Baby Steps

Today, I started a new baby step in this journey to be healthier. I got up at 5:30, drive 15 minutes and walked a half mile.

To most, that probably sounds like no big deal. Nothing to be excited about. But it is for me.

You know what I'm usually doing at 5:30 am? I'm getting ready to go back to sleep because I've been awake since 3 am. I stay awake until my husband wakes up, talk to him a few minutes and go back to sleep till 8:30.

Getting up by alarm taps into some of my anxiety. It's not terrible, but I don't sleep well. I'm awake every 30 minutes, fearful I'm going to oversleep. Then when I am trying to go back to sleep, the amount of time I have left to sleep is on my mind. A routine would help that.

It takes me all of five minutes to get ready when there's no shower, no make up and only a ponytail involved. Not that it takes me long to get ready anyway.

In the past several years, I've only been on the roads before sunrise a couple of times that weren't for travel. There's a lot of life going on at 5:45 am. There were runners, walkers, deer and other wildlife meandering about.

Besides a few words with my husband in the morning, I don't usually talk to anyone until 5 pm. It was completely different to talk to other people before the sun came up. Not just talk, but be encouraged. The ladies were there for the same reason as me, but they had such a huge part in starting my day off completely different. Positive and encouraging.

I didn't walk that far. It was .62 miles to be exact. I'm happy with that. I have to start somewhere. Not to make excuses, but I had two things working against me. One is a broken toe. It happened a month ago, but is still swollen and gets painful. The other is that I'm completely out of shape. Before I got sick last year, I was walking up to two miles a day. Once I recovered, it was winter and I went straight into Bells Palsy, which brought on periods of terrible vertigo. I'm thankful to be on the other side of most of that.

I'm hoping to double my distance tomorrow and continue to make increases.

Of course I feel like a nap is going to be necessary. Not because of the little walk, but because I barely slept 4 hours. But this day has been good. It started well and I feel good about that.