Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Seasons of Change

For my first post of the just-arrived summer season, I want to reflect on the season that passed. In only three short months, life has become different and, I would say, better.

Weight, fat hopefully, continues to be shed from my body. I have weighed in at 165.5 at my lowest, and under 160 seems possible as a summer goal.

My diet continues to become refined and stable. I eat lots more protein than before. In fact, I am a little concerned that I eat too many eggs and too much steak. This concern and my positive curiosity about how healthy I actually am has made me want to schedule a doctor’s visit. How’s that for a change?

Related to diet, I am cooking more often, which has somehow translated into my doing dishes more too. My wife certainly appreciates both of these. We seem to be happier together, not that we have ever been unhappy together.

Life this spring has not been all smiles and progress. Plus, we have some serious work to do in my household in terms of saving money, making home improvements, working on being good parents and not just nice parents, and so on.

All in all, however, this spring has been a re-birth for me. I noticed this morning that neither my back nor my neck was stiff or sore. How often before had I felt that one or the other was going to “break” and put me in pain and out of commission? Certainly, some things about me are new now, new again.

Summer is the time when that which is new blooms fully and reaches its highest potential. This season I will be looking to have the processes and progress in my life mature to an unprecedented extent. I have never really taken care of myself for longer than three months, so this season will be the test and the confirmation of who I really am and who I really want to be.