It’s still January. The month-long ads and nagging from gyms, fitness gurus, diet plans are still going strong. Especially the diet plans. They thrive and do so well because figuring out how to get our bodies to do what we want is such a learning experience that often, it’s easier to follow the guidance of those who might know more than we do about our bodies.

In light of that, I occasionally go over the things I already know, as well as literature I’ve read previously (or is new on the subject) in the hopes of understanding where I am so I can get just a bit closer than where I want to be. Every morning, I grab a cup of coffee and dedicate just 15 minutes to read on that very subject. And this morning, while re-reading a book that helped me tremendously in getting to my current point, I had a light bulb moment.

Not about my current challenges, although the information helps. What I read helped me to understand why I bungled my next-biggest effort to date to lose weight and get control of my health. I’ve written about that effort in losing 140 pounds previously, how I hit a two-year plateau, and then finally just let it get in my head and I dived right back into old habits. That nosedive off the wagon resulted in a 100 pound gain in just one year, and more weight after that, until I started my current effort over eight years ago.

I’ve examined the headwork and what led me to nosedive in detail, but it wasn’t just all about my brain. At the time, I was trying to adapt and follow the then-current thoughts on controlling weight, and no matter how much I tinkered away, I couldn’t budge my weight any lower. Without going into the specifics of it, I reread a passage in a book (probably for at least the third time), and the scientific reasons for what happened finally soaked in. Eureka! smacks head I suppose I had to be ready to read that particular nugget since I had read it before and paid attention to other things.

If you’re like me and you’ve struggled with your weight for a good chunk of your adult life, it’s really hard to not see weight gain and loss as value judgments. So much of our society sees obesity as a character flaw, as laziness, as gluttony. We are often raised to think it ourselves, whether that message comes from a parent, a PE teacher telling you to move faster, the clothing store that only carries certain fashions in sizes smaller than you currently wear, the images of “ideal” body shapes that are modeled to us everywhere we look.

I had often thought of my failure, back then, as something I did wrong. Mind you, I did do things wrong when I made the choice to give in and give up. The difference in viewpoint, now, is that I also see the fault in the science I used at the time. I could have continued on that same path for years and I might never have really gotten any farther down the road than I got. That part of the equation never is, and never was, my fault. I see that, now. There were metabolic reasons that the information I relied on was incorrect.

While I can’t swear that what I do, now, is the answer — at least I have some clarity; I understand the mechanisms that drive my body much better than I did, then. I know enough that I am dedicated to continuous learning and understanding. While I have accepted the issues I faced back then, really understanding the faulty science of it has shown me that I need to stop looking at my inability to make that plan work as a value judgment of myself.

Being open to learning means finding new pathways to the results we want, but it’s vitally important to learn these things for ourselves.

This past Monday, hubby and I took a field trip. He had the day off; I took the day off, since I’m self-employed.

Originally, the plan was to walk the neighborhood. When hubby is home, he will do this with me, and we’ll spend time catching up or talking about whatever happens to come up. This time, I suggested we could get our walk in at a nearby state park. At the same time, we could scope out a couple of locations we have reservations for later in the year.

And that’s exactly what we did. We parked by one of the bathhouses as a central point and wandered around the campgrounds, the cabins, and other areas. We both got our steps in, despite a brisk wind neither of us had really thought about before driving to the lake, but it was a nice day otherwise and we didn’t let that stop us.

Hubby then mentioned that it wasn’t really that long ago when we camped at the same park and I had not been able to even walk to the closest bathhouse without pain. I often jumped in our vehicle and drove myself if I really needed to go. And there I was on Monday, covering the entirety of the campground without issues. I’ll also add that the first time I stayed in a cabin there, it was at the bottom of roughly 100 steps; I had to tote my stuff up and down those steps and it took forever (and a lot of heavy breathing). The steps are half-height, which helps, but back then, I still had to take rest breaks several times to make it up to the top.

I didn’t get from one point to the other overnight, obviously. It has taken years of sticking to it, adding or changing my routine when needed.

