Since my awakening (no, I’m not Edna or Kate Chopin), I have steadily taken on new tasks. New chores. New daily moments to improve my life.

I’m not living for Peter. I’m living for me.

Although today I was immersed within my Peter memory world as I worked on my Thomas Kinkade Encanto puzzle.

But that is another story for another day.

Today, while the skies pelted down ice pellets, I stretched and exercised in my bedroom. I did warrior poses and glute exercises because I have a body with whom I’ve always been warring and it’s time we negotiate a peace treaty.

I have been bulimic. I plunged two fingers down my throat and purged my food because I saw my cheekbones in a car window reflection and I, for once, felt pretty. Know that this experience was thirty years ago.

But that is my past and it has scarred me but I wear those long pink scars as my history’s reminders. I will not deny myself any longer. I am myself. I have my history.

But today. Today I laid down my yoga mat and I exercised. I did glute bridges and warrior poses and sun salutations and other basic strength exercises. And I didn’t do a ton but I adjusted my body from stillness into movement because spring is a month away and the trails are calling.

I am alive.

My brother is not. And I feel that dichotomy in a rich and palatable way.

I live for me though. I beat the stories of our childhood. But I am not his legacy. I am his storyteller. I am my own storyteller.

But I must live for myself. Must inhabit the body that I have long hated and wanted to destroy (no. Not suicide). I must inhabit myself.

I linger in these words. Feel their weight and their meaning. I do not yearn for longevity. I see this almost as a myth. Peter did everything right but that guaranteed him nothing.

But I still feel the sacredness of my life. Of my existence. And I yearn to live. To succeed. To embrace the fine tendrils of life that are still growing within a body that is over half a century old.

And so today I stretched. I exercised. I panted my way through a feeble ten second plank. And I will do it again tomorrow and the day after that.

Because the Appalachian Trail is calling. My life is calling. My soul is calling. And they will not be denied.