How folding my underwear transformed my life

This is the morning I could sleep all day. We drove back from Buffalo yesterday, with a few bathroom breaks, but otherwise a straight shot. I’d intended to go running this morning, but when my alarm went off, it seemed like more rest was necessary.

Right now, I am craving the reset of reflection and solitude. It was a lot of action and social and meeting people and sorting of options in Buffalo. We looked at 13 places to live, and stayed at an airbnb house the first 3 nights, then S’s the next 2. That’s added to my workshop that I hosted the weekend before, which I am still metabolizing… and all that is talking to my trip in NYC to mastermind with S’s people, my trip to the Philippines, the thitherth visit last month…

And the half marathon I’ve been training for since last fall is the cherry on top - this Sunday. I had to let go of any traditional training routine back in March, with all the travel and now, with all the finding-a-place-to-live-in-New-York stuff. I used to beat myself up about skipping runs, but now I run a kinder narrative: I have a lot going on, of which training for a race is only one component.

I have this corny mental patch that I use: I’m not just training for a road race. I’m training for my life. It helps me relax about Doing The Perfect Training. There is a risk that I totally bonk on Sunday, because I cut corners on my training, but I don’t even care. I’m most proud of the way I got back on the horse after 3 weeks of not training, by running 4 miles a day in the Philippines (mad bonus points for exercise during travel, and sorting out logistics of working out in a hot place is plus 10 points); showing up for a 13 mile run with my running club after a month of not being able to join them — and not dying (keep those standards high!)… and starting the run at the back of the pack because I was late parking my car downtown… and actually catching up with my coach and crew at mile 6 at the top of the hill overlooking the city and that swelling happy feeling of yes-yes-yes-I-found-my-group! and hugging my coach because I was so glad to see her… and cracking out an 8 miler in Buffalo earlier this week. Those are all bigger wins to me than whatever my time is on Sunday.

What’s also interesting is that I work best like this. I despise multitasking, but for me a rich life is when all areas are buzzing and in flow and turned on, like they are now. I don’t need this level of stimulation all the time, but it’s fun in the spring. It’s my own answer to the buds pushing green through the tree branches and flower stems.

My sap is rising, too.

It’s like fireworks, life right now. A whole series of pops and colorful displays that make me go ooooh and ahhhh.

Okay, that’s kinda corny.

I’m adorable.

So everything is kinda scrambled and in motion… I can’t find my earbuds. I can’t find my water bottle. I am craving sitting down in a quiet spot and brain dumping until I get all the ideas out of my head so I can empty it.

Right now I have the plan for the next 5-10 years of the business in my brain. I’m carrying it like a packed suitcase. I know it’s all there. I can feel it. It’s like I’m carrying a suitcase filled with puzzle pieces. Intuitively, I know all the pieces I need are in there. I also trust that they will not disappear between now and when I have a moment to unpack them and put them together. But man, am I itchy to open that sucker up and unpack it!

What’s interesting is that I’m fully scheduled today, and the race is on Sunday, and there are some other important projects that need my attention, perhaps sooner than the business does. Last year, this level of activity and responsibility and fullness would have flattened me; but this year, it’s welcomed and exciting. I keep tracking this current stretch of life back to a single inciting moment — the one thing that opened me up to this adventure that I’m currently on. It was last summer, reading the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Ridiculous book. But something about it fit with where I was and what I needed. I still fold my underwear and socks like a crazy woman, on Kondo’s recommendation. It was either that, or a website that A told me about, where the woman said something to the effect of “if you want to change your life, just shine your sink.” I’m not sure which came first - the folding of my underwear or the shining of my sink, but all this bounty tracks back to one of those simple acts.

So weird to me how that’s how a run like this can start. I get it; I work with a lot of feng shui people and de-clutter people and design people. I know why it works, instinctively. But it still is kinda amazing.

This is what I want shut up and write sessions to be. A seemingly small and insignificant act, that opens a door to a better life for people. The magic carpet ride of being woke to one’s own wild and precious life. (Next: how does that make you a better writer of marketing copy?)

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