Baby Steps

It's happening again - the month is moving faster than the speed of intention. How am I going to get things done around here when my life is in fast-forward?

Hours long and tedious at work, writing twice a week here (even more outside this box), and family stresses ... well, easing, I think, so that's good: one more week for one, a lifetime of success (if bad habits are broken indeed) for another, and (finally, I hope) my acceptance that I cannot change the other no matter how badly I want to. I have sketched out some designs (bedroom closet and kitchen everything), shopped for tools and appliances (to price compare), measured spaces (for hunting), and dreamed (a lot), but I don't feel as if I've really done anything toward this new goal.

Impatient much? Me?

I'm not good at small steps - nothing I do is ever small. Two years ago, I weighed over 230 pounds, and ballooned up to 248 before I finally went to Weight Watchers that April. This morning I weighed 169. And this after I gained 10 pounds in 10 days during the holiday season and then dropped back down (even a bit below where I'd been). It took every ounce of control I possess. It took focus and determination. It took emptying the house of Cheeze-Its and Haagen Daz. It took only eight days. Why does this seem so much harder?

Maybe the trouble is that baby steps are just too small for my size 9 1/2 feet. I remember when my daughter was born - every time I picked her up to nurse I was terrified that I'd break her (or smother her - everything is oversized on me). Losing weight, for me, occurs mostly in a series of stalls and plummets. No "one healthy pound per week," as per The Book, oh, no - my weight chart looks like a 747 flying through a thunderstorm feels: uuuuup and dooooowwwwwn and uuuuuup and doooooooooowwwwwwwwwnnnnnnn ...

Would it be a bad thing if I do the same thing here? Simply take a week and give it my all until a room is finished? Then another and another and ... Okay, so I'd end up in physical therapy for six weeks after each binge, but who cares? I can use the vacation, right?

Argh, wrong, wrong, wrong! For once in my life, I must do this the logical way, the reasonable way, the smart way - I can't afford to lose work or exercise time or anything else a hospital stay will give me. Bit by bit, inch by inch, room by room, I will paint shabby walls, and I will install slidey things under the stove for the pans, and I will hang drapery rods (with drapes on them this time), and I will router-out new molding for the living room and door frames for the cabinet-reface. My feet are just the right size for a single step - I need to learn to take those steps, at my own pace, that's all.

Oh, yeah, and to ask for help when I need it.

I can do that.

And I just did.