Week 6: Walk 20 minutes at least 3 times this week.
Barry
Good morning. I woke up early today and ate my breakfast of Adams peanut butter on whole wheat toast and strawberries. From the recycling bin I heard my empty jar of Jif sobbing, and my heart sank a little with every bite. I washed that down with a cup of black Starbucks coffee and went for my twenty minute walk. This all took place between 5:45 am and 6:45 am. Sounds like an episode of 24. Anyway. The walk was great, and I got to thinking about how days are passing by and how every day is a gift. Maybe that’s why it’s called the present? I’m thirty-seven days into the Fit School program and I truly feel great. The best I’ve felt in years. Now that may not be saying much if you knew my back story, but I’ll just say I’ve learned that when you’re feeling good you should acknowledge it and the people, places, and things that are helping you enjoy that feeling. Thanks, Carol, for giving me this opportunity. If I know my sister, she’ll read that last statement and be thinking, “You’re the one doing it, Barry.” But I wouldn’t be doing it without you, so take the compliment, Guru, and remember at all times that I love you. Barb, I love you, and without you, well, I think people would be saying, “Hey, what’s that thing over there that has the form of a human, but the shape of a train wreck?” Now if I know my sister Barb, she’s thinking, “That is so untrue” - but that’s the way I see it. You’re my glue a lot of the time, Barb, and I guess that means you’re stuck with me, and for that I’m grateful. And then there’s Luke. I told you that I would tell you the reason why I count the days he’s been on this earth. I was working in Atlantic City in spring of 08, and I was telling a co-worker how I thought it was funny how some mothers and some fathers counted the months of their baby’s lives. At that time, we were going in for prenatal checkups, and I would ask mothers how old their newborns were. Do you know what I mean? If you ask a mother how old her toddler is, she might say seventeen months or whatever it may be. This co-worker, Tommy R., looks at me and says, “If I could go back with my son, I would count every day, because Barry, one day he was born and then I turned my back and he was getting on the school bus. Then I turned around for what seemed a second, and I looked over my shoulder and he was backing my car down the driveway with his driver license in his wallet. I bent down to tie my shoe and when I looked up, he was graduating from high school. I blinked and he was getting married. I wiped tears of joys from eyes, and then he was holding my granddaughter. Count every day, Barry.” Best advice I have ever gotten. Thanks, Tommy. It’s true. I can tell you what day it was when Luke smiled at me for the first time and when he said his first word - which was Dada, by the way. What day it was when he took his first steps, and when he pee peed in the potty for the first time. And the truth of the matter is, yeah, I’m getting in shape and eating healthy for myself, but also so that I can enjoy all the good stuff Tommy was talking about that comes later in life. Man, I should write for Hallmark.
I hope everybody out there has a great day and counts their blessings.
Later,
Barry J.
