Training to run

I don't run.

I will walk, I will skip, I will crawl if I have to; but I don't run. Except for lately.

Now I find myself running all the time. Running from people who care, running from bills and every fear I have, running from myself. I'm exhausted and have no calf definition to show for all of my efforts. I run from my emotions, quite sure that if I keep going they won't catch up. I won't have the time to stop and think and find myself more lost than I've ever been. At least, if I keep running, it will look like I know my destination.

But my brain is faster and definitely used to moving quickly. Fueled by caffeine and anxiety, it races ahead of me - taunting me. I watch as it easily hops from conclusion to conclusion, the entire time I grow weaker. It's pointless to fight. It's impossible to escape. At every turn my brain is there, showing me ideas I don't want to see - ideas that terrify me and make me fall apart. But that cannot be my brain's goal.

The brain is a part of me, if I fall apart so does it. We need each other to survive...so perhaps I am in training. With actual non-metaphorical running your muscles are weak until they fall apart, but over time they grow stronger. They rebuild and are able to face any challenge - it's only a matter of time. Maybe I am in training.

Maybe I am learning to fall apart and break in order to build myself up and be stronger. Soon these ideas will just be hurdles that I fly over. Soon I will run for hours, brain in my head, and we will work together to face any challenge. We can do this, my brain and me. And this time, we have something to run toward.

You are My Sunshine: a Search for Understanding

Maybe the point of falling is to teach you to get back up. Maybe the purpose of losing is to teach you how to celebrate a triumph. Maybe the point of hurting is to teach you how to heal and maybe the purpose of goodbye is to remind you to cherish every hello.

There once was a couple who wished for a child. They prayed every night for a joyous little boy and every morning they woke to an empty crib. The world saw the grief this couple held and pitied them.

To the sun she cried, "Brother sun, it is I sister earth. See this family, so lost and in the dark, give them light - a bit of sunshine to hold onto."

Moved by the earth's pleas and the cries of the couple the sun agreed. That night, after the couple had gone to bed, the sun began to flare and collected his energy forming it into the shape of a small child. At sunrise the couple awoke and there they found him; their sunshine, the answer to their lost cause, their forever.

And I wish, dear reader, that this was the end of the story. I wish that the couple lived a life full of light, love, and sunshine. But we are told to write what we know and not what we wish. And I know too much about how this story ends, so I choose not to write the ending, but rather the middle.

In the middle, the sunshine boy was loved. Though the couples love for one another died, the little boy was never without love. His family encouraged him to grow and flourish and his light shined on the world. He was a boy filled with courage, laughter, music, and joy. All of which poured out from him and into everyone he encountered. He made friends with strangers and fiercely loved the familiar.

Though made of the sun, he was a child in every way. He played, he cried, he napped, he made turtles out of green beans and told silly jokes – which only caused his light to grow. He shined with such power that even now, with all of the darkness in ending, his light warms those who hold his memory. We are filled with his love continuously and he won’t let go. The boy was and shall forever be in every hug, smile, and laugh shared among people. The sun may set, but it is never completely gone – simply shinning somewhere else.

Maybe we are given questions so we can celebrate certainty. Maybe we are given tears to remind us to appreciate the smile. Maybe we get lost to teach us to love every moment we know where we are – and maybe we are given darkness. We are given darkness to turn our faces to the light.

Find Me

It's funny how quickly, in times of pain, you can lose sight of who you are. During these past six months she's watched her mother disappear into a stranger. A rare sighting of the woman she once knew leads to hope, a path that can only be followed by sorrow. But she was so distracted watching her stranger mother, that she hadn't noticed. She hadn't been able to watch herself become someone else - and now the stranger lived in her.

"Who is this new person? This woman who is so unsure, unmotivitated, and damn emotional?"

She wasn't fully aware of her possession until she found herself bawling over a diaper commercial. And suddenly she knew, this was not the person she saw in the mirror each morning...or maybe that person was no longer her. Maybe the body she saw reflected back was hers, but barely. Now it belonged to someone who was lost and searching for anything to hold onto, searching for anyone to hold her.

"Find me," she prays silently, "find me here, waiting and hoping. Find me and carry me away from all of this mess. Find me and find the one in me who is strong. Find the me that can continue to suffer without crumbling.. Find me."

Every day she pleas to the universe, to the trees, to the traffic. Every day she whispers it to the dogs passing by, the children laughing, to the clouds that fall. Every day he prays this to God, she prays this to her friends, to the world; to herself. She screams, she cries, she laughs, she keeps silent and prays. Knowing one day, one day she will be found.