I was taking my morning walk yesterday and as I was trotting along on the Munter trail across the street from Clarkson University, I noticed two woman about a quarter of the way down the trail. One was standing and leaning against a tree and the other one was trying to motivate her friend to keep walking.

I finished the 3 mile loop in about 45 minutes and as I was looping back around, I saw the same two women in the same spot. This time, the woman who was leaning against the tree was now sitting on a nearby tree stump and her friend was trying to be patient with her, but obviously wanted to keep moving and finish their walk. I could see that she was slightly embarrassed that I had already completed my walk and they were still debating and had really only gotten to the main entrance of the trail.

I had another water bottle in my nap sack so I pulled it out and tossed it to the gal sitting. She seemed very appreciative. I then offered to sit with her while her friend went and finished her walk. She looked nervous at first, but then she took me up on it & so for the next 40 minutes, “Tree Stump Sitter” and I shared stories. We talked about crafting blogs and flowers we both liked. We discussed whether we thought Justin Bieber was going to make a good husband or not and other mindless chit chat. You see, it wasn’t so long ago, I was that woman sitting on her very own tree stump.

Dehydrated, overweight, plagued by physical ailments, and trying to combat severe nerve, muscle and bone pain. I was weak from a lifetime of injuries with absolutely NO fitness or health routine in my life to speak of. My eating habits were atrocious and I felt like my body was constantly failing me at every turn.

I had been living with not one, but several “invisible illnesses” at the time. When I say that term, I am referring to things that affect your physical or mental health that are not apparently obvious to others by simply looking at you. For a more complete list of “invisible illnesses” or so you can see if you or someone you know or love might have one, I have listed this website below to read up a little more on what some invisible illnesses that might fall in to that category are. It is not a complete list, but a generalized one to start from.

https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/invisible/

In addition to these “invisible illnesses”, I was also recovering from a severe motor vehicle crash I had been in several years prior that took numerous surgeries and procedures spread out of the course of the next 5 years to recover from. This combination really limited my ability to live independently and I was no longer able to drive when I lived in San Diego, mainly for health reasons, toward the end of my stay there.

I could barely walk up the stairs to my apartment building. My dear friend Frances would pick me up about once a week and we’d go grocery shopping but I was still a borderline disaster even on small trips and outings like that. She would offer to go on walks with me around our neighborhood (much like the two women I saw on my walk yesterday), but we never made it more than a few hundred feet before turning around. Eventually I started having groceries delivered to my apartment and it meant I didn’t need to leave the house for very much.

Then I moved home to New York in 2013. It was hands down, the best decision I’ve ever made. I was probably the sickest I had ever been in my life when I moved home and I slept for approximately the next 6 months. Waking up only long enough to eat, occasionally shower, go to the bathroom, maybe read a magazine and go back to sleep again. I “hibernated” and it was exactly what my body needed to do.

By the beginning of that summer, my Mom and I tried to do our daily walks together. I could barely walk a half mile before I would often need to sit down and have to have her go get the car and come pick me up wherever I was on our route. Over time, I slowly built up my endurance. By the end of the summer, I could walk about a mile without stopping. Then at the end of 2014, I began my struggles with rejecting my pacemaker and forming life threatening blood clots in my heart vessels.

That period of challenge is my life lasted almost a full year at that time. At the end of that year, my body decided that it was time for it to unload all of that extra fluid that it had been carrying around and I all the sudden started to dump all this excess water weight. I suddenly felt lighter and like I could breath better. I felt as if I had more stamina and more strength in my body overall. My heart and lungs were working properly for the first time since I was a young child.

I had taken such a long road to get there and finally, I was seeing these small improvements happen right before my eyes. The the amount of walking I was able to do every day increased dramatically. I eventually got up to where I was at least getting my 10,000 steps in everyday (which is a little over 4 miles for someone with my stride) and many days I’d walk between 6-7 miles (more like 14,000 steps) with ease. I felt encouraged, strong, healthy, accomplished, and like I could really see the progress in my body and cardiovascular health. I had made huge strides physically over the last couple years and that made me very happy and proud.

I wanted to say to the gal sitting on the rock yesterday, “You’ll get there. Don’t give up. It’s so much easier if you just keep trying. This is not the “sweet spot” yet, but it’s coming and it’s WORTH IT!!

I am GRATEFUL, THANKFUL AND BLESSED for the body I have. I’m thankful for it’s never ending ability to change and grow and bounce back. I’m also thankful for how it always does it’s best to support me through this wild journey I called life! I have been trying to treat it right and it has been repaying me significantly in return. I hope maybe our “Tree Stump Sitter” will give the trail another go and keep moving forward. We all deserve to live our best lives! It’s what the GOOD STUFF is all about.

#liveyourbestlife

#gratefulthankfulandblessed