On patience…

When I last journaled in this section, I had just walked .25 miles one day and .5 miles the next day, after not walking at all for 19 days. And I was determined to do better.

The very next day I was in Los Angeles, and instead of blowing off walking, I *hiked* in the Hollywood Hills, which really means walking up a steep dirt path. It’s not like hiking in the mountains, where you’re going up really steep slopes, and hopping over rocks, and it’s just you and the mountain. In LA hiking means a raked dirt path, with a set end point, and lots of other people, including tourists with cameras. In fact, I was able to do it in sandals! But it’s still uphill, and it’s still good exercise! And I went 1.5 miles total, which made me very happy!

Green BranchThe next three days I was tired, so I just did my regular .7 mile loop – but I did it. And that made six days in a row, which made me feel good, really good.

It was starting to feel normal to me to go out and walk each day.

Then I took eight days off. And I’m okay with that.

I really do believe that I can do whatever I set my mind to. But guess what? Sometimes life throws us a curve ball, and we have to adjust our expectations. I thought that now was the right time to throw myself into a self-improvement frenzy, but maybe I need to scale back a bit and instead think of it as gradual self-improvement. Nothing wrong with gradual. It still gets me where I want to go, eventually.

Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I giving up? No. I may not be able to go as fast as I wanted, but I still intend to do what I need to do. I’ll get there. I just need to accept where I am right now, keep plodding, and have a little patience.

And just for the record, I walked 1.1 miles today, and it felt good. Really good.

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