Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Better Than Perfect

As I sit here in the fitness center's parking lot, covered in sweat and nursing a very cranky baby, I am reminded that my grand plans for post-pregnancy fitness are very easily derailed. While I am so grateful that the fitness center has onsite childcare, and that they never balk at the fact that I take up 3 of the 10 childcare slots each time I work out, it is still a big let-down when I'm in the middle of a body sculpting class (trying to sculpt some muscle I didn't even know I had) and one of the trainers comes in to get me. Nothing brings a workout to a screeching halt like having someone tell you "your baby won't stop crying."

Still, while it is disappointing, I choose to celebrate what I did manage to accomplish: 30 minutes of hard exercise after getting 3 kids to the gym (with the kid-wrangling being the more challenging endeavor, of course). It's better than not going at all, right? I can't help but think that whoever said "Great is the enemy of the good" must have been trying to burn baby fat.

Or maybe they were talking about blogging. If you are subscribed here you may have noticed how infrequently I post. It is not that I don't write posts; I have at least 6 drafts of blog entries just waiting to see the light of day. The problem is that I haven't had time to fine-tune them to my standards. So they sit in my "draft" file with their less-than-perfect brothers and sisters, hoping to be set free.

But who ever said it all had to be perfect anyway? Perhaps blogging is like fitness in that you have to give yourself permission to be less than perfect. I may not be able to run a triathalon tomorrow, but I can move my body for at least a little while and maybe even work up a sweat. And, who knows, if I do a little more every day maybe I will be able to run a race again some day. And maybe, if I allow myself to have a few less-than-perfect blog entries I may actually allow myself to not only do the thing I love, but to do the thing I think I cannot do.

2 comments:

  1. I joked the first week I launched the food blog that it's a lot like birthing a baby. Takes soooo much time and attention and you get very little sleep. now 5 months into it... it's STILL like having a newborn! I got distracted by the tornadoes and my posting has gone down dramatically!! gotta fix that.

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  2. Boy, isn't that the truth, Tanya! At least you have a legitimate excuse. Thanks for visiting my blog.

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