I saw a post on Instagram today that said, Remember that the reason you’re doing this is to make your life better.
It’s a good reminder. Throughout the last six months or so that I’ve started taking this whole wellness thing a little more seriously, I’ve been often surprised at what I’ve accomplished, which makes me think that perhaps a big part of my wellness struggle is that I’ve been selling myself short. I just never considered that I could be, or would be, the type of person to do without. Hey, life’s hard. We need fresh baked Italian bread and filled, frosted cupcakes! Until I realized it’s not so much doing without, but making a choice. Choices are interconnected by nature, winding roads that put us on a path that’s familiar but not always comforting. Previously, I’ve never really given interconnected choices a chance to play out in a positive way, at least from a health perspective. I’m not about to tell anyone it’s the universal answer to give up gluten — I didn’t make it through very much of the anti-grain tome Grain Brain before I put it down and took a big step away from that vat of kool aid — but since ditching wheat, I feel better than I have in years. And for years I felt pretty awful a lot of the time, so again, it’s good to remember why I’m choosing to crunch cucumbers instead of pretzels. The fact that I’ve been able to do so is surprising to no one more than me.
And so, in the vein of not selling myself short, I’ve realized for quite some time that exercise is very much lacking in my life. We try to hike as a family once a week or so as the Sunday weather permits, but in my Monday through Friday life, hours can go by before I realize my jaw is tensed, my feet are asleep and I haven’t moved since I got to my desk. It’s beyond unhealthy; it’s destructive. I think sometimes I can hear my muscles atrophying. They’re miserable in their fate, and yet so weakly anemic that their pleas for movement can be easily shushed as one more email comes in.
Tonight, I went for a run. A short run. Let’s call it a jog. I’ve been a sporadic jogger for most of my life, starting with 7th and 8th grade cross-country. I was abhorrently awful and gave it up for tennis in high school, at which I was moderately inept — definitely a step up. In college, my roommate and I ran together separately. By that, I mean we had a very strict Even Stephen rule about having to match the other for time or distance, but we weren’t the two girls in bouncy ponytails and cute outfits regaling each other with stories of the previous night out while we ran. We were grimly determined and usually rewarded ourselves with no-bake cookies or sometimes Kailua and ice cream (delicious). We continued our Even Stephen philosophy after college, checking in once a week to report our progress, or lack thereof. There were times in my checkered running career that I would get to a place where I’d nearly look forward to a run. I ran a 10k at one point; I could run for more than an hour straight. Take that, 7th grade me. And then I’d take a break from running — to cross-train, I’d tell myself — and that would be that, until the next cycle.
Tonight, I chose my long neglected playlist from the Bolder Boulder 10k… I put it on shuffle, but the running gods were smiling. My old playlist greeted me like a friend. It started with Franz Ferdinand The Fallen. Good beat, set the pace. I quickly realized that I haven’t been running in a long time. A few minutes in and barely around the corner of my block came Cake’s remake of I Will Survive. I smiled a little, grimly, yes, but smiled, and pressed on. I found that short groove where you think, I could totally do this. This isn’t so bad. Maybe I’m in better shape than I thought. And as I realized I was lying to myself, Sing by My Chemical Romance — a heavy hitter for me in the motivation department rotated in. 16 minutes later, Misery by Maroon 5 began and I decided that it was only fitting to end my inaugural run with such an appropriate anthem. Not quite 20 minutes, and I figured it was better to walk a few hills to finish up than to embarrass myself in a public open space where real, actual runners would have to stop and assist me. I wouldn’t say that my run was somehow new and shiny. Or that I was new and shiny because of making the effort. But I remembered that my husband has told me, ‘You’re a happier person when you’re running consistently’. I always laughed and said, ‘That’s funny because I’m miserable while I’m doing it.’ But even small wins can feel empowering, and that’s what tonight’s run felt like. I get to define myself, after all, and out there on the Wildcat Trail (that’s literally the name of the trail, not some weird metaphor I’m going for), no one knows for sure that I’m not a runner just like them. (I mean, they may be concerned that I’m just getting over bronchitis or something, but suburban runners are generally too polite to do more than throw a closed-mouth smile and head nod your way as they pass). 
I don’t know if tonight is the beginning of a cycle or if, interconnected with other more positive choices, it can become more. I do know that I’m capable of surprising myself. So who knows?