And yet, when I recently had to reassess my commitment to not only getting back to where I was in this journey, but to reaching the point I’ve been focused on, I had to face that my brain still wants to default to thoughts of all or nothing. Recognizing those thoughts helps me curb them, because all or nothing is a bad way to look at any journey, whether it’s weight loss, working on a project, improving skills, achieving the next level.

That thought process might go something like this: I’ve already eaten that bad thing today, so I might as well just eat all of the bad things and start over tomorrow. Or I don’t really feel like walking, today, so I’m just not gonna do any exercise at all.

Taking one day at a time doesn’t mean discounting the sections of that day. If I eat something that’s bad for me, then eating clean the rest of the day matters. After all, way back when I started this journey, I started with the fake it until you make it idea because I really just didn’t feel like wanting to make lifetime changes. I started in small increments, and 200+ pounds later, I should always remember that small increments matter. When I started walking, again, I started by simply walking around my backyard. Now, walking a few miles is no big deal, but believing that if I can’t get my goal of steps in means I shouldn’t bother walking at all, once again discounts the increments I used to get there in the first place.

You do what you can, when you can. That’s what makes a difference. All or nothing may be my default thought process, but it doesn’t have to take over everything else.

Until I am done backtracking my journey and heading in the direction I want, I’m all in, but not for nothing!

On one hand, I feel like I’ve backslid a lot in my journey. I’ve had a lot of fits and starts, lately, and then gone back to eating my feelings, when I swear at the core of me, I’m not an emotional eater. Yet, I do it.

On the other, I’m starting to see that there are still hurdles for me to jump in my mental processes. Looking back, I know what started the spiral. Knowing, understanding, and working toward resolving that issue will get me back where I was.

When I was a child, my father purposely made me feel guilty for things that had nothing to do with me. Things that went badly were my fault. He did it often enough that I just automatically started assuming responsibility and feeling bad about things that couldn’t possibly have been my responsibility. The few times I attempted to confront him on his own bad behavior, he made those things my fault, too.

As an adult, I’ve had to fight a tendency to feel guilt over things that have nothing to do with me. I thought I slew that dragon, but similar behavior from another person, accusing me of things I hadn’t done, cranked up that guilt. Worse, it was over how I have handled my mother’s estate, which (by law) must be completely above board, and has been. Despite knowing I’ve done everything right, that sense of guilt crept in — not just regarding obvious things, but those that aren’t.

Before this trigger, I had already second-guessed myself numerous times over my mother’s care. Did I do the right things at the right time? If I did, why did bad things happen? Logically, I know I did the best with the situation I had, but emotion has little to do with logic. And gaslighters know that. They know it’s not just about what they make your fault; it’s about how you internally punish yourself for perceived wrongdoings.

One of the most important accomplishments I’ve managed in my life is to reclaim my health; my physical health through losing weight, my mental health through understanding the mechanisms that make me want to punish myself by pushing away the world, insulating myself with weight. It’s a never-ending battle, but I’m battling.

Logically, I am okay. Mentally, I’m getting there, and this is just another process I will master. I am back in the saddle and I have my plans in place. When I realized just how much I was punishing myself for things that I couldn’t have possibly done or controlled, I have been working on releasing the baseless guilt — as well as releasing the one who intentionally caused it. Toxic relationships aren’t necessarily always easy to spot, especially when society thinks you should keep those relationships intact. And it’s totally okay to release that toxicity so it stops doing you harm.

It’s New Year’s Eve and a normal time for introspection, reviewing the past year, looking toward the future. And of course, weight loss gimmicks; I’m sure my social media newsfeeds will be filled with the normal glot of “diets” that inevitably fail.

Like so many others, I’ve had a tough year. There’s been good in it, of course; to completely dwell on the bad diminishes the good. From a personal standpoint, I reached my lowest weight, yet. I was able to travel. I turned 60 when I have a couple of people in my immediate family that barely reached that age. I have my health; I’ve been fully vaccinated and boosted, and I have (so far) remained Covid-free, as has my husband.

