Get on your mountain

Life hacks for the weak and contrary

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GET ON THAT MOUNTAIN

Someone recently said to me “It’s easy for you to exercise. I’m not like you.” I wanted to reply: “Stop making me your excuse for giving up.” I let it go, but here’s the truth…

My story is not pretty. I have degenerative joint and muscle disease and I thought I would be disabled by age 40. I decided I didn’t want that outcome and so I challenged the narrative and got to work.

Maybe that looks easy to other people. Maybe I should have a T-shirt made that explains things… so that people who are facing their own mountains can’t use me as an excuse to stop climbing.

At any rate, I recently bought my first pair of court shoes in years (I gave my last pair away to my daughter years ago when I thought I’d played my last) and I stepped on the court again.

I’m not amazing. My body doesn’t go exactly where my mind thinks it should. But lateral movement is easy again and I’m getting stronger. I can run a 5k in a respectable time years after my doc told me my running days were through. I’m not in constant debilitating pain anymore.

It’s not supposed to be like this. I’m supposed to accept decline, take meds, watch other people have the victories. But instead, I’m healing.

I don’t know what it’s worth to you to have some function back in your body. And I don’t know what your excuses are. But that it will be difficult shouldn’t be one of them. And your perception of someone else’s victories shouldn’t be either.

It’s worth fighting for. My full story is here but I’m living new chapters every day. Thanks be to God.

(Great shoes, by the way. Zero drop wide toe box minimalists from Xero Shoes.)

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What it looks like to change everything

My husband wanted to go on a 5-mile walk last night and I wanted to do just one. He negotiated to 3 and then we had a free throw contest (paper into a garbage can) in which I did better than he expected. He agreed to walk 2 miles. While walking, he cleverly led me into discussing a topic he knows I will happily chatter about for hours... and we walked 4 miles.

I hope he always uses his super powers for good.

If you have a big goal, you’re going to have to change a few things around in order to achieve it. You’re going to have to interfere with yourself and with your old ways. If you don’t, your hours will fill up with many worthy things… but not the things which will bring you to the goal you discerned to achieve.

If possible, find people who will push you a little further than your comfort zone. Not rudely but with clarity and perhaps a bit of creativity. There is great need for such a skill applied with love.

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A Contrarian in Walmart

Speaking of a need for a little panache and creative effort when navigating the hills of life…

I don’t enjoy shopping at Walmart and so I always bring my camera and stay open minded about the experience. What will I see today and who will I meet?

G.K. Chesterton famously said:

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”

All right then… I now shop at Walmart as an adventure seeker and I take photos of experiences in the wilds. I once saw a heavily inebriated bride and groom still in their finery but looking ragged. The bride’s train was dragging along the floor and they were buying bathing suits and pajama... perhaps a last minute honeymoon discernment? Trips aren’t always that exciting (and I did not photograph them) but in addition to Chris’s penchant for dancing in the aisles to amuse me, here are a couple recent finds…

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The birthday cake flavored Magical Easter Unicorn can be yours for only $4.98 at Walmart!

I said “Oh gross” out loud and the man standing next to me chimed in…

I bought one like that at the drug store and couldn’t eat the whole thing. It wasn’t like real food.

We stood for a moment gazing in silence upon the shelves, bonding in mutual disgust. Then he picked up the selfie bunny on the left and walked away. I hope this experience is better for him.

The week before, I stumbled onto another find…

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ConAgra briefly considered branding it “How to Kill Your Family Slowly” or “Bring Back Mistakes From the 80’s”… but the marketing execs decided to go with FRUITY PEBBLES. Nobody really knows what that means but it was obviously brilliant since all bottles sold but this one.

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Discoveries like those often help me sharpen my contrary spirit and my desire to eat well and stay out from under the influence of marketing geniuses. I simply refuse to give my health over to such people, not even for a chocolate selfie bunny.

I don’t like being manipulated. If anything, these encounters push me back to the produce section where a cauliflower doesn’t need to wear red dye #40 to sell itself. You have to already really want to buy a cauliflower to put one in your cart on purpose. So there is a plus side to my sharper edges… as long as they stay mediated by virtue. Which is to say, there is sometimes a plus side, but not always.

The fact that I like to exercise does fall under this aspect of my personality. I don’t always want to get off the couch, but I almost always want to do something that someone tells me I shouldn’t or can’t do. So I set goals, imagine internal competitions, or issue random challenges to my family members. At the same time, I work on bringing those natural tendencies into line with who I am called to in Jesus Christ…

For Your glory, Jesus. To become more like You, in union with You, guided by You, strengthened by You. Any effort for myself will die on the vine… be my life breath and the Love which compels me. Amen.

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