“I prefer to stand,” she said through teeth gritted with barely-contained hostility.
A young man had offered her his seat.
She had just entered middle age.
#shortstory #threesentencestory
Milestone
life
Mistaken Identity
I thought I was broken, thought I was missing
Thought parts of me had just died
Made friends with the holes that I thought you’d made
Made peace with what was left inside
Turns out I was wrong, nothing of me was gone
Certain parts just learned how to hide
I am whole, I am thriving, I am filled with myself
And that truth just cannot be denied
Life Lesson #405
Anytime anyone says “Allow me to enlighten you,” get away from them as soon as you can.
Rude Awakening
“You’re not at all what I expected,” I said upon discovering my True Self.
“But I guess we’re stuck with each other now.”
The Clearing
A mist cloaked the green in a shroud of grey
I could no more discern the sky
No longer was I able to laugh or play
All my heart could do was contract, and cry
Then the mist lifted and my shrunk soul awoke
The whole of my heart took wing
I found myself in a new world, bespoke
Wholly alive, alight, at once I began to sing
Attempted Fraud
I wonder if there has ever been a successful fraud. I guess we’d never know, because if it is known, it was found out.
I mean, I know some scammers get away with identity theft – the internet has made it all too possible to succeed at that kind of fraud.
But the bigger, individual, public frauds. The kind that fools a nation.
It amazes me that people always think that somehow they will be the one person in history to get away with whatever it is. Despite the plethora of evidence to the contrary – people continually being caught – they decide to do it anyway.
It’s like there’s some blank spot in these people. They are not going to be found out.
Perhaps it is pure hubris.
All I know is that I have too healthy a dose of the reality of consequences to go that route. Or maybe I just don’t feel that lucky.
That’s not to say I am not a fraud.
I am fraudulent in presenting myself as if I know what I am doing on a daily basis. I appear to be a fairly sane, fairly successful, fairly confident person.
Not at all how I feel on the inside most of the time.
So in the spirit of coming clean, to not go down that path that always leads to the revelation of the lie, I hereby admit that I feel like I have no idea what am doing much of the time, feel pretty crazy often and am terrified on a daily basis and usually insecure.
There, now you know.
Body Electric*
I used to search for the Truth “out there”
Let myself be told what was real and what was not
I was taught what to believe by my elders
To accept what I read in textbooks and such
I learned to analyze it all, think it through,
Used my brain and thinking to try to figure things out
But no more.
My body, in her intimate, ultimate wisdom,
Has taught me a new way to believe, to know
My body knows my truth, my body knows the world
I have learned a new way to answer my questions
Now, I ask my body for the answers, and I listen to her
My body never lies.
* Borrowed with Great Love from Walt Whitman
Independence Day
I’ve been living life backwards
Searching from the outside-in
Looking to others for the answers
Waiting to be told I can begin
But today I called a meeting
A quorum of my many selves
We voted in a new president
And the Me who won, rebels
We deny that They are right
We oppose what we’ve been told
We’ll listen for the guidance within
And our own truth, we will uphold
Ch-Ch-Changes
Four months ago, I wrote a whole blog about my experiences finding my inner athlete and how important that has been for me, for my healing. I meant every word.
I called it Athlete, Interrupted because my story really was of how the innate joy of being in my own body had been interrupted in my childhood.
I discovered running while I was on a quest that had begun in 2011 to “rediscover my inner athlete.” From July 2014 until around February of this year, running, training and races were a huge part of my life. If you’d have asked me a year ago if I would ever consider stopping running, I’d have said, “No way!”
I can’t believe it, but something has been shifting in me, and I’ve found it confusing.
It began with the last half marathon I trained for. I trained for 10 weeks, and loved it. On the morning of the race, it felt like any other. I had no idea what was coming.
It was a gorgeous but chilly January day in Central Park. I found my corral, and the race began. This particular race was two laps around the park.
Towards the end of the first lap around, right at the half way point in the race (6.5 mi,) I suddenly realized that I didn’t;t want to run any further. That I truly didn’t care if I finished and had no desire to do so.
Now, over the course of the years since 2012, in training for two marathons, and countless half’s, I’ve had the desire to stop while running. That comes up a lot. You push through, and you are usually the better for it. Sometimes, you really might need to stop, especially if you have the tendency to overtrain (as I have had.)
This was not one of those situations.
I felt so compelled that I ran off the path and let myself stop. I immediately felt overcome with emotion. Something in me was finally being given my own attention, and was so grateful.
But I felt guilty too. And sad. What was happening to me? How could my desire and commitment change so radically?
But was it truly radical? If I’m honest, looking back, I had been pushing myself to keep on running as intently as I had been for at least a year.
I had gotten so caught up in the running culture. It had given me so much joy, and such a respect for my body and its abilities. Awe for my own will and what I can accomplish if I decide to.
How could i be considering letting that go? To what? Run just to run? No more longer distances? No concern for pace?
Who was I to go from 5 days and 30 miles a week to 3-4 and 10- 18 miles? Wasn’t I going to go to hell in a hand basket? How could I change now? What if I reverted to before?
Yet, my spirit wanted other things. I was wanting to bring more creativity in my life. Not revolve my life around my training and running anymore. I felt a drive to write, to create more and revolve my life around that.
I wanted to simplify. I found myself craving other kinds of movement: Gyrotonic, Pilates. I had let those things fall away the last year.
My body was revolting! Calling me to wake up.
I fought the messages it was sending me. I didn’t trust them. What if it was laziness?
But I wanted to move, so it couldn’t be laziness. I even still wanted to run. Just not like I had been since 2012.
My body had to literally break down in order to get my attention. That is another blog when I have more distance. Suffice it to say that this was The Summer of Being Slowed Down. My body made it so that I had to listen.
I am still unraveling why I found it so hard to listen and trust my body. Why I held on so hard to running’s place in my life.
There’s always a part of me unconsciously looking for a formula. If I find something that creates happiness in my life, I want to keep doing A+ B to equal that C. As if as long as I just keep doing A+B, I’ll get C.
I think it has to do with my relationship to change. I mean, I know cerebrally we are supposed to change and grow. Still, some part of me gets scared that in letting go of something good, I will lose the good I have gained.
I guess that reveals a scarcity mentality. Some part of me fears losing what little good she has managed to get, so she thinks she can never change, or else she risks returning to the misery of before.
I am trying to work with the fears of that part of me. Help myself trust that change is good. That I am still being athletic, but in a different way.
And new – different – is good. It brings new – different – experiences. And that brings new information.
And through the new information gained in the experience, I become different. More.
I will help myself meet the change with trust and excitement instead of resistance and fear.
It means I am a living thing, that change-induced growth. Not a computer that can be programmed and set to repeat.
After all, I am always a work in progress. And that’s the way it is supposed to be.
The In-Between
I was born a square peg
But I didn’t know enough to value it
Tried to force myself into that circle:
that round hole I was so sure I wanted to fit
Now I am neither round nor square
My corners are worn and I’ve scrapes on my sides
Neither shape feels like home
Guess I’ll have to make my own mark
“Squale” anyone?
Beyond the Skinny Branches 