Foundations

Patiently walking every day is not something that comes naturally to my people!

The goal of man is to live forever, but my grandmother’s generation lived into their nineties and my mother died at fifty eight.  My nephew had his first heart attack at 31.

We are passionate people, more apt to walk twenty miles on one day than one for twenty days.  In love with each other we also love our vices too.  The ones who smoke, or drink are as yoked to their habits as the ones who work seventy-hour weeks are yoked to theirs. 

I was weaned on over doing it.  Sick people are supposed to tie rags around their heads and surge forward.  Tired people work until they drop from exhaustion.  Happy people are those who are miserable because they are doing all the “right” things.

Ours is a close-knit family.  Moving away from the center is as difficult as pulling apart two industrial strength magnets, but it has been done.  Some of us have been struggling all our lives.   Torn between love and common sense, we desperately seek the middle ground; often with the same passion our dear ones seek the higher one.

Distilling the fine points of living can sometimes backfire and the casualties lie along the side of the road, sad reminders of what doesn’t work. 

Changing the habits of a lifetime sometimes requires digging out the basement and building a new foundation.  Without that I will find myself walking twenty miles on one day and none on all the rest.