Mercurial Retrograde
When I feel like I’m not moving forward, I start to slip into patterns of shortness of temper, restlessness, and generally foul moods. So, I have a list of things I must do to feel the push of the world against the soles of my feet. The list looks like this:
Buying undated planners
Buying dated planners
Buying guided journals
Buying unguided journals
Reading depressing non-fiction
Reading even more depressing fiction
Taking on way too much
Setting expectations for myself and others dangerously high
Not saying “no”
Always saying “yes”
Surprisingly enough, this does nothing to help my situation and I look, longingly for ways to get moving in a purposeful direction. Then I remember that golden rule I love to forget: The only way to get moving is to get moving. And this has looked different at different stages of my life, but at the moment it’s putting on the running shoes and meeting the asphalt and wooded trails a much less quick version of the person who ran the same roads not too long ago. It’s greeting a task I once was more than proficient at as an absolute novice. It means stopping. to. walk.
And, damn it, it’s working.
By revisiting running as a beginner I’m able to see with painful clarity just how much my aerobic fitness was waned thanks to a particularly hilly neighborhood, but I’m also catching glimpses of the runner I’ve sought to be (and at times actually was) over the years. When I fall into a comfortable pace and push it just a tad outside my comfort zone I feel the arm swing, leg turnover, and core stability of someone who knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t do it with the ease she’s come to expect, but it’s clear she’s traversing familiar terrain. That really helps to buoy faith in progress yet to be made and reinforces the value that moving forward is always the right action to take, even when the dividends don’t pay out for some time to come. As the planet keeps its steady rotation, I have been making the choice to meet it with my own movement and while it doesn’t feel as good as the promise of progress that comes along with a new, completely unneeded daily planner, it is a reminder to not confuse promise with persistence.
Even as I look back on times I felt as if I’d been moving backward, I’m able to see just how much ground gets covered when I commit to meeting myself where I am as opposed to where I think I ought to be.