I sat down on the couch in Dr. Mary’s office. It had been weeks since my last appointment. Maybe not weeks, but definitely before the start of the New Year. Dr Mary looked at me, tilted her head to the side while squinting her eyes and said “You look really good. You look rested. Are you rested?” I’m not so sure I am well rested but I do feel more relaxed than usual. This is an unusual feeling for this time of year because January is the month where I feel like crawling into a cocoon of blankets and not coming out until sometime in March. And this year kicked itself off with a big whammy. On New Year’s Eve, my mom was in a car accident.

She’s okay.

But I have concerns that I am not talking about here.

I started making some mental health changes back in October like thinking about where I am wasting my energy and taking a different approach with the things that trigger my anxiety. My new morning routine is getting really good to me. The alarm goes off at 5:00 AM, I roll out of bed and put on my robe. Then I head to the kitchen to turn the kettle on to boil water. I go to the bathroom and then back to the kitchen where I slice up a lemon. I place two lemon slices in a mug with a dollop of honey and once the water comes to a boil, I fill up the mug. Then I go and take a seat for twenty minutes of meditation that includes ten rounds of alternate nostril breathing and twenty four rounds of a mantra. The rest of the time is spent sitting still with my thoughts. When the timer goes off, I sip on my hot lemon water while writing it all down in a journal. Then I get up and get going with my day. The changes that I started implementing in October coupled with my renewed meditation practice is making a world of a difference. That first week of meditation did not include the lemon water and I really believe it is the act of making this hot lemon water that has really grounded this practice into place. I am not saying that every morning is easy. There are still some mornings when I really want to hit that snooze button, but I don’t. I don’t because I know that I will feel better if I just get up. I wrote in my journal yesterday about being tired and feeling sluggish that morning. I wrote about the animals trying to get my attention, Josephine pawing at me to scratch her head, the cat meowing loudly outside my door. I even forgot to start my meditation timer, which I corrected after my mantra rounds. I finished my meditation practice while gently scratching behind Josephine’s ears, but I showed up. I did the practice and I don’t feel like crawling into that blanket cocoon. In fact, the other morning when I went on my coffee loop, I felt almost…dare I even say…happy?

Thursday morning, when Michael stepped outside to decide if the cars needed to be defrosted, he realized that the temperatures were unusually warm for a January. He came in looking suspicious and then went to see if his scooter would start. It started right up and he came back into the house declaring it to be fake Spring and everybody needs to ride a scooter to work day. My scooter did not start right up. There was a far amount of engine coughing before I finally got it going, but when it finally came to life, I zipped to work at light speed. The ride in made me positively giddy. I mean, scooter rides never happen in January and it probably won’t happen again until real Spring shows up. It’s supposed to start sleeting today with snow predicted for all day Saturday.

I am ending this week with some profound gratitude for unusually warm days in January that allow for a scooter ride, but also for this practice that is serving me so well.