It’s also been a year of trials, starting with losing my mother, and the heartache and headache of dealing with her estate. It’s been a challenging year for work, for keeping my mental attitude in check. I’ve struggled somewhat and regained the weight I fought so hard to lose; while some up and down is expected, my gains exceeded what I would consider normal and allowable.

Looking forward, I am ready to leave this year and its trials behind me. I have goals and plans in place; rather than trying to change my life in drastic ways, I’m anticipating a return to the normal I’ve chosen over recent years. I am at my best when I am in control of my thoughts and emotions, my environment, my situation. When I lose control over any facet, I feel that on a deep level, and I want to correct the things that feel out of whack. That includes how good my body feels when I’m treating it properly, and the personal satisfaction I feel when I am doing my best.

I set daily goals rather than long-term resolutions. My goals are simple, really: when I wake up, I hope to spend the day in a way that matters. When I lay my head down to sleep, I want to feel comfort from that day well spent. What I now do are not changes, but rather, returns to habits I have invested myself in. I set my goals on the things I know will bring me peace, satisfaction, happiness.

I have no idea what’s in store for the year ahead, but I do know that if I am at my best, I can more easily meet the challenges ahead without losing myself to them. Knowing that gives me the strength to overcome the bad and the grace to enjoy the good. These are the things that take me home rather than changing to the unfamiliar, where I’m more likely to fail.

My wish for you in the coming year is that you may find the same things.

Today is Christmas Eve. I’m sure, like many of you, the holiday season is filled with memories. Many of them surrounding food, although in my home, we didn’t have a specific meal for Christmas Day.

No, we’d open gifts, and more likely than not, take off for whatever kid adventures were ahead of us. I used to love to join my friends on the lake across the street for ice skating. (Obviously, this isn’t an Arkansas memory! I grew up in northern Illinois.) We would skate, play hockey, torment each other, and if we needed something different to do, we’d grab our sleds and head to a friend’s house whose hilly backyard was great for whooshing down the hill… and right out onto the frozen slough. One year, a friend of mine actually tripped over a duck that had frozen into the water while she was skating.

What I remember about food, though, was coming home to thaw out. The house was built before the Civil War; the heat rose from an oil furnace in the basement through heat registers in the baseboards. I would sit next to the one in the kitchen to peel off snow-encrusted boots and socks, and pull off the layers of hat, sweaters, you name it. And while I warmed up the outside of me, I’d attempt to warm the inside with a mug of hot cocoa. That pic to the right? That’s me, probably with at least two layers of everything, including the mittens!

Those simple Christmases of my youth weren’t food-centered; they were about experiences. We would make Christmas cookies on occasion, but it was more about the doing than the cookies. There were no elaborate meals or family gatherings, since we had no family nearby, but I still remember them with fondness — even to the point of having to pull tinsel out of my brother’s pet tortoise, because he’d try to eat low-hanging tinsel off the Christmas tree.

There have been many Christmases that have gone by in the interim; caroling when I was in high school and college, meeting friends for movies on Christmas Day, getting stuck in a snowdrift trying to get home for Christmas from college the first year my husband and I were married. Or sending his parents and brother home from our house in the country, just a couple of hours after they arrived to spend Christmas with us, because we knew an ice storm was about to hit and they would have been snowed in with us. We went through a similar situation years later when our daughter was home to visit for Christmas, and we woke her and sent her back to her home because snowy weather was moving in overnight.

An aside… tomorrow, here in south Arkansas, the temps will reach record highs. We won’t be worried about snowy weather. 😉

Christmas is a personal experience. For some, it’s about baking and setting a holiday feast for the family. For others, it’s about shopping for the exact right gift. And while this Christmas, the first spent for both of us as the oldest generation in our families is somewhat flavored with missing those who have gone before us, it’s still about fond memories and warm reminiscing.

