Shocking

“Hey Doug, guess what day Natalie is coming home.”

“What.”

“The 27th day of August.”

A pregnant pause, where I stared at him with a smile, wiggling my eyebrows with meaning. He didn’t even blink.

“Well what’s so special about that date?”

I choked. “Th… we got together on that day!”

“Oh. Oh crap.”

“And we will have been together two years!”

“I wasn’t even thinking about that.”

“OBVIOUSLY NOT!”

“Baby, you know I would have remembered on the day.”

“Mm. I’m gonna have to stop telling people that you have a good memory.”

Visualize the ball

You know how coaches often use visualization techniques to motivate their ath-a-letes? Well, as it turns out, there’s a reason for that.  The mind is often the only thing in the way of actualization.  It comes down to that famous saying: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

I’ve decided that much like a coach would motivate his team, I am going to motivate myself.  That is to say, the enthusiastic, excited and happy part of me is going to motivate the lazy, let things happen the way they’re happening, miserable part of me into non-existence. I’m going to work at being completely happy, dammit.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  Well, simple a concept as it may be, I don’t think it’ll be simple.  I think it will be challenging and a teeter-totter, depending on which side of me is winning.

Today, it is obviously the motivated side.  Tomorrow, it may very well be the depressed side.  But I’m going to fight it.  I know I can be happy, because I have been there.  I have been in that place where you feel the grains of sand and notice the exact shade of the dying day’s sky and you breathe in the fragrance of rain deeply and with complete appreciation for your life and everything around and in it.  I’ve been there.  I’ve been happy in my own skin and life.  I’ve even dragged other people into that place, people who have become the most wonderful versions of their happy selves.  And now, I want to go back.

First things first. Actualization via visualization! Hooray! I’m going to visualize the me that I want to be.

I’m talking about a woman who loves her work, and gets enjoyment and fulfillment out of it.  She doesn’t have a hard time waking up, because every day and week and month is different and exciting and filled with things she wants to do.  Whether accepting a nod for a job well done at work, taking a belly-dancing class, finally making it to Italy, working on the dress pattern she made, or polishing her toenails a beautiful coral, she enjoys herself.  She’s happy in her skin.

This woman laughs easily, and comes up with ideas for things to do all the time.  She likes hiking, and runs in the sand whenever she goes to the beach.  She remembers to call her friends on their birthdays, and has learned to trust Canada Post with cards again, so she no longer hoards them.

She writes, when she has time, and her novel is progressing.  She’s not sure whether it will sell or not, but she doesn’t really care, because she is writing this particular book first for her own enjoyment, and second because it is a story that needs to be told.  It wrenches at her, like a living thing, so she cannot stop writing it.  Even if it takes her ten years to finish this book, she will do it.  Because she loves it.

This woman also writes short stories, because they occur to her, and when they do they entertain her.  She likes reading them again, months or years after they were written.  It’s fun all over again when she forgets them.  She reads them to her kids, too.

This woman, although not spectacularly beautiful, seems spectacularly beautiful.  Because she is happy.  She radiates it from within, and spends very little time obsessing about herself; she sees it as a waste of precious, valuable time.  She understands how people, women especially, can easily spend their lives worrying and obsessing and constantly thinking about body image and appearance.  She even toed the line a few times. But she doesn’t worry about it.  She just throws on her sundress over her bikini, slips into her flip-flops, grabs her ridiculous, floppy hat and goes to the beach, slathered in sunscreen.  She swims and runs without worrying about her thighs and enjoys the lull of water.

This woman lives in a small community, not too far from her family.  She has pets, including a dog, and this dog likes to accompany her on her runs.  She runs because it keeps her feeling fit and healthy, but also because of the exhilirated breathless feeling that is her reward at the finish line.  She pushes herself because she knows that her body can surprise her mind, and she knows how easy it is to fall back into a routine of laziness and a rut of inactivity.  Part of the reason she feels happy is that she is fit, feels gorgeous, and instinctively eats better, to fuel her body.

Although this woman does experience stress, she can cope.  She uses her piano to bang out her frustration, plays guitar to temper her screaming, and runs when her crowding thoughts won’t leave her alone.  She allows herself to feel things, but she is not destroyed by anxiety or sadness.  She deals with it as best she can, then she moves on.  Because the sun is shining and there is nothing gained from panic and anxiety.   And she has somehow learned how to fight it back, and how to let it go.

This woman has a life list.  A list of about 15 things she would like to accomplish in her lifetime, before she kicks the bucket, so to speak.  This list is a series of dreams that she is making come true, one at a time.  Each time she ticks off something that is on this list, her heart lifts and she enjoys herself to the maximum.  They are extraordinary moments of her life, technicolour goals reached, ambitions realized.  She adds more, when she has realized them, because she enjoys the planning.

Today, I have the kernels of this woman.  But one day, that woman is going to be me. All the way down to the ridiculous, floppy hat.