Wellness Sure Is Time-Consuming!

This year I made several resolutions, which I don't always do because they so often fail. I was already underway with an attempt to exercise more regularly and meditate, though, so I simply added my resolve to write daily to the list. Well, I also wanted to be a better listener and get to work early every day, but those are separate from the wellness kick I'm on. With a new empty calendar on the wall, I began to track my resolution progress with little sparkly smiley-face stickers. The yellow stickers, which I have more of, signify the days or nights when I write for at least 15 minutes. The other colors signify at least 30 minutes of exercise. Meditating had, at the beginning of the year, become part of my evening routine, so I didn't keep track of it.

As with most resolutions, the first week was filled with success and sparkly smiley-faces. It filled me with child-like glee to get to stick another symbol of hard work on my calendar most nights. The second week, I exercised once. I was tired, and I didn't feel good most of the week. I also only wrote once. I found it difficult to pull myself away from my husband in the evenings, although I did make time to start reading Stephen King's book, On Writing. I was going to bed by 8:30 every night, so that in itself was an accomplishment. This week, I've written for four days in a row, but I didn't exercise at all. Meditating has become a source of composing myself only when I am the most stressed but not too tired. If I'm too tired, I just get antsy or fall asleep. Tonight I tried exercising again, hula hooping on my bed, but after 15 minutes my esophagus burned with indigestion from exercising too soon after eating.

This is quite a dilemma! I am, as the good Lord knows, not a morning person. Years, many years, of trying to wake up early to exercise has taught me that it will never happen. I can accept that. In the evenings, though, how do I fit it all in? If I exercise for 30 minutes, then I have to shower and dry my hair, which takes at least 30 minutes. If I write for 15 minutes, then I'm going to end up writing for half an hour because I enjoy it. Then I have to fit in eating, resting at least an hour after eating before exercising, spending quality time with my husband (I guess resting and quality time go together), and meditating -- another 10 to 30 minutes. With about four hours between the time I get home and the time I go to bed, I haven't quite learned how to make it all fit.

One solution shines brightly as a beacon to lead me toward freedom: I need to get rid of my day job! Clearly I must have been meant to be a career writer; it seems to be wired in my biorhythms. Only then will I have all the time I want to do the stuff I want. It's the writers, those damned self-help writers and columnists for magazines, who actually have the time to do all the stuff they keep telling us we need to do to be whole people. Therefore, all non-writers and aspiring writers take heart: those people telling you what to do clearly do not live in the real world. As for me, I'm going to set about figuring out how to make a living writing and create my own little world.

Why I Haven't Posted (and why I should have)

Although I'd like to blame my not writing on the busy holidays, or on the fact that I've been working through depression the past couple months (that deserves another post), I just haven't posted lately because I haven't felt like I had anything to post. The subtitle of my blog is my motto, "Life's all about the experiences," and my life is pretty boring. Why write when I haven't had any noteworthy experiences?

Of course, I've had all sorts of noteworthy experiences, like visiting my family over Christmas. My dad gave his first Sunday sermon at his church, and it was only the second time I'd seen my niece, who was 10 months old at the time. There was the whole experience of reaching bottom emotionally and going to the doctor to get on medication. There are the experiences of my mindfulness practice through the book I've been studying, and experiences the book has asked me to notice, those pleasant things I notice while I'm experiencing them (like the snow falling gently through the air today).

My counselor suggested I carry around a journal with me, and she said I don't have to write long entries. I could just write a sentence or two as I'm feeling something. Her permission to write a sentence or two made all the difference. Sure, I knew that no one was going to grade me on my journal entries or judge me for writing a single sentence, yet I always felt compelled to write longer entries because they seemed more worthwhile. In my practice these past few weeks of writing shorter entries, it never occurred to me that rules of length don't exist for blog writing. If anything, people who blog generally post far shorter entries than I do. So now that I am learning to appreciate the small experiences, and now that I am learning to let myself write shorter pieces, and now that I'm committed this year to writing at least 15 minutes a night - it's a start - perhaps these posts will come more frequently. Perhaps these posts will be more enjoyable to read, too. I hope!