Keepin’ on

 

And a happy October to you!  Only three months remain of the year … three months to accomplish all we had planned for 2010.

As for me, I keep plugging way.

I keep working on things like getting in shape.  I’ve wandered here and there, strayed the course.  I’ve fallen off of and been run over by the bangwagon a few times.  But by george I keep going!

This includes walking three times a week.

I’m still not loving it.

And there’s a lot not to love.  I have to cut my morning routine short.  I have to get dressed before a shower.  Since falling through the deck, everything seems to hurt.  We also walk the concrete jungle–so once we emerge from the neighborhood, there’s not a whole lot of beauty.  There’s a spot that smells of decay nearly every day.  I kid you not.  One day it was so strong I nearly gagged.  Animals?  Bodies?  I don’t even want to know.  People stare as we walk  up and down the hill.  It’s unnerving.  We saw a hachet in the middle of the road one morning.  Disposing of evidence?  We’ll never know …

But I’ve come to discover, there’s a lot to love too.  The sun is one of my favorites.  It dances through a hilltop of grain as it comes up, making it appear as waves of gold.  We can’t actually see the sun, mind you,  for most of the walk.  It simply hovers below the foothills–until, suddenly, without warning, it bursts through the trees in a great flash of light!  The sun, I’ve discovered, is a playful sort.

There’s also the people.  People out in the mornings seem friendlier–must be all those endorphins.  There’s the woman who jogs by, manages a smile, and hufts “Good morning!”  … the little boy on crosswalk patrol who saw a car behind us–so he walked into the crosswalk with his stop sign to make sure we had room to pass.  One morning we saw an elderly gentleman, out walking his frisky terrier.  We stopped, said our hellos, gave the pup some pets.  And as we prepared to go our seperate ways, he said, “Happy Trails!”

It made me smile.

It also reminded me that yes, there are a lot of rough patches on this journey–a lot we just plain don’t like.  But there’s a lot of good too.  You just have to keep going.  When the road gets dark and disconcerting, you think maybe you should turn back, that’s the time you need to put on your brave face and trudge through–for if you do, it’s only a matter of time before the sun pokes through.

So to those of you trying to be in better health … those of you trying to kick a bad habit … those of you starting a new venture … those of who have faced a year of sadness and uncertainty … take heart, my friends, and …