Proform Crosswalk 425

Yesterday, while in the middle of the workout that's become a five-day-per-week habit for me, I realized that I'm on metaphorical treadmill.

It's not exactly a secret that I feel, in many way, like I'm standing still, and it's mainly due to the uncertainty over Mr. Milkweed's job. That uncertainty has been with us for so many years now that I've almost gotten used to it, but as I begin yet another year at a job of my own in which I began to feel burned out almost three years ago-- even though I'm only part time there now-- impatience is catching up with me. It's especially prevalent with resumes winging their way to 96 different high school principals. That's another fishing line in the water, but we won't know for a month or more if anything's going to bite.

While it's difficult to know that, for now, goals of moving and moving on and growing a family and figuring out new directions for stale careers are still on the back-burner, that's no excuse for getting mired down.

The problem is exactly what I've read for so many years in Sharon Salzberg and Pema Chodron and the other Buddhist philosophers and thinkers I admire so much: monkey mind. I have total monkey mind, and it exists entirely in a forest known as THE FUTURE when I should be focusing on the RIGHT NOW.

Really, without getting all woo woo about it (gotta guard against the woo woo), aren't your days better when you can focus on one task after another, right in front of you, and feel satisfaction in that? Isn't that preferable to dicking around online doing a whole lot of pointless searching and constantly logging in to your husband's te*achers-teach*ers.com profile to see if any new jobs have been posted in the last five minutes? Isn't that better than spending way too much time on Google Maps looking at neighborhoods in towns where you'd love to live, but have no reason to research? Isn't that better than taking even small steps towards starting big projects because this year, this year, we might move? It's so exhausting to keep dancing with a thousand possible futures every day. I need to just sit down in the kitchen and eat a sandwich.

Shoving aside the fact that it's cliche, this whole treadmill metaphor thing could get all kinds of scary, but the fact of the matter is this: our family is where it is for the foreseeable future. We're stationary. But if I just focus on my surroundings, there's still a lot I can accomplish right here. A day, week, month, lifetime can still have flow to it, even if it's caused by a wave machine.

That's why I'm deciding to get the hell out of the basement already. If I'm on a treadmill, it's going to be on one of those ridiculous aerobics platforms balanced on the edge of the Pacific. It's going to have dual fans, a drink platform, speakers for my I-Pod, and a vaguely European computerized voice telling me how hot I look.

The weather around me will be warm (but not too warm), I'll be in head to toe Athleta, and despite the fact that I'm working out, I'll be having an impossibly good hair day. There will be short, tan cabana boys to give me a fresh towel whenever I ask for one, and every so often a dolphin will rise and fall in a gentle arc over the ocean waves. Speaking of short and tan, maybe I'll even have Oompa-Loompas entertain me. Any workout could do with a passel of Oompa Loopas bringing it live to "Single Ladies."

What I'm saying is this: it's time for me to pick it all up and get to going nowhere, and go nowhere in style. If I'm going to be standing still, I might as well be moving forward.