Healing Runs...

My runs lately have been more of the healing kind. Healing the holes in my heart with each footstep. Run down the street, jump on my trail, and see that my running self has been waiting patiently for me. I jump into myself and we take off and I can breathe again. Breathe and smile and run so fast. Run away from my cracked and bent and battered self. Run so hard that I leave my worries in the dust until they are just a shadow behind me. All that matters is I'm breathing again. I forget in between runs how running makes me feel. No pain, no fear, just happy. The million pieces of my shattered heart slowly get patched up again. I feel like myself again.

And then I get angry. I get really angry as I'm on this healing run, because, fuck you life for dealing me an unfair hand of cards and for putting these impossibly high assholish hurdles in my path. I can't seem to jump over them, so I get furious and try to run right through them, only I can't because they're too big, so I crash into them and fall flat on my back and look up at the sky and ask why? What's with all the goddamn hurdles?

And then I run faster and harder and more furious until my lungs and legs and throat are burning with tears, and I have to slow down or else I'll throw up. I turn up my music to blaring and wipe away the streaming tears and tears are good and so is pain because that means I'm not numb...and I don't want to be numb. I'd rather feel in pain than be numb.

After the anger comes the realization that while I'm laying on my back cursing God and staring up at the sky, still reeling from wrecking into the hurdle, someone who loves me has come along and offered their hand to help me up and instead of jumping over the hurdle we walk around that huge asshole of a hurdle...leave it in the dust behind us. Why didn't I think of that before? Why do all of the hurdles need to be jumped? Going around is good too.

And then my healing run brings peace. It washes over me and around me and heals my bruised self and I'm renewed again with a fresh coat of armor to fight the good fight and the daily battles and chin up buttercup, you can.not.quit.yet.

Just keep running, keep going, one foot in front of the other, sometimes sprinting, sometimes slow and steady, but keep moving forward, because going back is not an option.

Things are happening...really good things.

I've even embraced this barren sometimes snow-covered trail of this season I'm in.

I Remember...

being cold...

in a light spring jacket that wouldn't zip. Only it wasn't spring, it was just cold.

The wind whipped through me and around me and my eyes stung with tears from the cold.

I cried to my older sister, I'm so cold and I don't remember what she said back, but I know she was just as cold.

We were walking blocks and blocks to school and I couldn't wait to get there so I would finally be warm.

I remember the sky was gray and threatening to snow and why was I in such a light jacket? My fingers were red and numb and I had a hood on my jacket only it wouldn't stay up because my jacket wouldn't zip and the wind kept blowing it off my pony-tailed head.

I hate being cold. I would rather be hungry than cold, and we knew hunger; when we only had Saltines and dry cereal to fill our little tummies, I could swallow away hunger, but couldn't escape the cold.

I remember being cold at night. I'd curl myself into a tiny little ball to try and warm up and I'd wish for more blankets so I could bury myself beneath them.

Today I wear layers and layers. There aren't enough layers...I text my sister to complain about the cold and wonder if she remembers those same walks to school in our jackets that don't zip, and the wind that whipped our hair, and the tears that stung our eyes.

She does. We know cold in the same heartbreaking way as only we sisters could. Someday we'll live somewhere warm where the sun is always shining and sparkling over the ocean waves and we can bury our toes in the sand and say, we never have to be cold again...

I wear layers to bed and sleep under piles of blankets and I curl myself into a ball like I used to. Sometimes I wake up sweating. That is the nicest feeling. I'd rather be too warm than too cold. I ask my kids every morning if they're warm enough. Do you need a hat? Another warm layer? Are you sure you don't need your mittens? They always insist they are fine. They love the winter; the snow, playing in it for hours until I beg them to come in and get warm. They don't feel the cold like I do, don't know the feeling of never being warm enough; and that's good, that's really good. I'll wear their cold for them.

Monday Morning Dance Parties...

My kids hate Monday mornings, and this morning was no exception. Why do we have to go to school? My head hurts. I hate school. School is boring. My thumb hurts. And then there's the 3 year old who gets to stay home all day but throws herself down in a crying heap in the middle of the kitchen floor for no other reason than because she's 3... This morning, I felt like throwing myself down with her, sprawled out and crying because, oh the Monday morning injustices. Teasing and fighting and whining and dear Lord, there is not enough coffee in the world for this Monday morning...

So when Camden asked if he could have candy for breakfast. I said yes. Yes, you can have candy with breakfast but only if you share with me, because they might as well learn now that chocolate can sometimes be a cure. And so can dance parties in the kitchen. Turn up the music, really loud, play our favorite music, Classic by MKTO and Counting Stars by One Republic and Holy Grail, which I'm a little embarrassed to admit the 3 year old knows the words to, and we danced until we were silly. Shake those Monday morning blues away, sing at the top of your lungs, hop around the kitchen floor until the 3 year old is laughing again. Start over on a different, better foot; make your own sunshine on this gloomy, dreary morning; and maybe? Just maybe, pass it on.  

Our dance party continued in the car on the way to school, and when we were stopped at a red light and my son was singing at the top of his lungs and waving his arms in the air, I looked over at the car next to us, and they were all smiling at us, not laughing in a dang-you-guys-are-really-crazy kind of way, but genuinely smiling. Look you guys, we just made someone smile. 

Have your own dance party; make someone smile today, they might need it more than you know.