New Year's 2010

I guess I am just like everyone else -- on December 31st, I walked into the closest gym I could find, and I took the end-of-the-year deal. A year's membership for $99! My dear friend Michelle told me to go for it. She said I had to do something for myself. My husband Scott told me that I was putting up roadblocks. I kept telling him I would join the gym when we got a parking space in the lot behind our building. I don't know when we will get that space, but I am not going to let my husband think that I am putting up roadblocks. I will achieve my goals!

What are my goals? My leg, the one I broke last January skiing, is not doing very well. I have one big juicy thigh muscle, but my right leg is emaciated, flabby, and frankly it looks like the leg of someone twice my age! I have a hard time with all the stairs I climb all day, starting with the three flights to get up to the elevated 1 train that starts my day. I race my son up the steps, but I am not building muscles this way. It feels more like I am running up the stairs on my bones -- my muscles aren't really involved. So I am looking to do some strength-training to build up those right thigh muscles. Calf muscles too!

January 1st I was at the gym from 7am until 750am. I walked there and back. It wasn't awful. I only slipped once. January 2nd I went back. I got there before 7am, and they wouldn't let me in until it turned 7am, and then I realized that there were twenty people behind me. Wow! One guy told me it's really crowded there on the weekends usually. I am going to start getting up earlier, because the gym is open 24-7 after this holiday weekend.

My goal is to get there four to five times a week. This is my time for me. I do a walking meditation over there and back. It is very calming. I studied walking meditation with Joseph Goldstein at Insight Meditation Society in Barre MA this past December, and he says it's all about noticing your feelings.

At 645am this morning there were snow flurries in the still-dark sky. I felt peaceful and proud. Thank you Scott! Thank you Michelle! Happy New Year Everyone! Happy New Decade! Every day is the first day of the rest of our lives.