The Po Show

The NaNoWriMo That Wasn't

So much for grand aspirations. Even when I set UN-lofty goals for myself, sometimes I still come up short. I wrote on exactly one occasion, a few paltry paragraphs that did little to bring the piece towards anything resembling completion.

But that is perfectly okay :). I am absolutely fine with it. Because some things happened during November, things that make me not mind at all that I didn't write. These are good things; in a way, miraculous things.

I started walking regularly. Like, almost every week day. It may seem strange to have started walking as the weather took a major mercury nose-dive, but the reason it's so perfect is that it's mall walking. I know it sounds odd, to prefer going around and around in circles on the top floor of a mall before the stores are open to being outside in the nice fresh air, but I really do. Walking outside here (as opposed to hiking, which I do enjoy in a totally different way, but it takes a LOT more effort to drive to a place in which it's possible) means walking in the street, since there are no sidewalks in most parts of residential areas here (a thing I HATE). So you have to worry about dodging cars, and the "terrain" is littered with piles of leaves and trash cans and parked cars. The ground can be uneven and I sometimes have trouble getting a rhythm going. In a mall the ground is even and the only things to dodge are the elderly ladies who are basically the only ones there in the morning. The county health department set up a mall walking program (obviously with the seniors in mind) at the two malls here in town, both five minutes or less from my house. At the fancy mall, parking for members of the walking club is free till noon, so I can even shop a bit if I like after walking. Already I feel like I'm getting in much better shape, after only a month. I got some of those ugly toning Skechers, which surprised me by how much I like them.

And here's the real kicker: I'm walking with friends. There's a group of four "pick up moms" that I've known for awhile (meaning they also go to school to pick up their kids in the afternoon, as opposed to those whose kids ride the bus home), and I've been getting increasingly friendly with them. Now that we walk together almost every week day after we drop our kids off at school, and talk non-stop during the walking, we've crossed over from being friendly to being friends. We're even having a holiday party together on the Dec. 20, and there's talk of trying to go away on an overnight trip together. It's been a revelation, after six and a half years of not having a real, "everyday" friend here, to have people to talk to and laugh with and walk around with, in mall circles. They're all very different, but all wonderful women who understand the frustrations and joys of suburban motherhood. Two of them have special needs kids; one has a girl Tessa's age.

Struggling with loneliness and lack of friendship seems like a tween problem, so I didn't fully recognize how much I was suffering till now. It took a while to emerge, but I feel like I passed some threshold. You really can, at the ripe old age of 44, find someone to play with.