I used to run.

And because I apparently cannot just casually try anything, I didn’t simply become a person who occasionally went for a jog.

I trained for a marathon.

Of course I did.

I’ve always loved a milestone, a big goal and anything that gives me an excuse to buy specialized gear. So before having kids, I decided I was going to become a runner.

I bought the shoes. I read the books. I subscribed to Runner’s World. I downloaded a training plan and followed the damn thing.

Eventually, I crossed the finish line of Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth.

And I am still incredibly proud of that.

It was also really fucking hard.

There were long training runs I didn’t want to do. Chafing. Sore muscles. Early mornings. Tears. The whole dramatic montage.

For a long time, I thought that was what exercise was supposed to feel like.

Hard.

If I wasn’t sweating enough, breathing hard enough, going far enough or pushing myself enough, did it even count?

Apparently somewhere along the way I had absorbed the idea that movement only had value if I suffered for it.

Which, now that I think about it, was pretty much how I approached everything.

Work counted if I was exhausted.

Exercise counted if it hurt.

Rest counted if I’d earned it.

A hobby counted if I was getting better at it.

And if I got really good at something, obviously I should figure out how to make money doing it.

I have spent a significant portion of my life turning perfectly enjoyable things into jobs.

It’s only recently that I’ve started to understand how much pleasure there is in doing something without needing to become something.

Walking might have been one of the first places I learned that. Years ago, my three Australian shepherds taught me a surprisingly good lesson about self-care when life feels overwhelming. Apparently, the dogs knew what I needed before I did.

At some point, I stopped treating walking like the consolation prize for people who weren’t running.

Running was exercise.

Walking was…walking.

Except walking kept showing up.

Through babies and businesses and different houses and different bodies and different versions of me.

I walked when I had a lot of energy.

I walked when I had almost none.

I walked when I wanted to lose weight and when I was finally trying to stop making every form of movement about losing weight.

I walked when I was happy.

I walked when I was anxious.

I walked when I needed an idea.

I walked when I had too many ideas.

And somewhere along the way, without a training plan or a medal or even a particularly impressive pair of shoes, walking became one of the most consistent things I’ve ever done for myself.

Self-Care as a Sport

Walking is just one of the ways I take care of myself. Over the years, I’ve collected a few favorite things that make feeling good a little easier, more enjoyable, or at least less of a production. Here are some of my self-care favorites, from moving my body to recovering from whatever midlife decides to throw at me next.

My Brain Works Better When My Body Is Moving

Some of my best ideas have shown up while I’m walking.

Not sitting at my desk trying very, very hard to have a good idea.

Walking.

I’ll leave the house thinking about absolutely nothing and somewhere along the way I’ll figure out the opening paragraph to an essay.

Or I’ll suddenly know what I want to do about something I’ve been wrestling with.

Or I’ll have an idea for a business, which admittedly is not always helpful because I have never suffered from a shortage of those.

There is something about moving my body while letting my mind wander that creates space I can’t seem to manufacture while staring at a computer.

I used to think I needed to make those walks productive too.

Podcast.

Audiobook.

Phone call.

Learn something.

Catch up on something.

God forbid a perfectly good forty-five minutes go unoptimized.

Now I sometimes just walk.

No headphones. No destination beyond turning around eventually. No requirement to come home with a breakthrough.

And wouldn’t you know it, those are often the walks when the breakthrough comes anyway.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about attention as a currency, because we talk constantly about how we’re spending our money and occasionally about how we’re spending our time, but rarely about what gets our actual attention.

Walking gives some of mine back to me.

I notice the temperature.

I notice what’s blooming.

I notice which house put up a new fence.

I notice that I’m clenching my jaw.

I notice that the problem I have been obsessing over for three days might not actually be a problem.

I notice my own life.

That’s not nothing.

I Have Nothing Left to Prove to the Sidewalk

The older I get, the more suspicious I become of the idea that everything worthwhile has to be hard.

I know I can do hard things.

I ran a marathon.

I’ve built businesses.

I’ve raised babies.

I’ve lived through grief and heartbreak and uncertainty and approximately nine million Tuesday afternoons when everybody needed something from me at exactly the same time.

Hard has been adequately demonstrated.

What I’m more interested in now is figuring out what feels good enough that I want to keep doing it.

That’s a very different question.

Walking doesn’t require me to become better at walking.

There is no walking career waiting for me if I just apply myself.

I don’t need to shave three minutes off my neighborhood loop.

I don’t need to walk farther than I did yesterday.

I don’t even need to count the steps.

I can simply go.

That idea has started bleeding into other parts of my life too.

I can play golf because I love playing golf, despite my ongoing plans to qualify for the Ladies Senior PGA Tour.

I can garden without becoming a master gardener.

I can rearrange a room because I want it to feel different.

I can write something because I needed to write it.

I can have interests that never become businesses.

This feels embarrassingly revolutionary for someone in her late forties.

But I suspect I’m not the only one who spent her twenties and thirties believing every interest needed to lead somewhere.

Maybe that’s one of the quieter gifts of midlife.

You start realizing you don’t have to turn every part of yourself into a deliverable.

You don’t need another complete reinvention. Sometimes you just need to become a little more yourself.

Walking Is How I Come Back to Myself

There are days when my brain feels like it has 47 tabs open.

Business.

Money.

Kids.

Writing.

An email I need to answer.

Something I forgot at the grocery store.

A completely unnecessary idea for another project.

And I can sit there trying to THINK my way into feeling better.

Usually that works approximately never.

So I walk.

Not because walking solves any of it.

I still come home to the email.

The bills are still there.

The laundry has made no meaningful progress in my absence.

But I almost always come home different than I left.

A little calmer.

A little clearer.

A little more inside my actual life instead of entirely inside my head.

And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started paying much more attention to that return on investment.

What gives me energy instead of taking it?

What clears my attention instead of scattering it?

What makes the hours I already have feel more usable?

That’s really the idea behind The Four Currencies: money isn’t the only thing we’re spending. We’re spending our time, energy and attention too.

Walking is one of those rare things that costs me time and somehow seems to give me time, energy and attention back.

That’s a pretty good exchange.

I ran a marathon once.

I’m really glad I did.

There are seasons for pushing yourself. Seasons for training toward something difficult and discovering what your body can do.

And there are seasons when movement can simply be something that makes your life feel better.

I’ve also learned that my energy isn’t supposed to look exactly the same all year, something I’ve written about in Winter Katy Needs Different Things Than Summer Katy.

These days, I don’t need a finish line.

I don’t need a medal.

I don’t need a personal record.

I need my shoes.

I need some fresh air.

I need enough time for my brain to stop yelling and start wandering.

And then I need to turn around eventually.

Turns out, that counts too.

A Little More of This, Every Monday

Walking is one of the ways I find my way back to myself. Writing is another.

Every Monday, I send a letter about midlife, changing priorities, building a life that feels good, and occasionally wondering what the hell I’m doing.

It’s called Love Monday, and I’d love to have you along.