Trying

Yesterday, as part of my plan to get back into regular physical activity, I went to my health club for the first time in well over a year.  They have a really nice lap pool, and I determined that I need to be swimming right now.  I figured that as a start, I just try to swim as many lengths as I could, since I've had trouble getting into the Zen of swimming of late, and see if I could find some joy in it.  I figured I'd do maybe twice up and back.  Instead, I did 10 lengths and felt pretty good -- a lot of stretching helped, and I didn't push to swim without stopping, and I believe I did find some meditative joy.

That was the good part of the experience.  The rest of it was incredibly difficult and led to my feeling as though as hard as I am trying to take better care of myself and do the things that are right for my body and spirit, the world right now is a very difficult place to be.

First, there was parking on the sixth floor of the garage and walking down six flights of stairs, which I did because the elevator was all the way on the other side of the garage and is kind of slow.  Then, there was the fact that though my Reefs had just about fit my very wide foot when I arrived at the pool, somehow during the swim my right foot had swollen and wouldn't fit all the way in, so my heel was hanging out at the back.  This made walking kind of awkward, but the real problem was in the shower -- I keep my shoes on there as the mats etc. that they use for drainage hurt my feet -- they don't hurt normal weight people, but my body pressed the soles down into the bumps more.  And balancing on the edge of one shoe while trying to shower was not fun.  In fact, it felt like a core workout!

Then there is getting dressed.  I hate getting dressed in locker rooms, not so much out of modesty, but because it's hard to get dry.  And my Green Mountain buddies will know what I mean when I say that trying to insert one's damp body into a sports bra requires contortions fit for Barnum and Bailey.  My arms are short and my torso is wide, so I can't reach back very far.  Oy.

And then, when I got to the elevator, already exhausted, I discovered that the one up to the sixth floor was out of order, so I would have to go to five and walk up the rest of the way.  This felt like the last straw.

I try to keep a positive attitude in life.  And I try not to feel as though the universe is out to get me, since most of the time I feel that it treats me with incredible care and generosity.  But yesterday, all I felt was that it was trying -- trying my patience, trying my good attitude, and trying to make it harder for me to do what I need to do.  I felt like crying.

But I dragged myself up the stairs between 5 and 6 and dragged myself home, where Carol and I brainstormed about how I could alleviate some of the obstacles I had encountered. 

Today is another day, and I will try again.

A hui hou.