The rays of the sun are just cresting over the bay. I listen as the seagulls screech overhead on their daily commute from the waterfront inland to what I can only assume must be a Walmart parking lot or a restaurant where the patrons toss them French fries. My sneakers pound the pavement. I walk quickly pausing occasionally to let my Aussie sniff at whatever draws her attention. I don’t quite speed walk because I find the wiggle of speed walking awkward but I do walk quickly. I am careful to keep my heart rate up. I make sure this qualifies as my cardio exercise for the day. I try to break a light sweat. Spring is headed into summer, humidity is high, and sweat comes easily even in the cool minutes just before sunrise. This morning I walk to recover from breast cancer.
I think about when I first started walking. It has been three months since I wrote “Today I walk” and the differences in my body are surprising. In those first days I only managed several blocks wearing flip flops. My chest and arm muscles were weak. I was forced to wrap my dog’s leash around my waist. I was at very real risk of injuring myself if she pulled on my upper body. Wrapping the leash this way made me embarrassed, and I often found myself wearing baggy jackets to cover the fact that the leash was wrapped around me in such an unusual way.
This morning as the sun peaks over the horizon reflecting gold on the waves of the bay, I am already a mile into my walk with a couple miles to go. It has taken me time to work up to this physical tolerance but now most mornings I walk these miles quickly and with relative ease. Determined to make progress after I wrote “Today I Walk”, each day I walked a little farther. First to the end of the alley, then to the bay, then several blocks along the bayfront. As my morning walk lengthened, I explored various routes through my historic neighborhood and settled on my current loop which takes me a solid nine to ten blocks before I even reach the walking path along the bay.
Sometime during the last month I gained the strength to hold my Aussie’s leash in my hands again. This was a milestone signaling a major improvement in my upper body strength, and one to be proud of, but like many milestones along the way I didn’t even really notice when it happened. One day I just said to myself, “Hey, I’m holding the leash again. Hell Yeah!”
By now this sunrise walk is a habit, one of the only habits I have successfully created during the chaos of my post cancer rebuild. I have tried to create other habits such as regular yoga and strength training sessions. So far I have not been successful. I hope to add three times weekly strength and yoga sessions to my routine and with dedication and whole bunch of luck maybe in two months I will be writing about my successes with establishing this healthy habit. Then again, in two months maybe I will be continuing to struggle to fit it in. Who knows.
I take this time in the morning to center myself, to think, to pray. Though some days I have to drag myself out of bed and force myself to put on my beat up sneakers, the moment I’m out the door feeling the cool air on my skin and smelling the salt air of a neighborhood on the edge of the bay, I am glad. Paradoxically, walking is one of the only things that helps with my fatigue. As long as I maintain this daily activity my fatigue rarely overwhelms me. Before I walked I struggled with fatigue almost daily.
The progress keeps happening, but it happens slowly. Day to day I don’t notice much of a difference. Week to week and certainly month to month the changes for the better are noticeable and keep me motivated. When I feel I am failing at everything else (and I feel this often), at least I have my daily walk to hold onto as a constant success. Unlike many of my short and long-term goals, this one is simple and straight forward. Just walk and walk every day. I can do that. Having a daily routine gives me a small sense of stability at a time when nothing feels stable. Making forward progress, even if it is as small as walking an extra block, feels like an achievement. This helps me hold on to hope which can be hard to do.
So I will keep walking and adding blocks one at a time. On this morning as the sun rises fully over the horizon I stare out over the water and hope creeps in. I wonder to myself if maybe someday I will be running again.
I would love to hear from you. Has having a routine helped you in your recovery? What daily routines keep you grounded or motivated?
