The first thing I thought of upon awakening this morning,
Day One of "The Year I Regain My Fitness," was that I needed to
exercise, and for that, I patted myself on the back. Mentally. I was too tired
to actually move and pat myself on the back. It was New Year's Day and I hadn't
had enough sleep.
I was so happy that I had remembered, without prompting, the
fact that I now have as a daily goal: "Exercise"!
Too often "Exercise" has been on my To-Do list and
ignored. After all, I am busy. And I am not in the habit of exercising. I KNOW
I should exercise, which is why I put it on my To-Do list.
I often write To-Do lists of "Important Things to
Remember to Do" and, once dutifully recorded, the itemized goals become
conveniently forgotten and discarded, as do refrigerated leftovers I don't have
time to eat because there is always a new recipe I want to try. These great ideas
always, at the time I have them, seem so vital to my everlasting happiness and indispensible
to my inevitable success.
I carefully clear my calendar to make room for them,
terrific activities, such as "visit the Louvre (learn French first),"
"knit a 100% cotton Irish cable-knit sweater (learn to knit first),"
"join the adult swim team at the YMCA (buy a bathing suit that fits and
doesn't make me look flat-chested first)," "write an iPhone app to
remind myself to floss daily (learn the latest iPhone app programming language
first)," "create a Mary Magdalene stained glass window for the living
room (sign up for the stained glass workshop at the local high school and re-read
The New Testament first)," "run a 5K for charity every weekend to meet
two goals at once: get in shape and save the world (buy decent running shoes and
workout clothes that fit first)," etc. It is nauseating to think that so
many of my wonderful ideas have gone the way of my household's plant population,
dead from neglect (why, oh, why do they always need water!).
To have remembered today that I want to exercise daily is,
for me, a major accomplishment of which I am proud. I hope that I am on a roll,
that I will remember every day when I wake up, that I want to exercise TODAY!