When Baby Steps Are All You Can Take

Several years ago, a boyfriend and I went through a bad breakup. After a few agonizing weeks at home, feeling constantly sick and distressed, I packed my bags and drove to visit my mom for the weekend, who was then living in Louisville.

When she opened her apartment door to welcome me, a look of concern crossed her eyes, and her first words were a disturbed, "You've lost weight." I had been too down and broken to maintain any kind of appetite or take decent care of myself. When I stepped on her scales, I realized the toll my anguish had taken on me. I had lost several pounds, which placed me at what would be about 17 pounds less than my current weight.

I spent that weekend lying on her couch, trying to watch TV in-between crying spells. One tiny instance stands out the most in my memory: my mom returning from grocery shopping, where she had bought a package of frozen smoothies.

"I know you haven't felt like eating," she said, "but try to drink these. Even if you don't feel like it."

I remember feeling the slightest touch of comfort inside me: someone cared, someone was reaching out to help me, even if it came in the form of my mom urging me to drink a smoothie.

That miniscule recognition of someone's concern slowly pulled me off the couch, into her tiny apartment kitchen where I placed the smoothie glass between my lips and tried to drink its contents. But my insides were still too shaky and upset. "Just five sips," I pushed myself, and gradually swallowed five sips of the strawberry-banana flavor, then placed the remainder in the refrigerator, where I periodically returned, to attempt drinking five more meager sips at a time.

That was probably my first moment of awareness, and first concentrated effort, towards intentionally taking even the smallest baby steps to retrieve at least some amount of health and well-being for myself.

And sometimes on those days when circumstances or worries seem determined to suck me into what feels like an overwhelming black hole, when I know that any more stressing or crying will just cause me to sink even deeper---I often need to remind myself, or have someone else remind me: "Don't worry about trying to instantly catapult out of this pit. Look for baby steps---

Go write on your blog. 

Or do one load of laundry. 

Or listen to Sunday's songs. 

Or spend just five minutes cleaning the kitchen.

Watch one funny show on TV.

Sit on the back deck.

Or finish writing the Thanksgiving program.

Take just one positive, healthy, baby step away from being pulled further under. 

You don't have to do everything at once."


What baby steps do you take on days 
when life's stresses seem to be playing tug-of-war with you?