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From the monthly archives:
April 2011
Mandatory rest day. I’ve been spending many hours on the floor in front of the fire. I’ve been trying to picture myself running the marathon. I haven’t been able to visualize it yet. My right hip is a mess. Pain rotates around and is nearly impossible to pinpoint. All i know is every night after i work it gets a little worse.
All i know is it’s going to take something like a miracle to get me through the race on sunday.
Last night i was looking through old photos. Raptured by my beauty on my wedding day. It’s such a waste that most of us don’t see that until decades have past. In a few weeks it will be our anniversary. We were married on May 20th 1995. Is this our 16th or our 13th? How do we count those years apart?
I was looking at everyone in my family. We have all gotten so much older since then. Shane and i were so young, he looks nothing like the man he has become. The man whom i have the great pleasure and privilege of waking up beside every morning. My grandmothers were there. It was before age and sickness took it’s toll on their bodies. They were still so wonderfully joyous, that pleasant roundness that we earn with age. Softness wrapped around them. I took in every image like a stranger happening on such an occasion. I saw the pride and worry in my parents eyes. Such life in those photos, they vibrate.
Something about this journey to marathons and anniversaries has me reflective, thankful. Humbled.
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Every muscle in a body works together to propel it forward. Together they are this little team that takes you from here to whatever place you need to be. Lifting you out of bed, easing you into the comfy chair. They are so smart these muscles that when one is having trouble all the others will work a little harder to pick up the slack of the lazy, the misunderstood, the sick and the lonely.
The little clique.
At work we are a clique. We don’t work for the customer. Sure, the customer pays us. Feeds our families. Pays our mortgage. But we do all this so that at the end of the night, after the doors are locked and things are put in place we can toast our glasses and celebrate another success. Another day of a little family doing what it does best.
There are lots of changes happening. Winter is finally, gracefully, packing up. Some days a little frost on the ground lets us know it’s coming back – Spring is just stepping in for a bit. Picking up the slack.
A fight amongst siblings broke out in my kitchen the other day. There was a smack to a sisters face and tears and parental freaking out. When i returned from the obligatory placing in the timeout of the smacker my oldest daughter was there. Wiping away her sisters tears and putting a cold cloth on split lips. I almost disappeared at that moment. The little team.
Sixteen days until the marathon. Muscles are angry and tired and sore. Sleep is restless. Dreams of broken legs and shattered nerves. The system is falling apart. A war is waging between mind and body and body and mind. Two weeks to bring this house to order.
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Exhaustion – It is widespread in everyday life, but usually becomes particularly noticeable during heavy exercise. Mental fatigue, on the other hand, rather manifests in somnolence (sleepiness).
I suppose i have been exhausted for 14 years. Just the reasons have changed over time.
I miss writing. Reading. Sleeping. I miss so many things right now, but i have made a commitment to run this marathon and nothing will stop me now. Not pain or tears. Nothing. I find as the training gets harder and harder, both mentally and physically, my mental stamina and clarity focuses and refocuses until i am where i am today. I can’t tell you the title of the movie i watched on the weekend. I have trouble speaking in understandable sentences. Eloquence long since faded.
I have become a person on one singular path; unable to maintain, for the moment, the many strings i usually wind myself around.
I sit here today. At this desk, trying desperately to catch up, to let out the words that have been stomping around in my head over the past few weeks. But all i can come up with is fatigue and soreness and excitement. This pushing and pushing of physical capability has become so addictive that i am willing to give everything else up to see just how far i can go. When i run for more than two hours my mind and body meet at this mutual place where there is no pain and no thoughts – it’s just my feet moving and my lungs breathing and the music in my ears. It is zen or God or something bigger than that. It is me at my rawest, basest level. It is a body and a movement. Time is relative only to dark and light. Pain is either going to stop me or not – i won’t know until i get there. It is so simple it’s mostly impossible.
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