Energetic Old Ladies

I want to be like the ladies I saw on a nature walk last Friday.  We went on a "Blue Moon" walk through the prairie.  As we gathered in a group, I just wanted to sit down and go home. It was the first day I started walking with Leslie again, and I didn't know if I could do a mile or so more.  I leaned against my husband's shoulder and sighed deeply, envious of these spry women who were there, seeming as chipper as could be, and they were at least twenty years older than me. 

I know the path is to keep up the exercise and not let things like moving, work, school, and weddings derail me.  They are all great excuses, and with my fibro, they do take a lot out of me.  The problem is that once I stop to rest, I don't get restarted for a year or two.  When we moved two years ago, it was a very emotional move away from most of my children and all my grandchildren, as well as being physically very trying.  One of my sons was actually moving away in the opposite direction at the same time, and that was very hard.  It took all I had just to cope, and somehow I lost my exercise habit along the way.

Believe it or not, two years later we moved again before I started up again.  This time it was just a cross-town move, but still very challenging.  My house is not fully unpacked yet, but I keep poking away at it.  I'm kind of embarrassed to ask my friend over, because she's kind of a neat freak and highly energetic, but I think she knows me well enough to be understanding of why I haven't gotten further.  I think she got hers all done in a weekend.

Anyway, I figure we move every two years or so, so I might as well not let it get in the way anymore. Just start working out, and keep it up for life so I can walk spryly through the prairie at 70, not just dragging through the field like I am now.  I did complete the walk because I didn't want to let my husband down, and I enjoyed parts of it.

In fact, parts of it were magical.  I felt like a teenager at camp again, walking through the dark on the way to campfire, holding hands with a boy I've just met, and all the possibilities of the world opening up to me.  Looking up at the clouds (the Blue Moon was hiding from us) and enjoying the trees, the breeze through the wildflowers, the very noisy insects (once the very noisy children quieted down) and the occasional train passing by.  For some reason I love trains.  The sound of a train whistle is comforting to me.  And the "boy I've just met" is my husband of 32 years, and that's a comfort too.  But sometimes we need magic and I found a bit of it that night out there on the prairie.