Choose Kale: On Getting Over Bad Days

Tonight I prepped Kale. Three massive bunches of kale. I took my sharp knife, folded the long leafy green and sliced along the pale vertebral stem. I did it a hundred times. Leaf after leaf.

What I wanted was to order pizza.

Because my car was in the shop and because I hadn’t been the self I wanted to be in heated conversations with friends and because even before eight in the morning I’d already cried buckets with a hurting human I can’t bear to see sad. Also, because I was (a little bit) loathing myself.

So at seven, tired from a workout I hadn’t wanted, starving, and aching for a distraction, I fantasized about a gluten-free personal pepperoni pizza.

But prepped kale.

So sick of making stupid mistakes all day, I wanted to do something (anything) right.

In the moment, kale seemed right. Good. The choice I would be happy to have made tomorrow. The pro-abundant-life choice.

After I prepped kale, my husband cooked and I washed dishes. Then I talked to my girls about before they were born and London asked great questions and we pulled out my pregnancy journal and I read and we all laughed. Then I made a bed for the two of them in their tent and read them a story about Abraham Lincoln and prayed the Lord’s Prayer with them and blessed them.

And I climbed into bed and wrote this.

All because I prepped kale.

See, the night was doomed before it began. The day was too long and too full of mistakes. Mistakes and heartaches.  And I had every “right” to give up, grab a slice (or six) and watch three episodes of Parks and Rec. I could make good choices tomorrow.

But if I’d done that, if I’d given up on the kale and called Domino’s, I never would have made it to the journal and my laughing girls and special memories in a tent with Lincoln.

Sometimes all we need is one good choice to get us back on track. Sometimes one solid, wise, life-valuing decision is all it takes to turn an entire day around.

Make one good choice. And see where it leads.