And about that food? We’ve figured out ways to make the holiday foods and beverages we love in ways that help us stay the course. We won’t be skating by, hoping the feast doesn’t devour us, instead.

May your holidays be bright, and be well, friends!

Just this morning, my daughter reminded me of an old story that seems appropriate for the season. And yes, I will find a teachable moment in this. 😉

A couple of decades ago, our family lived in the country, and we had an outside dog — a lab who would eat (or at least chew) anything. In fact, his name was Chewy; my daughter thought he was named for the Star Wars character. I knew he was named for the fact that when hubby and daughter brought him home without telling me we were getting a dog, he had to stay on the back porch for a bit, and he quickly chewed up the phone lines to the house while he was out there.

Jumping forward a few years, we usually fit in a visit to my inlaws around Christmas, and one of the traditional items they would give us was a giant, stacked Christmas Tree cookie. It was a fundraiser for their church’s youth group. Often, we’d break into the tree while we were at their house (and conveniently forget it there, oops!); truth be told, it tasted like sweetened mushy cardboard. It wasn’t nearly as festive as the tree pictured to the right; I think, probably in the name of speed and thrift, the youth group shortened the recipe by adding green food coloring, didn’t include icing, and probably used the cheapest ingredients available. In bulk.

For that reason, we asked them nicely to not get us one of those trees. We didn’t say it was because of the taste. But instead, every single season, we’d get one, anyway.

Finally, one year, one of us thought to just throw it out to the dog, since Christmas was at our house that year and we couldn’t “forget” it. After all, that dog would eat practically anything. He delighted in two-liter plastic bottles, especially, but he just chewed those up; he didn’t eat them. He once attacked a firework smoke bomb and chewed that (until we convinced him to drop it). And he was, as many labs are, a garbage disposal on legs. We could get rid of any number of leftovers by giving the remains to him. **

Well, apparently his limit was green youth group Christmas trees. Even after a couple of weeks, it lay completely untouched (and unchewed!), and we finally had to take a shovel and remove it. Trust me — a couple of weeks in rain, outside, did nothing to improve the looks or taste.

While I have, in my past, sometimes been a human version of Chewy, willing to eat just about anything and everything put in front of me, there’s one other thing in common: it’s okay to be picky. Especially during the holiday season.

Two of the mental tenets I conveniently forget when I’ve been eating too many of the wrong things: first, I already know what most things taste like and can imagine the taste without eating them. Sure, it’s rewarding to actually eat something that we’ve been longing for, but we long for it because we know it tastes good. And that means we already know what it tastes like. It’s a taste memory. In fact, sometimes when I can’t get my mind to settle down at night, I’ll imagine sitting down to a feast of foods I don’t normally eat. I’ll savor the imaginary taste of each bite, each sip, each nibble of dessert. I’ll imagine myself fully satisfied.

No, of course, it’s not the same thing as sitting down to a feast of your favorite foods. But once you’ve sated yourself after a big, indulgent meal, do you taste any of those foods anymore? Can you imagine savoring them, all over again?

Some might consider that self-torture. For me, it helps stave off cravings for certain foods, because I know that once consumed, the only thing that remains is the memory of them.

The other tenet is that some foods just aren’t worth the dietary expense paid for eating them. They’re the gawdawful green youth group Christmas Trees. They’re the mediocre fast foods we shove in our faces without even tasting them. They’re the shredded-carrot-orange-jello salad at the family potluck that you feel obligated to put on your plate, lest you be told you’re insulting a family member by not loving it. It’s the foods we don’t really like, but eat anyway, for whatever reason. In that regard, Chewy had lessons to teach. Don’t eat that nasty giant Christmas cookie if you don’t really like it!

Making dietary choices that result in a healthy body makes me choosy about what I want to eat. I also practice intermittent fasting, so I don’t feel tied to a clock that tells me when I should eat. If there’s not anything for me to eat at those typical times of day we all think about food, I don’t worry about it; I just let hunger pass until the next time I choose to eat.

