One

"Well that was a success," said my husband, "we only had two arguments on our walk." It's true - it is a success. I'm happier now than I've ever been in my marriage, but we still have a lively relationship, and I know Stephen would agree.

The arguments, by the way, both had to do with different aspects of this blog. The second having something to do with how I needed to really study Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Dish as a model of how one should construct a blog. I think the idea of being compared to Sullivan was just too intimidating - I mean geez, couldn't he just suggest some Better Homes and Gardens blogger to begin with? That - I could handle. But my Hubby's suggestion that I try to measure up in some way to the number one guy in the blogiverse (if blogs have even been around that long) was just too much. And I can't even remember the first argument now, so it couldn't have been that important.

The reason I'm telling you all this in the first place, is that it did get me here. Writing my first entry after weeks of putting it off.

It's just that, what with being a health and fitness writer and all, I'm used to needing an expert, or a scientific study to justify my words - to give me a right (as many magazine editors have drilled into my head) to write about something. But since I've hit my forty-second year of life things have changed. I think I am an expert of a sort. I've been a personal trainer and worked as a fitness editor and writer for Prevention Magazine for the last decade. I've written hundreds of articles about fitness, weight loss, walking, parenting, teens, nutrition - really anything linked to health. I've talked on radio stations all over the nation about anything remotely linked to health, and done a small amount of TV too. I'm the mother of two teen boys, I've been step-mom to Sophia since she was 3 (now 19), I've managed to stay married for 14 plus years to a man I love dearly (but have wanted to strangle in the past), I was a caregiver to my father for 10 months in 2008, I lost him early in 2009, and I've spent the last year grieving and reassessing everything I believe about what it means to be healthy, to be well, whole, mindful, and fit.

This is probably similar to many 40-somethings. You lose a parent, and the world gets a lot more real. Your babies turn into teens and tower over you. The job you thought was It, disappears, or seems impossible. You get burned out, fed up with b.s., but I don't find myself doing this in the crabby way I've dealt with struggles in the past. I find myself wanting to share about my life because I think I'm among friends. I think that many of us are going through these same things, asking the same questions, worrying about common issues.

Nothing has been the same since my dad died--in both horrible and wonderful ways. The rug has been pulled out from under me, and I'm thankful for it. I'm re-examining my life - and Going Back to Center seems to be what works most successfully for me. Before and during my father's illness (pancreatic cancer), I was a fitness fanatic. I worked out about 2 hours a day, climbing a mountain and taking a high intensity class. I ate all the right things. By a lot of standards, I looked pretty darn healthy. The problem was that my marriage had been miserable for years, we both were drinking too much, fighting too much, and growing too far apart. Plus, I was alienated from my teen boys, I was depressed and angry. By all accounts I thought that life as I knew it was headed for a pile of steaming shit. And then, by going through the hardest thing since childbirth, losing my dad, I got my kids and husband back, a home to love - I feel like I've gotten back to my center, and I'm trying to explore this more deeply. That's what I'll be writhing about here via how I try to live my life, one mindful second after another.