Cookies or a Camino? Pizza or a pilgrimage?

Last time I wrote about this, I had two weeks till I turn 55. Now I have less than one week. Hmm. Guess it's gonna happen whether or not I'm prepared, eh?

Writing this blog now seems more risky than I ever dreamed. When I traveled in Australia in 2001 and sent back email dispatches about my adventures, I got a lot of feedback, much of it immediate and much of it positive. Maybe it was because the stories came directly into people's inboxes? Perhaps now the idea of clicking on a link is like doing one more errand in a busy day? Perhaps, as I always dreaded, my words have become mediocre and dull. Maybe Blogger's comment function is too obscure. (Click on the link below a posting which says, mostly, "0 Comments" and let me know you're reading.)

Anyway, the beginning of my Thousand Things list is simple (and most difficult): To arrange my life and my habits to allow me to have a prayer of setting other goals and perhaps even reaching them.

Therese Borchard of Beyond Blue at BeliefNet inspired me with her post "My goal in life? To finish."

Her post refers to resisting suicidal thoughts and all the elements that she has to line up to make that happen. Her life is way more complex than mine, and, thanks be, my depression symptoms are much less severe (right now) than hers.

But the similarities are obvious to me. If I skip a meal, eat too much of the wrong foods or don't get enough exercise, the results are immediate and pervasive, and they don't go away for days. First there's the bitchy blood-sugar-out-of-kilter loss of temper and lack of perspective, and not so much later there's the food obsession, like how-about-a-trip-to-the-ice-cream-shop -- on the coldest day of the year -- after which the cycle repeats. Which results in being unable to relate civilly to people around me (much less with the warmth I would like), get any meaningful tasks completed (computer Scrabble for hours? No problem!) or set any goals at all.

But let's say one of my Thousand Things list items is to walk on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route in France and Spain. Diabetes screws up your feet. So the short-hand is I can either have the first scoop of raw cookie dough and the first cream puff at the office holiday party -- which lead pretty reliably to the above cycle -- or I can go on the Camino. Stark choices. (Thanks to Ernie N. in our Ukiah office for this image. He said, of his own blood sugar challenges, "I can either have dessert, or I can have feet." He's dropped about 60 pounds.)

I refuse to let this become one of the plethora of navel-gazing blogs, however much they help the writers and the readers. I won't be listing my caloric intake and exercise logs or recording my night-time dreams. But I will post once more about this before my Big 55, then I plan to revisit these issues about once a quarter. I hope someone is reading.