To be 9 again

Yesterday, as I sat trying to explain to Nick exactly what it means to lose your voice, it occurred to me that somehow along the way I have lost my words. Not those that you vocalize, but rather those that you write. Somehow I seem to lean towards posting food pictures, recipes and food things, but very little about my thoughts! I think this may be contributing to my feelings of having food rule my world of late. I have never had a closet eating or emotional eating problem. My weight is the result of untreated and undiagnosed PCOS, and my son’s weight the result of severe texture issues from Autism. Food has never really held an extra special place in my life- it simply is. What you buy and eat is more a move of economics than emotion. Lately it is beginning to feel like I am either prepping food, cooking food, cleaning up after food, shopping for food writing about food, taking pictures of food or planning for food- with homeschooling taking up any free time left between those tasks ! Can we say rut in the making ?? ( and it seems Nick is still sick this morning , so it is going to be a long week.)

While these thought were running in my head, I had this serious urge to be 9 years old once again. That wonderful time in a girl’s life before hormones take over and fill our heads with thoughts of boys- how to get one and how to keep one- as well as worries about appearance, status and all that jazz. It is a time when you have passed the needfulness of infancy, have a certain degree of life smarts and all you want to do is play. A good day meant running with friends, playing on the swings, catching fireflies (it was summer) and so on. Life was movement, simply for the joy of movement. No thoughts about calories burned or heart rate or beating any time records. You moved because it felt good and you stopped when you go tired. Bliss ! Things are perhaps different now, but when I was a kid we were on the go from sunrise till sunset almost. You got up, ate breakfast, dashed off to school, played at recess, came home for a quick snack and then you were out running till the street lights came on. Then home for dinner, homework, bath and bed. Then you get older, responsibilities enter, time becomes short and people start telling you about things like calorie burn, heart rate and other such joy killers. Moving because you loved life becomes a mathematically judged event. Unless it is involving an increase in your personal finances, numbers have rarely been linked to joy.

There is something powerful in this attitude. Instead of moving because you need to reach a number, why not move for joy ? Instead of telling yourself you must exercise for ++ minutes, why not say " I get to be 9 years old for the next 30 minutes"? During that time, move in any way that gives you joy . Because of the pollen count outside I decided to do exactly this indoors, and it was fun ! I started by doing wall push ups- asking myself how many of them could I do before I got tired( turns out 53 is the current number) and several waist twists, silly dancing and other such things. Being 9 for 30 minutes sounds a lot more fun than exercise. It all comes down to a matter of attitude after all.

I am going to gift myself with a half hour of being 9 every day this week. I don't care what it does or does not do to the scale. I am focusing on just reclaming the joy that youth held. Want to join me ? TAG...your IT !!!!