and strong and flexible. To brave the cold and climb the mountains and stop losing the wonderful running rhythm I work so hard to balance during the summer… Each time I get out there though it is so wonderful. Funny how we resist wonderful so often!
January 15th, 2008 @ 8:10 am
YES! And weirdly enough for me, it is not only the actual movement of exercise that heals me, it is the outdoors - the trees, the wind, the air. When I lived in rural MN I was always out - the long walk to the mail box with the dogs, trekking through the woods to the stream, etc. It was so much easier to FIND that time. I have never felt that since I moved to suburbia - too much concrete surrounds me - it is harder to find that solitude. But those days when Porter and I escape to the state park for a walk in the words - AAAH, it invigorates me!
January 15th, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
Very much so. I’ve learned that I’m better off taking at least 1/2 hour every day to exercise because it makes the rest of my day that much more focused, energized and efficient. Otherwise, I’m in a daze. It’s easy to think that we don’t have that 30 minutes to spare but you make up for it in hours of enhanced productivity, I believe.
January 15th, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
Yes, yes, yes….I have recentley joined pilates. I need this so bad. I have always known my posture is terrible, but when I went to class oh my it caught me off guard. I am so out of shape, poor posture, and so not flexible at 28. This is my goal for 2008. Stand up straight and feel great!!!
January 19th, 2008 @ 9:10 am
Ummmm yes. And I like so many others who have commented have no idea why I don’t make it a priority since it does make such a difference.
I don’t live in a good neighborhood for running so that makes it easier to not do it, but we just joined a gym. My excuse right now is small boy cries when I leave him in the child care at the gym.
I do notice that weight training makes me less tired than cardio, so I am going to try to start with that.
You are an inspiration, and you have so much going on. My son will be three in March, and I used to be a teacher. I feel like you do and I am not even teaching right now. I do have a small business but that is different and less pressure than teaching.
I think you are doing a fabulous job of balancing it all. You really are.
February 9th, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
me! me! all the time. except right now. just had a baby 10 days ago and it’s the only time i feel ok doing nothing. in 6 weeks from now, the answer will be yes, again. weight training and yoga (besides being outdoors and climbing up mountains) are the only kind of exercise i can do without despise.
love your blog. so bright.
peace
mb