My kayak..........my first athletic success, ever

The sun is coming out here in my little slice of the world. If you only look up you would believe it is spring. Look down you see the snow still on the ground. These little patches of dirty ice lumps remind me of patches of hair on a balding man attempting to comb over. It is not a pristine white blanket covering the landscape. But piles of dirty, created by plows and blowers at the height of the season. Between these piles in my yard is the matted brown soggy mess I can only hope will become grass.

As I look out there I dream of spring, not the season on the calendar, but the warming of the air and the disappearance of snow. I have never been an athletic person. I was always the last one chosen for any sport as a child. I could trip and fall on a piece of lint. I was afraid to try things, because I knew I couldn’t do it anyway. Right?

But I love the outdoors. I always have. I have always wanted to kayak. I am not into boating per se. I used to get sea sick just thinking about it. But kayaking always captured something inside me. A couple years ago my husband knowing I always wanted to do it went and bought me a kayak. It is just a used one, but I love it. I was so scared because now I had to try it, not just talk about “someday”. So I headed out for Auke Bay.

I have only gone on day paddles to date. I stick close to the coastline so I can’t get lost. And I make sure if I am going in the ocean I have a partner with me. I can do this. I love this. I do not need to be an athlete, hand eye coordination is not important. I just get in the water and go. And my kayak is incredibly stable. At first I was really afraid of tipping it. So I went to a lake nearby, I am not stupid enough to dump myself in the ocean; it is suck the air out of your lungs cold, here.

I really tried to dump myself. I rocked myself side to side. Until the last second when I would sit up straight because I chickened out, the lake wasn’t really warm either. But I learned something. I really couldn’t tip the kayak. I tried, I thought it would go over, even tho I sat up. But it didn’t. It was so much more stable than I gave it credit for. I found this wonderfully reassuring. I also found it empowering, because with a little common sense my kayak and I can tackle the water of southeast Alaska.

So how does any of this tie into losing weight or becoming healthy? I realized as I sat here in my sickbed dreaming about getting in my kayak and paddling away, that this was my first athletic success. It may have taken another year for me to start working on the daily incorporation of exercise. But this was the moment I realized that I can do it. Maybe not perfectly, I may never be able to go out there with hard core paddlers. But that is not the point.

The real point is not what others do, or how other people approach kayaking. The point is I enjoy what I do in my kayak. I am successful. I can get from point A to point B, maybe a little coarse correction from time to time, but that is what the rudder is for. I may only be able to paddle for 30 minutes without taking a rest. But who cares. I get there. And I feel so calm inside, so relaxed. With all my daily stress how can that not be an accomplishment?
My point? Getting healthy is about personal goals. Personal satisfaction. Not a comparison to where the Joneses are at. Where am I at? What have I accomplished? Is it easier this week than last? Is my breathing more rhythmic, instead of gasping after 5 minutes? The answer is yes, I am doing better each week. I would never be able to keep up with the spandex queens at the gym. But so what, I never liked spandex anyway. And at the end of the day I know I really have accomplished more than they ever have. I have gone from nothing to something, and I have done it for me not the crowd. What is the accomplishment? Creating something from nothing? Or a genetic blessing?