If I'm moving, there's hope!

While my wonderful son and daughter-in-law bask in the tourist mecca of Key West, I finish out a punishing week at work and prepare for their visit here with me this weekend. After many days of short, easy runs, and yesterday's yoga day-break, I returned to the roads and pulled out more mileage than I thought I had in me. Finding a pair of more minimal old Asics, I cruised up Emerald Hills drive and the middle loop to Griffin. As long as I allowed myself to walk whenever I felt it needed, my momentum was pretty comfortable, and my energy, while still low, better!

I am susceptible to the trend in my own mind. Whatever direction thoughts are traveling, up or down, my emotions will follow like lemmings off a cliff. For the past weeks, I have struggled through a level of stress I haven't felt since this time last year, when the County underwent the same budget cutting process and my Dad died. I had my hands so full, and so many dramas were jumping off the chain, I sank into my predictable cage of emotional confusion and depth before I even knew it. The year since has been a slog of challenges and triumphs; the marathon last October, an amazing highlight. Mom's move to nursing home, a challenge for her and me both. Being left holding the bag on the responsibilities for my parents earthly possessions, and having to sift through their many years of memories, not to mention the legal and practical issues is a HUGE task... I am mysteriously on my own with this. Every time I turn around to see who can help...my son steps forward. My son tells me, "whatever you need mom"...and at least I know I have someone in my corner.

Running is a solitary process for me. My very independent, internal nature collides with a public profession; someone who needs to be emotionally accessible and helpful for others. I can turn off the tap on my own needs and easily tune into others. What I haven't mastered is how to plug back in to the world, besides my own natural tendency to regroup into myself.

If our basic nature never changes, what does?? I watch people change all the time. The more I fall into my own mind, the more my emotions shake themselves out for my education. I feel I perpetually need to nurse myself from one stepping stone to the next, which are the islands of solidity in the massive flood of turmoil and change.

Today, running gave me a hint of the old peace I mustered over those first years of building my base. It was good to know that somewhere deep inside I still have a runner in me. She may have woke up one morning older and creakier, struggling a little more than usual, but she still RUNS. Lesson to self: nothing leaves, maybe just dormant. Wake it up, wake it up wake it up!! And learn from yourself, from the vast resources and pleasures of your own innate curiosity and mind!!