Keeping Pace

I suspect that part of the reason it seems like everyone else my age has no trouble at all putting on weight while I remain almost unhealthily skinny is that I spend too much time pacing. I pace when I have nothing to do, when I have something to do but I don't want to do it, when I'm waiting for something, and when I'm doing something that I have to do that doesn't require sitting down. I don't really know why I do it. Half the time, I don't even realize I'm doing it until well after I've begun. Or until someone says something, such as when I arrive at a meeting early and it hasn't started yet, and a couple minutes later, someone goes, "Hey, why are you pacing?" and I realize that I've circled the room like fifteen times. Then they inevitably ask what's bothering me, and I wonder why something needs to be bothering a person before they're allowed to pace.

I even pace when I'm reading. It's because I have trouble sitting still. I can sit and play video games for hours, but if I sit down to read a book or watch television, there's not enough interaction, and within an hour, my butt is yelling, "This is boring! Get off me! I want something to do!" Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to give my full attention to whatever it is that I'm reading, which is severely handicapping my ability to do one of my favorite hobbies.

My dogs used to follow me when I paced, especially my husky, Akela. Now they're so used to it that they don't care anymore. I'll stand up from something and start to walk towards them, and they perk up and think, "Oh boy! She's coming this way! Is she going to give us treats? Are we going for a walk? Am I going to get my tummy rubbed? Is she--oh. Oh, she's just walking around in circles again. Okay." And then their heads plop back down onto their paws and they go back to basking in the sunlight.