Healthy is as healthy does

I didn’t want to run tonight. I took longer than I thought I would on a work errand, officially squashing my original intention for the evening. Then I got home and dawdled, dawdled, dawdled on the brink of talking myself out of a run. I was burning daylight and realized, okay, at least a walk. I have some plot issues to work out. Walking is always good for putting the head together.

But the head was persistent in feeling lazy. I got to the point of running and decided that I’ve caught this stupid bug that seems to be floating around my apartment. So I dropped a tenth of a mile until I got pissed. I don’t want to be sick. I was walking okay. I could at least run that hill and then walk. But I kept running and running and by the end I was lifting my knees higher than I have in a long time.

But let me backtrack. I was pissed about the idea of getting sick. Not because there are carriers of germs in my apartment. Because I know I was reckless enough in the past three days to make my body a worthy nest for a virus. I didn’t run. I ate without as much attention as I do during the week. I drank a little more wine. And I went to bed a lot later. So if I got sick… it would be my own damn fault.

Care of one’s health is a pretty hot topic these days, isn’t it? I think about it lots. Not just so I can chime in and put comments on my friends’ political posts. Because it really unnerves me that it is even an issue. That we have to think about whether or not we want someone to get well and LIVE. Why is that not a no brainer? Why do we have to debate whether it is a privilege for someone to have access to a doctor? It bothers me. It makes my soul sick.

But I digress with my hyperbole. Back to my point. We can’t agree on health care for other people. But maybe, maybe we can all think selfishly for a few minutes and think about health for ourselves. Me. Myself. I. No one wants to be sick. No one wants to feel like crap. And yet… we constantly make ourselves sick and let ourselves feel like crap. Tonight I felt like crap when I headed out on my run. If I stayed home and ended up on the couch I would still feel like crap. And whether or not I had really caught the bug in the apartment, I would probably have convinced myself I had. By running, I pushed my body to make my head realize I probably ate too little protein at lunch and just needed to get started. Because I’m going to be honest, I have been making myself sick for years and years. Years of not running. Years of eating whatever I felt was justified by my emotional swings. Years of not sleeping enough. Or drinking like a teenager. I haven’t done a very good job of administering health care to myself.

But I believe that health is a right. Not a privilege. It is my right, but also my responsibility to myself. To my world. To my family. To my society. So they don’t have to repair the mistakes I’ve made. I am taking ownership by making myself go out and run. I have pretty much eliminated red meat and significantly reduced all other meat from my diet. I know that’s just a start… but I am determined to care for my health on the front end and not wait until I get to the back end of things.

None of us should wait for Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh to tell us how to take care of ourselves. Now. Right this minute. We can all contribute to the solution of this horrible mess of a system by making these tiny little changes to our lives. We can help fix the health care system by fixing our own health. Prevention. The government can’t tell us to do that. They shouldn’t have to.

There was some liberal from a blue state leftish dynasty who said ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. This is it. If you don’t want to take a stand for health care, then just take a stand for you. Be selfish. Just don’t be lazy. Don’t do nothing. Because frankly, if you aren’t part of this solution, you ARE the problem.

I don’t always want to run. I really drag my heels most of the time. But it is always worth it. Especially when it means I get to see the sunset.