The problems come when I forget those tenets, and let’s face it — it’s pretty typical to not want to remember such things during a time of year when feasting is pretty much expected. What, when, and how much I eat is my decision only.

** This was long before we knew some foods could be harmful to dogs. We know better, we do better. Much to our current dog’s disappointment, we don’t give dogs table scraps.

Once upon a time, I lost 140 pounds. That diet started in 2003, and I lost weight pretty quickly, doing the Atkins Diet faithfully. Most of the weight came off within a year, and then I hit a plateau a little over a year in. That plateau lasted two years — and then I gave up. Not that I was convinced I was giving up at the time; rather, I decided to try different things that didn’t frustrate me as much in hopes of breaking the plateau.

One of the big things I did, back then, was work out like crazy. I worked out so much that I eventually hurt myself, between walking 4-5 miles a day and also heavy weight lifting. I spent so much time a day working out that my quality of life went down rather than up; I was at the gym at ungodly hours of the morning, doing squats, skull crushers, deadlifts. At my peak, I had managed to squat more than my original starting weight of 338 pounds. All 5’2” of my late 40’s body was strong.

It felt really good to be that strong; it really did. Even though I weighed more then than I do currently, I could do just about anything I wanted, and fairly easily. I was focused on using exercise to get me the rest of the way to my weight loss goals, and because I was now an “athlete” (OMG I was not!), I decided I should eat more like one. I changed to carb cycling. I ate a lot of grilled chicken and green veggies. I tortured myself with workouts.

And I regained weight.

Eventually, because I hurt myself in numerous ways, including requiring arthroscopic surgery on a knee, I stopped exercising. But I kept eating like I was an athlete, so the weight came on. Telling myself that obviously it was a hopeless situation, I started eating what I wanted. I just started looking the other direction and avoiding the scales.

If you’ve been around for a bit or know me, personally, you know the rest: I regained every bit I’d lost, and then some, but that’s not the point of this post.

I used to exercise to be strong, to feel powerful, to lose weight. Muscle is metabolically active all the time; fat is not. So if I was burning calories because of all that muscle I built, it just seemed impossible that I’d gain weight instead of losing it.

Now, I know better, in a variety of ways. I am an avid walker, and my daily walks are just a little shorter than they were when I was pushing hard in my late 40’s. I don’t weight lift, but I’m putting together a plan for some upper body workouts in particular.

The reasons, though, are vastly different. For instance, I know, now, that you can’t exercise your way to “thin”. I don’t burn calories in hopes of increasing my caloric deficit, because that’s meaningless to me; I don’t count calories. I walk for cardio health. I walk because it also helps clear my mind. I have been planning on some light yoga and upper body workouts because I feel weak in some situations and want to address that.

That’s not to take anything away from those who chose to workout hard. I commend that. I felt great when I did it.

But for now, my focus is more on overall health, and that means getting my weight under control to a point that I see dividends in my health. There are more reasons than ever to push hard for getting my way of eating in check; most of all, because returning to where I was earlier this year is more important to me because my health is important the older I get. That includes lowering a ton of risk factors, including diabetes, heart disease, and yes, even Covid. (Article: The Coronavirus Attacks Fat Tissue, Scientists Find)

There is now particular interest in examining how Covid infects fat cells, and the more you have, the greater the risk. Fat cells are also a retaining area for hormones, which are the root of why we are obese, why we become insulin-resistant, and so much more.

That’s a gross simplification, but it bears repeating: remaining obese endangers my health and the time I have left on this earth. For that reason, I’m buckling down and doing what’s necessary to stay healthy and annoy people with more gusto and for longer periods of time. You’re not getting rid of me that easily!

You may have noticed that I’ve been absent for the last few weeks. In truth, I have been struggling and have let my dedication to meeting my health goals slide.

I’m writing now, though, to sort through this and make sense of it — not as much to you as to myself. As much as I write about sabotage, and as much as I have insisted, lately, that I have claimed to triumph over the issues that made me stumble, the truth is that I’ve let emotion make my decisions instead of logic.

