Sweating a smile

I sweated a smile into my mat yesterday morning, and that seemed about right.

We currently have a lot of moving parts to our household, and busy, busy days. So, I smile when I get to work out because, for me, any day that starts with a good, solid sweat is going to go well.

My workout endorphins are helpful little buggers and they stick around long after the party’s over. Other people I know get the same comfort from crafting, or Bible study, or word games.

During the ebb and flow of family life, it can be easy to let go of things we enjoy in favor of other compelling tasks. It occurred to me recently how both debilitating and arrogant that attitude can be.

“If you don’t take care of yourself,” a foster mother said in a presentation I recently saw. “You will make mistakes.”

That comment stuck with me. Foster parenting can be challenging in ways we don’t expect. The parents I know rise to those challenges so admirably. None of us wants to make a mistake, especially because we’re caring for young people who already have experienced trauma.

So we do everything we can to take care of our people. But, sometimes that also means taking care of ourselves.

I gave up my morning workouts for a while because I didn’t think I had time for them. That’s the arrogant part. Did I really think my family would collapse if I spent some time away from them?

The answer is no.

My current workout schedule dovetails nicely with a member of my household who is very hard to wake up. It goes like this:

I pop my head into his room and say, “This is your first wakeup call. I’m going to need to see some movement.”

And he moves a leg, or an arm.

Then I go downstairs and workout.

I come back up and poke my head back in the room.

“This is your second wakeup call, I need to see an eyeball.”

And he opens his eyes.

I tell him it’s going to be a great day and I leave to get ready.

It takes a few more visits, but eventually, we both get out the door on time and, just like my sweaty mat, we’re usually smiling.