February 17, 2012
in 2012
We have been looking at houses. Searching for the elusive five bedroom.
I’m not sure what it is that propels us to keep on moving, keep on changing. Is it a wandering or is it a yearning. In another house it will all be perfect. If only we had room we would feel settled.
Sometimes it is easier to pack up, walk away from your problems than continue on the endless treadmill of what if’s and if only’s.
But stop. We have done that before and ended up back in the exact same spot. As my life leads further away from that four year hiatus from married life it becomes more of that life i used to know. All the struggle and insecurity fades and lights anew the warm glow of family.
And suddenly i wake up and i feel his warm hand on my hip. And i know that everything i have, everything that is in this house, all of it, all of it is exactly right.
Life just ticks along. There are the good and the bad and, usually, something in between.
My legs are tired and my heart is beating. Training for a marathon again and realizing that the only person i’m trying to beat is myself. To cross the finish line and erase the crushing memory of dropping out last year just 6 kilometers from the end. It’s going well, i’m listening to my body without listening too hard. Plugging in the miles week after week. I think i’m a third of the way there. The one lesson i have learned in these two years of running is that it is never easy and 26.2 miles is a damn long way.
Most of my mental energy lately has been focused on parenting a teenager. Most days falling into bed wondering what happened to the girl i had last summer. I do my best and hope we come out the other side safe, healthy and happy.
Melancholy has been the theme this winter. Neither this nor that. Finding the peace in the unsettling and the joy in the sadness. Laughing when that’s all there is left.
The other day i was out for a walk with parker and a neighbor invited us to a party. He looked up at me and said “i like to party, but i always regret it the next day.” And that is the hilarious i find in the mundane. These kids. They are awesome.
There is an elephant in this room.
Somewhere between here and there, i lost my mojo. My thing. If you can’t write about anything what is there left to write about. If everything you say has the potential to hurt feelings, or talk about that thing that can’t be said, if everything is unspeakable – what do you become.
Perhaps that is the very best part of running. Mile after lonely mile the solitude takes hold. There is just me and my heartbeat and nothing to say.
I have lost my desire for most things. Is this the beginning of menopause, is this what it looks like. Hormones remove any desire to fight, to be passionate, to say what you really want to say.
Often times i sit in the middle of a conversation. Silently. The words in my head are passionate and elegant, full of love and desire. Stuck inside there. No reasonable escape, because when they do they come out all wrong. You’re wrong.
Often times i spend entire days living in there. I speak to nothing. I go unnoticed. Tears roll down my face at seemingly nothing. My body gives away buckets of blood and sweat, leaving me speechless. Again.
