New Year’s Day, late morning, my daughter fills a water bottle from kitchen sink. Workout clothes, her hair in a ponytail, “I’m going to get a workout in,” she tells me. “I’m doing Seventy-Five Hard,” she shares on. “Have you ever heard of it?”
“I believe I have.”
“It’s seventy-five days when you do two workouts a day, eat healthy and drink lots of water,” she speaks as quick synopsis.
“You can’t have any sugar,” she tells, and I wonder about her, and my, chocolate chip pancake—and donut after Sunday mass—fixes. “Did you know sugar can be as addictive as drugs?”
I’d never thought of it, but knowing I can’t pass my grandfather’s peanut M&M tray without taking a handful—no matter the number of times I walk by—I can believe it.
She tells me more, how she intends to walk in the mornings for her first workout—forty-five minutes, she says—and that her second will be sports practices after school.
She holds to her intent. She workouts out.
In the evening, her second workout is volleyball with her tournament team up north.
When she returns, I am preparing for bed.
She is still excited for her resolution, or regimen—I’m not sure what she’d call it. She tells me a little more—how the intent is personal improvement and another piece, beyond health, is to make time to read for fifteen minutes a day.
This one makes me happy. I believe we all need time in our minds, to be in our own thoughts, separated from distractions and diversions that dull and deaden our own acuity and self-awareness. For me, and I hope for her, reading is a good beginning to attaining settle in a silence and attune to self-aware.
I am proud of her for seeking out a challenge, for wanting to try a program for the purpose of personal growth and self-improvement. I am grateful she includes me as someone she wants to tell.
I love her smile. I love the confidence she is building. I love the energy she exudes.
I want to tell her all of this, but the nearest I do is a hug, a smile, and a simple “I love you.”
Still, I believe she knows.