Storybook Moments
It sounds like a snippet of a book I would have read years ago:
She sighed knowing that even for a Sunday, she was sleeping in. Her opening eyes came to focus on the artwork - HER artwork - hanging on the wall. Finally...a real smile to start the day.
Groggy but peaceful, she shuffled past the barking dog and the kids fighting over the pink lego. Her husband would be able to take care of that, just for this morning.
The treadmill lay out before her and she could almost see the finish ribbon tied just beyond it. Twenty minutes. Run fast, walk, run fast, walk. That was all she planned to do this morning. She knew that attempting this on an empty stomach - something she wanted to get used to if she was going to be disciplined about her food intake - would be challenge enough. Twenty minutes later, the high that flooded her body replaced any thoughts of food.
Once upstairs, the colorful bits almost found their own way into the blender - the strawberries, the banana, the soy milk (soy milk?!), the protein powder, the spinach! Ah, the spinach. The resulting green goop was unpleasant looking to say the least, but the taste upon her tongue was refreshing to her body and her mind.
As she stretched out on the floor, moving into a forward bend and connecting to her breath, the exhale escaped as a sigh. Kids, finally working together on a lego village, dog settled quietly into his bed, sunlight streaming in through the windows. In front of her, almost as a reward if she reached forward far enough in her stretch, was a new library book, "Enlightenment for Dummies".
Smiling, she knew the answers weren't in that book.
How - how is it possible that anyone lives like that?
Certainly not me. I always eat the second I wake up - otherwise, I'm a furious, exhausted bitch-force. I have 1 - 2 bowls of cereal for breakfast, not something that looks like it belongs in a science lab and will sprout mushrooms at any point. I sleep in on Sundays and revel in having a "day off".
And yet...
She is me. That was my morning.
I do not know how I got here. I do know there wasn't 10 steps or any one book or program that caused it. I do not know how long it will last.
But I do know how the story me feels and the "real" me feels. Story me...who is emerging through real me...feels awesome. And THAT - THAT - is what it is about. How I want to feel.
This moment-by-moment living -- making decisions on whether to pay the extra money to hang my artwork, whether to head to the treadmill or the laptop, whether to spend time making the healthier food or just pour the cereal -- it is all that matters.
It is not wrong no matter what decision I choose. "I am enough" regardless. I know this.
Every single second I make a decision that leads me closer to how I want to feel or further from it. (Momentary pleasure excluded here - I'm referencing the things that make me feel peaceful, balanced, ALIVE deeply - not the "donut" thrills that fade quickly away.) And if those decisions lead to another decision that further makes me feel alive...well, you can only imagine the domino effect.
I have said it before and will say it again:
How we do one thing is how we do all things.
So on Sunday morning or Monday morning, whether surrounded by fortune or loss, legos or paperwork, in pain or good health, the mindful decisions you make matter. The way you want to feel and how you act upon that matters. The way in which you sort your laundry determines the type of life you will have. You are writing your own story.
My early morning bitch-force and my early morning peaceful existence are both just as real. It is up to me which I choose.
Click away from this blog. Continue with your day. Carry with you, riding softly on your breath, the reminder...
This Moment Matters.