Baby Steps

Photo by mistybliss

Baby steps.  Such a tried and true concept, so universally appealing and applicable to so many concepts. Long distance hiking. Taking control of your finances.  Paying off debt.  Working through the files on your desk after a few days off.  Tackling a complex legal motion or brief. Organizing exhibits for trial.  Cleaning the kitchen.  Teaching your children all the little things that you hope will make them happy and productive and capable of mature relationships someday. Getting out of your own way.  These can all be accomplished with baby steps.  

I'm feeling worn down a bit today.  It was a crazily intense holiday weekend with family in town and so much to be done around the house. It has been a nice Christmas, don't get me wrong.  There are some facets of this holiday that I'm very very happy with.  But at the moment I"m wishing I could make a big sweeping motion to clear all the details out of the way.  I'm drowning in little notes to myself, envelopes that need to be opened and attended to.  Clients and children and parents and pets and friends that keep needing things.  And I love them all (well, not ALL of my clients) and I want to do right by everyone but I feel like all the baby steps in the world aren't quite enough to accomplish it all.

But who is setting that standard? Oh......I am.  I'm cornered by complexities. If I can focus, and discipline myself to tame them a bit, I know that it will FREE me. No, it will free US.  Because I am an US.  I am blessed with a husband who is willing to walk and stumble and run and fall and leap with me.  If we can tackle the stack of scary envelopes and obligations and grocery store ads etc. and turn them into a written budget with a debt snowball I KNOW that by reducing the scary complexity to a simple system that we control will equal FREEDOM from worrying that there is something I'm missing, something I forgot, something I am failing at so quietly I forgot to notice, or chose not to notice. 

I need a dayhike, at least a dayhike. We need the promise of a night in the woods before another entire season passes, even if it's cold.   We need to breath easy for a day with nothing more pressing on our minds but the next mile on the trail and the next water source to think about.  At least for a couple of hours.  It's a reset button, not a baby step but a massive sweeping wind that clears out the debris that isn't worth tripping over.  And then, the path will be ready  for our naked little baby feet all over again.