Walking

I had been hospitalized in 2013 for a short time. It was a common malady that just got out of hand but it swelled my brain and the prognosis for my returning to normal was in question for a time. Scared the living daylights out of me because no one is ready to be incapacitated, physically. Some may even rather be dead than vegetative. Complications can sometimes run amuck.

Anyhow, I finished my stay and decided I needed to change my lifestyle as I was sixty-five at that time and retired, sort of. While I recovered I got to thinking about just walking. Problem was, with my brain recovering my balance was nothing to write home about. Nevertheless, I walked out the front door, stepped down off the porch and walked around the block, carefully, one step at a time. I must have looked like a drunken sailor as I tended to drift left, then right.

To this day I am still walking as often per week as I can which boils down to approximately four to five days per week. I am not walking around the block anymore, I am walking miles and that quickly. My weight is down to where it needs to stay and my humor has come back which is not often thought of but humor is a thing that allows a modicum of longevity, all things considered.

It’s been eleven years of walking now with an average of about three and three quarters miles per day at 3.3 mph. I am placing this here because of the happiness that comes with walking. It isn’t the exercise so much as the ability to sort and work through problems both old and new. A perspective of tranquility which allows one to gauge the importance of problems and put them in order of stress they cause. More, why you are allowing certain day to day nuisances to bother you at all.

It may just be me but walking on any kind of regular basis is cathartic. It is singular, alone for a time, and, if you allow it to be, a time to wind the heck down while allowing the mind to heal and body to rejuvenate. It works better than being on a psychiatrists couch and is only as expensive as the shoes you buy to walk in. Recommended.

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