The mass of learning I’ve done over the past eight years tells me that I’m at my best in all things when I have my eating in order. I’ve felt the effects of weight gain; it’s harder for me to walk the distances I once did, carrying weight I didn’t carry even just a few short months ago. My thinking isn’t as clear as it is when I am in control; I seriously am fuzzy and forgetful when I eat too many carbohydrates. I walk into rooms and forget why I entered, and while some of that is simply time working against all of us, the rest is the loss of clarity I gain when I kick sugar out of my life.

I don’t like having to wear bigger clothing. I don’t feel at all comfortable in myself. I feel awkward in my movements.

Those bad times that used to be my daily experiences come back, and I try to shove aside the reality of their return while enjoying stuffing my face. Because that’s what I’ve done far too much of, holiday season or not.

Yes, I’m mad and disappointed with myself, despite having enjoyed the foods I’ve eaten. I’ve been in this exact same place enough times to know that the metabolic issues that landed me in those dark days in the first place will be with me always, and I have taken a stand this week to do better. Already, I can feel clarity returning, and now that the fog is clearing, I know I need to rededicate myself to the fight before me.

The occasional treat isn’t bad. Not if you keep it in perspective and leave it at one. It’s the emotional tie to continuing those treats that creates the problem. That blooming feeling of I deserve this just once opens to what the heck, I’ve blown it for the day, so why not? followed by I’ll worry about it next week and enjoy it, now. Before you know it, that one treat becomes a month of vacillating between just once and it’s not fair that I’ll have to live the rest of my life like this. Because when you land in a pity party, it’s time for that Come To Jesus talk with yourself.

It’s not just about stop eating that. It’s about recognizing that there’s a trigger that sets me off. It’s about forcing the right mental attitude to deal with the trigger(s). It’s about remembering that what I’ve accomplished is far bigger than the taste of key lime pie, the anguish over wearing a larger size, and that I’ve already proven that I can do this. Until I can conquer the triggers, and have a plan in place for how to deal with them, I must dedicate myself to doing the things I know work for me.

That’s where I’m headed — forward — rather than stumbling into the potholes that left me giving up in the past. Every journey has potholes; it’s up to me not to drop into them and keep moving down the road.

When I am in the groove, I am strong. But inevitably, whether it’s vacation, a certain time of year, or stress, I will gain weight. That’s normal; we all do it, to a point.

But there’s a line best not crossed, and when I’m on the wrong side of that line, my mind lets in bad thoughts. I deal with two issues when I have gained enough to make my clothes tight or, as in my current case, up a size in clothing.

The first is body dysmorphia. When I am within a mentally acceptable weight range, I have a pretty accurate idea of my size. The mirror agrees with my mind. All is well, even if I’m pushing hard to move forward. And mind you, I remember being at this weight when I was passing through on the way down, and my mind was well on the way to accepting my changed body.

But when I pass out of a given weight range, those demons start whispering in my ear. I already know I’ve gained weight, but they try to convince me I’ve gained so much that I might as well give up. That I’m as big as I ever was, which realistically, I know is far from true. In part, that probably happens to me because I have regained so much weight, in the past, that I gave up and put on more than I ever lost to that point in time. I may be able to brag I’ve lost 70 pounds, but I regained 100 after that. I lost 140 pounds, only to gain 180. The echoes of those regressions can occasionally be heard.

It’s times like these that I have to remind myself that I need to cut myself a break. Dysmorphia, for me, is the result of an emotional response instead of an objective one. Objectively, I should be determining the issue, the reasons the issue occurred, and exploring ways to solve the issue. And usually, I can do that pretty well. I’ve long advocated for being a scientist on my own behalf, and as such, I should be analytical rather than reactive.

When I’m not, it’s a stage of losing control; reacting emotionally instead of analyzing. Left unchecked, it triggers the next stage: imposter syndrome.

