no day but today

There comes a point when one's apathy finally reaches its zenith (or nadir) and starts to make trouble. You have a decision to make: continue to ignore, procrastinate, make excuses, and sloth around in it, or you have to decide to get off your but and make some changes.

I've had a lot of time to think and ponder lately, and here's what I have come around to regarding the overwhelm of all the things that I wish I could do better: Start somewhere. Do one thing. Then do another thing.

Since the end of last week, I have started applying this "Start Somewhere" idea in small ways that have actually spurred me on to try MORE small things. Some examples:

• Do a yoga or pilates DVD 3 times per week. Guess what? That's not that hard to do. It feels good. It doesn't take that long. It makes it easier to think about starting running again, because I feel less stiff and tired. Already! After just one week.
  
• Recommit to eating veg. I have faltered on this for a while now, and confess that even yesterday I sat with a turkey-sandwich-of-desperation and realized that meat just doesn't even taste that good to me anymore. Not worth it.
  
• Pray. Like, for real. Not just "thanks for these delicious vegetarian dumplings". I used to pray a lot, I think, and naturally. Lately I have had to stop and think and remind myself and be deliberate. Which is fine. But I have to DO it. Baby steps.
  
• Find ways to live in ways that are more consistent with my heart values. This is a tricky one. Let's look at it in more detail.

Ok, so for a long time, I've told myself that I really need to hedge my bets against this whole "let's try NOT to get a terrible disease and die before retirement" proclivity in my family. You know, things like avoiding known carcinogens, getting lots of exercise, eating close-to-the-source. We know HOW to do this, roughly, so I should, you know, do it. So that's part of it. But I also want to tread more lightly on the earth, and avoid the laziness and apathy that actually contribute directly and indirectly to major HARM. (See vegetarian note above).

So, I've been working on ways to make decisions about what I buy and what I eat and what I slather on my face to try to make some headway in this 3-pronged mantra: Don't Die Young, Don't Kill the Earth, Don't Kill Animals.

Tall order, for sure. But buying different stuff is a start. I am the first to admit that I am sort of obsessed with pretty products. I need products to keep my hair shiny and soft and manageable. I need stuff to keep my problem skin from acting all zitty. I need stuff to clean, moisturize, and protect my cancer-prone cells from the meannasties of UVA and UVB. How am I supposed to do all that, and prevent wrinkles, without sulphates, PABA, and parabens?

Start somewhere.

About a month ago, I announce to Yale that I was going to start upgrading our bath products as they run out with natural stuff without nasty junk in them. You know, so we are not rubbing known neurotoxins into our faces and bodies.

It costs more. I worried that my hair would suffer. But I'm happy to tell you that my "Yes to Cucumbers" shampoo and conditioner are superfab, and my hair is actually quite soft and pretty shiny (especially since I only wash it every other day now). The whole bottle (even the cap) is recyclable. I don't miss the weird frothy frosting look of my fancy body wash that I discovered was draining tiny plastic particles into our water source so that I could have a "moisturizing scrub". The minty-fresh and phalate-free Whole Foods body wash works quite well, thank you very much. My new 99.6% organic face soap does not promise to erase fine lines, but I guess I'd like to live long enough to earn and enjoy my wrinkles.

And now, bolstered on by those happy discoveries, I am working on what I'm sure will be a painful process of giving up on products linked to animal testing. This one is NOT easy to do. Try to find a deodorant that works, for example. But Auggie Doggie has brought so much joy and fun and happy silliness into our lives, it makes me literally nauseous to know that his brief foray as a stray just as easily could have ended up with him being tortured in product labs. Our Auggie. Or anyone else's Bo, Bootsie, Frankie, or Maud.

Anyway, these are just some things I've been thinking about. Working on not dying any time soon, and not killing things while I am at it. There are plenty of great blogs devoted to this very topic, so I won't belabor mine with this as a focus, but maybe I'll keep you posted from time to time. I haven't used my mostly natural face wash yet. I'm definitely on pins and needles about that one.