Thoughts on Motivation

Tonight, I had to get out of here. I have been working on this book for all the folks that went to Academy, and the program is making me want to pull my hair out. I sat, frustrated, at my computer all day, and lost all desire to go outside and be physical. I just wanted to drink a beer and watch a movie. Ugh. What an icky, stuck feeling.

Right now my support group is kind of scattered all over the globe, everyone is traveling, and sometimes, I discovered recently, you make your support group out of what you have available.

Today, for me, that meant me, myself and I. And the promise that I made to do the thing that is hardest for me.

My sister has decided to begin a yoga practice. This is challenging for her. She works 19 hour days and comes home and works on her laptop from bed. Having any energy for anything in her life is asking a lot. But she did it. Today. And yesterday, and the day before that. She did it today with a mouth full of novocane.

SO, I decided I'd better get my butt out the door. I drove, later than I wanted to, to the M trail, because while I've been truckin' around our neighborhood for the last two days and walking our big loop, its not enough to maintain muscle or improve my bootpacking skills.

Today, I really wanted to go to the ridge. I've asked myself to do it several times, and been up before, but today, I wanted to TURN my hike at the M into a hike that turns around at the ridge, and not before.

THIS was really tough. I had my Ipod. I had my rain shell. I was wearing pants instead of shorts just in case.

I had to have an ENORMOUS argument with myself at the place that I usually turn around, because I wanted to be done, I wanted it to be reward enough to get there. Which is silly, because I really like hiking, and I like hiking long distances. I am not SURE where this critical, nagging voice comes in that whispers "give up, its good enough" but I am going to do my best to cut it out of my psyche like a cancer.

I stopped at my old turn around, something I had said I wasn't going to do. I stopped again 15 feet or so above it, and 20 feet above that. And then, the Grateful Dead of all things, came on my IPod, and it was "Truckin'", and man... I just started marching up that thing finally, with no question of whether I was going to go to the top or not, I was just going.

And it was glorious. Sometimes, your support group can be a bunch of flowers in the setting sunlight at 8:30 at night in Montana.

When I got to the top, I turned around and looked at this place where I live, and it just filled me, like cold water into a huge vessel, and I felt happily sheepish for questioning whether I should go to the top or not.