If we’re looking through clear glass at someone else, we’re willing to cut them a break and see them as the beautiful beings they are, even if they’re not perfect. But if that glass is a mirror, all bets are off. I know I’m incredibly harsh with myself, and that deceptive demon whispers to me that I’m a fraud. That I have failed, and am failing. That those who never had faith in my ability to work hard enough to change my life were right, after all.

The imagined whispers of defeat take over when it’s my own brain bouncing that idea around, like lyrics to a song that you can’t get out of your head. The reactive emotion is to take to find comfort in food. To cry that it’s not fair that I have to keep fighting the same rounds of gain and loss that I always have.

Choosing that path — or allowing it to get out of hand — leads straight to actual failure. And I refuse to let that happen.

Most of us hope we can just go on a diet, drop the poundage we want, and go back to our old habits, as if making the effort to diet permanently fixes what got us there in the first place. For people like me, though, we can’t just diet. We have to make permanent changes. I accepted the truth of that long ago, and I know well enough what the consequences are when I choose to deviate from the norm for myself.

Today, I choose to ignore the constant thrum of old failures and accept where I am at this moment, as well as what it will take to achieve the results I want. Don’t give me your sympathy, please; I’m quite happy to have learned enough about myself to know when to put on the brakes and change direction.

Unlike times in the past, I won’t let everything I’ve fought for slip away.

I’ve spent the last few days taking care of a lot of my “some day” pile. Most of us have one; the things tucked away that you’ll tend to, well, sooner or later. (Or sometimes not at all.)

Mine included a receipt scanner I bought nearly two years ago with the intention of scanning everything I got for business. I also took out a humidifier I bought during the summer because the price was lower, then, but it’s just been sitting there in the box, because Arkansas summers are long and humid without help. I’ve moved around some lamps and gotten several lamps and appliances on smart plugs so I can be lazy and give them orders at my leisure. For the ultimate in cozy-lazy, I can now make both sides of the bed warm up on command so I don’t have to walk alllll the way down the hallway to physically turn on the controls.

This is just a little part of the various things I’ve been moving, storing, sorting, trashing, ordering, washing, folding, applying, and coordinating over the past few days. I’m more of a fall cleaner than a spring cleaner, but I’ve never been horribly good at doing things everyone else does.

On the one hand, constantly having a “some day” pile shows some hope for the future; we get these things in order to make our lives easier. On the other, letting things stagnate in that “some day” pile, at least to me, creates a dissonance. That addition to the pile is something we want, but for whatever reason, we’ve chosen not to take on the task right now.

I used to live my life in “some day” mode. I lived in dissonance and frustration. I had hopes for a better me, but I wasn’t willing to put in the work. I had, in truth, shelved my own needs and flogged myself for not working toward them.

It’s an easy enough thing to do. The big “some day” things are likely the ones we think of, first; the big vacation, retirement, or other shiny things in the future we hope for. Those aren’t the “some day” items I refer to; I see those more as bucket list items.

No, the “some day” things I speak of are the ones we push down the road to attend to at some other time. Maybe it’s a nuisance. Maybe it’s a lot of work that we don’t really want to commit to at this moment. Maybe it’s something that seems too much of an ask, so we simply don’t. Or maybe we feel we’re sure to fail, so we keep that “some day” hope alive while fearing, inside, it’ll never happen.

Some day, I won’t wear plus-size clothing. Some day, I’ll walk a mile and it won’t be any big deal. Some day, I’ll walk without a cane and not rely on anyone else to push me around in a wheelchair. Some day, I’ll get my music back. Some day, I’ll make it through the day and be proud of myself at the end of it instead of fearing for my health. Some day.

All of those have come to pass, but I spent years — no, decades — dreaming of those things, pushing them away because I thought they were impossible.

“Some day” can be today. Today can be the day to start taking action and stop kicking the can down the road. Today can be the day we chose to start a metamorphosis.

In that light, today is the day I chose to set my goals and start the process of achieving them, and I won’t stop until I’m proud.

What about you? Is today your “some day”?