Dear Reader:

I don't know if it is being a single parent, or being a parent, or being a professional academic, or being a musician, or being a teacher, or having the equivalent of at least one and a half or two jobs, or being lazy, or being old, or being human, or being all of the above, but I find myself more TIRED at the end of every day than DIRT.   I don't know if dirt really gets tired, y'all, but for the purposes of this analogy, let's assume that having feet trample over you ceaselessly day-in and day-out makes that dirt feel so, so tired.   Anyway, my weariness of body and spirit has been reaching epic proportions lately.   Of course, in the dim recesses of my memory, I have a vague recollection of being somewhat more tired when my children were infants, but I feel like that's not a fair comparison.   That was clearly a short-term fever of sleep deprivation that was much like walking around in a hallucinatory state.  That was a really chilling Stanley Kubrick film-like sense of tiredness.  This is not that, obviously.  

However, when I think of how much laundry, how many lunches, how many kindergarten forms,  how much homework I supervise, how many times I check the next day's professional obligations on my google calendar, how many dinners, how many dance classes, how many church choir rehearsals, how many weekend activities, how many after-school student babysitters, how many granola bars need to be stashed for bus pick up snacks, how many sight words I need to cut out and tape to index cards, how many pieces of piano music I need to select for students, how many meetings and reviews I need to schedule, how many budgets I need to maintain, how many oil changes and tire rotations and doctor's appointments and mammograms I need to schedule, how many power-point presentations I am behind on in my Great Works in Context Class, how many scholarly articles I am currently not writing for the reasons listed above, how much TV I am not watching, how many books I am not reading for fun, how not clean my house is, well, I feel somewhat.......TIRED.  OVERWHELMED.  FULL of FUTILITY.   IN NEED OF A COMFORTING HUG.

And, then,

I return to that feeling when I walked out of my office after a last minute lesson cancellation and sat down in the grass beside my building and looked up at the clouds in the sky and the lovely cool breeze making the branches sway above me and the sunlight warming up a circle about twice my size so that I was surrounded in golden light.    And, I think of how my favorite time of day is ALWAYS when I am reading a story to each of my two children right before bed -  tonight's favorite was "The Snail and the Whale" by Julia Donaldson:

And the whale and the snail
Told their wonderful tale
Of shimmering ice and coral caves,
And shooting stars and enormous waves,
And of how the snail, so small and frail,
With her looping, curling, silvery trail,
Saved the life of the humpback whale.

Then the humpback whale
Held out his tail
And on crawled snail after snail after snail.
And they sang to the sea as they all set sail
On the tail of the gray-blue humpback whale.

And, I think to myself - "Self, if that little snail can save the life of that humpback whale, you can make your way through this tiredness to moments of grace and timelessness, despite being tired or stressed or worried or heartbroken or whatever.  You can leave a "looping, curling, silvery trail" too!" And, also, look at this:

I have never had a picture of myself that makes me as happy as this one.  LOOK AT IT, dear reader.  Come on.  THAT IS MY LIFE.   HOLY COW.  I AM LUCKY.  OK, I am taking the caps lock off now.  

So, anyway, back from my moment of intense gratitude (sorry about that, everyone.  It was necessary)...  I found this fledgling website this morning on the inter webs which I think will be a source of inspiration to me.   Here it is:

http://wycwyc.com

You guys,  the title of of this is "What you Can, When you Can:  Because Life Does Not Start Tomorrow."   It is a wellness/fitness/nutrition site.   I feel like I want to marry this site.  No kidding.  The latest blog post on this site discusses the toxic nature of perfectionism and how it derails wellness journeys.   Yeah.  Me.  That's me.  You know, I have known for a long time that I am a perfectionist.  I have developed ways of coping with this affliction that have really helped me in my professional life.   HOWEVER, and this is a BIG HOWEVER, I think I have only recently begun to realize how much this perfectionism is crippling me in my personal life.   Particularly, in my efforts to lose weight and adopt healthy habits.    I don't know why, but it just didn't seem pertinent to that part of my life.  Until now.   And, when I read about the "all or nothing" attitude that many of the women that post on this site struggle with in their wellness journeys, I recognize - with great clarity - myself.   Wow.  Just Wow.   Now, the question is, how do I transfer the coping techniques that I have developing in other parts of my life into this part of my life.   It's in the title, I think.  "Do What You Can, When You Can."    Some days I will feel like walking 4 miles and be energized through the process.   Some days I will feel like walking from my bed to the coffee maker is the most I can do.   Que sera, sera.   Don't let the coffee maker days get in the way of the 4 mile days.   Accept where you are at.  Make conscious choices.  Continue to be in the present moment, not in the past of failed intentions, not in the future of imagined behavioral cycles.   All we've got is NOW.  NOW.  NOW.  

OK, I'm getting intense again.   Shocking, isn't it?   If you are long-time reader of this blog, you are probably not at all surprised by my drama queen tone here.  

So, I'm going to ponder this all in my heart.    And, I'm going to start posting food pics again - maybe not every meal, but...

Lunch.  I left about 1/3 third of the sandwich on the plate.   Also, I love pickles.  Especially dill pickles.   Yum.

Tomorrow's healthy choices will include:

A morning walk/run on the Salt Trail.    A breakfast with egg, toast, and WW cream cheese (2 pts. per tablespoon - yummy).   Lunch in the office - yogurt, grapes, granola bar, apple.  Dinner on the way to the school PTA event - book fair - SALAD at the campus restaurant.   Maybe, I'll order more pickles. NO POINTS on WW!!  Green smoothie at home.   E-mail physical trainer and set up an appointment for next week's strength training session.   Schedule my mammogram.   Spend at least one half hour reading something for fun.   Get to bed by 10:30pm.  

OK, you heard it here, dear reader.   More at the end of the week.   Maybe another weigh in?

Thanks for reading.