I took Sophie to the marsh this morning. I’d been struggling during the week: the “good” walk was always going to happen after I wrote some words, but the words kept not getting written and so the walk kept not being taken. (Don’t you love the passive voice there? I kept not writing the words, and not taking the walk; that’s the real story.)

I would say that I don’t really know what’s wrong with me, but I’m pretty sure that’s a lie. This week is a sad-iversary for me, and sad-iversaries are hard. I thought deliberately distracting myself with a trip to Florida during the earlier sad-iversary week would be helpful and maybe it was? But it didn’t do anything toward taking the sad away. Sometimes the only way out is through.

And sometimes the only way through is to push oneself to take good walks, even when feeling disinclined, and to push oneself to eat lots of vegetables, even when feeling disinclined, and to try really hard to get plenty of sleep. I’m not disinclined for that latter, I’m just not very good at it.

But it also helps to pause and appreciate beautiful things.

I didn’t want to go on a walk; it definitely felt like something I was doing because it was good for me, not because I felt like getting out of bed. But I was glad I did.