Begin….

It’s the old “which came first the chicken or the egg ?” problem. What are the stopping and starting points of a circle?

I think the modern, science-minded world wants everyone to think linearly, mathematically, with every thought propped upon a proof or theorem. Let me say, I hated geometry. It made me think too much to prove what I thought was the right answer to begin with. I recall my teacher telling me he just couldn’t understand how I could get the right answer to the problem but miss the proofs and theorems. The bumblebee flies anyway, right?

I used to tell people I thought that time and the universe where not linear, but spherical. And, well I read somewhere that there exists some math that points in that direction. Because to me, traveling light exists where I see it now, but what I am seeing now, in my present, is actually as it existed in its past, and both of us concurrently can be viewed at this exact moment, by someone in the future. All of these exist within the sphere at the same time.

I understand its much more complicated than that. Isn’t everything?

My point is I think there’s truth in saying that the beginning and end, the curse and blessing, the faith and the math, the life and death, while seeming opposite, are all the same. In being born, we have already been assigned death, but through our children, we live on. Women who bear daughters are a perfect example of this… a woman carrying a daughter, also carries that daughters’ child within her, were both carried by the grandmother.

I say all of that to tell you about my own personal journey. It began before I was born. It began with my grandmother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother. I’ve stopped and started and back-tracked so many times that a linear path would be impossible to follow. But, if I tell you about it in all its bits, the same way I discovered it, then when you look at me and my life, it will be like a globe. A map of myself.

This journey to wellness must begin with a point of being unwell, right? I used to say the Matchbox 20 song “Unwell” was my theme song, probably a lot of people can relate to the lyric “I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell.” But, this post is not about unraveling the ball of yarn to find the knots. It’s about moving on and incorporating them into the design. Maybe later, as we gain one another’s trust, we can unravel the knots together.

But here’s where I am right now. I’m sitting in a fifth-wheel RV in California, where my husband took travel healthcare jobs. For years, at least 25, I prayed for the chance to stay at home and write. I didn’t imagine that the answer to that would be disability. But, as I look for the positive in my situation, I see that having two knees bone-on-bone, and a large ventral hernia that will need surgery, as well as fibromyalgia and a host of other issues, combined with many household and lawn chores being eliminated by living in the RV—voila! I am staying at home and writing!

The writing is not what the blog is about though, it’s about the journey to being well, to sever my unhealthy addictive relationship with food, and to share that struggle as well of how to exercise when you can barely walk 15 steps to the RV refrigerator without your knee giving way. If I can do it….you can do it! We can encourage one another.

I certainly achieved THE Covid-19. Well at least the Covid-15. Not the virus— the pounds accrued in boredom avoiding the virus. However, I started a diet 5 weeks ago and have lost 17 pounds. Would you like to go on this journey with me? I hope so. Please subscribe to the site, and follow me on Instagram @write-as-Raine.

Let’s Do this!