In this post, I would like to give some helpful, useful advice for women in Dickinson.  It is not too late for you.  You young school girls in Dickinson, you need to read this too.  I would like to give you some advice to better your physical, mental, and emotional health.

Please start exercising.  It may be difficult to get started, but try to do just a little at first.  The West River Community Center is a very warm, safe, pleasant environment to not only exercise, but to socialize with other women.  Take the time each day to get out of your house, away from your work, away from your children, away from your husband, and take time for yourself.  Try walking the track on the upper level, try stretching and doing floor exercises upstairs.  Later, you may want to join the group stationary cycling class, or the aerobics class.

Start with making a small amount of daily exercise, a daily habit, and a lifelong habit.  When I worked in healthcare, I often saw elderly women naked.  Some women in their eighties, who did water aerobics daily, had smoother, tighter bodies than women in their 20s!  The women nurses even complained, “Shit, you’ve got better legs than me!”  The women in their eighties just laughed, and said they did water aerobics every day.

When you begin exercising, and taking care of yourself, your self-esteem increases, and your positive mental attitude increases.  Within a couple of weeks of beginning a daily exercise routine, your flexibility, strength, and endurance will improve.  You are better able to engage in life activities, whether it is playing with your kids, going on outings, working, or having sex.

Please, please try to take care of your physical health.  Your children, your husband, your boyfriend, your parents, or your employer probably already depend on you.  Be physically able and strong to help take care of your family and your responsibilities.  Being in good physical shape and exercising daily will help you cope with stress.

For selfish reasons, please also take care of yourself.  If you can afford it, go to a beauty salon, get your nails done, get your toe nails done.  Please read fashion magazines like “Cosmopolitan” and “Vogue”, so that you can get ideas on how you might do your hair, your makeup, your nails, your clothes.  It is obvious in these magazines that the models are beautiful, glamorous, and greatly desired.  Don’t you want to be beautiful, glamorous, and desired too?  It is O.K. to admire shoes, dresses, coats, handbags, and jewelry.  There are events in Dickinson where you can get dressed up, such as the events at the Astoria Hotel ballroom, and the Grand Dakota Lodge.

Even if your husband, boyfriend, and family are from Dickinson, and have never encouraged women getting dressed up, that doesn’t mean they know everything and are always right.  Although it might be too much of a shock to them if you changed completely overnight, I bet they might be happy and impressed if you got a hair cut that really looked good on you, or an outfit that really looked good on you.

For your sake, and for the sake of your kids, please try to read to become knowledgeable about different things outside of Dickinson.  Just think, do you want your kids to be able to experience more things in life, or not know about opportunities they have in life?  Just as an example, every now and then, buy a magazine like “Architectural Digest”, “Yachting”, “Sailing”.  These magazines show how wealthy and successful people live, their homes, their furnishings, their jewelry, their cars, their boats, where they travel, the things they get to do.  In a big way or a small way, when people or kids see some of these things, it inspires them to want to be successful, to finish school, to think about what type of career they may want to have, to think about marrying a person that will help them to be successful.

If you are of the opinion that it is not a good idea to see expensive clothes, jewelry, furniture, houses, cars, boats, planes, vacation destinations, beautiful glamorous women, when these things are not relevant to you or your children, I think you are wrong.  Any progress that we have made as human beings has come through education and becoming more and more aware.  It is harmful, limiting, and dangerous to not know what is going on in the world.