The Baby I Kept

This is the post that I was writing and originally intended to publish on Monday, April 15, 2013.

I did it!

Today I sent in my registration to run a 5K. How much time do I have to train? Less than two weeks! Have I lost my mind? Possibly. Dear God, please don't let me have a heart attack or a stroke while I am training for or participating in this event...I really mean that, God.

Why I did it:

Reason 1:
It was time. The opportunity presented itself at the perfect time. If I don't run this one, I may never run another race. I needed a challenge to get motivated again.

Reason 2:
This race is sponsored by and benefits a cause with which I have been involved for almost ten years. I will be running for a Christian crisis pregnancy center that offers aid, counseling and options for young women who choose not to terminate their pregnancies. I did not choose to be involved with this organization...I was called.

Many years ago I was a pregnant teenager. I was afraid, confused, uneducated and with no one to turn to...except my mother.

After her initial rage, disbelief, dismay, and embarrassment upon learning of my unforeseen pregnancy, my mother embraced me and supported me unconditionally (she still does). With her help and love, I was able to keep my baby.

I know that I was fortunate. I realize that there are many girls out there who find themselves in the same dire situation that I was in and truly have no one to turn to for financial or emotional support. This pregnancy center exists for them. It is a place that makes "keeping the baby" a less frightening possibility.

The baby I kept graduated valedictorian in his high school class. He was awarded a scholarship to his first choice university. He is doing work that he loves. He is a contributor and an advocate in his community. He is a lover of the arts. He plays violin and knows classical music like most kids his age know pop music. He seeks out family. He is strong and loves with an open heart. I cannot imagine a world without him.

This son finishes races at lightning speeds, has trained for a marathon and encourages his mother to run, simply because she believes she could.

I will run this race in honor of my mother, who's home was my own crisis pregnancy center, and for this beautiful boy

...the baby I kept.

Inhumanity

I have been trying to finish the post that I had started to write for yesterday, before I heard the bad news, but I can't.  It's just not in me anymore.

Bombs in marathons. Shootings in elementary schools. Too much, too soon.

Folks, I am a mom with children in elementary school and a son who would have run in the New York city marathon had it not been cancelled and, by the grace of God, decided that he was not quite ready for Boston this year.

I am not a fan of the "what if"s". I simply do not have the patience for that. My motto is more to the effect of "if it did not happen, why dwell?" I am not dwelling; I think I am just having a difficult time wrapping my mind around...well, the grace of God.

I am enraged that these things happen in a world of evolved intelligent beings. WILD ANIMALS DON'T KILL SENSELESSLY! I am appalled by the inhumanity in our world.

I know that my little blog post is not going to change anything. I just had to say it. I am so angry...and so sad.

I'm going to go cry a little.

2013 Boston Marathon

This is not the piece that I was going to post today, but what I had prepared seemed insensitive given the events at the Boston Marathon today.

Once again, America's innocence is shattered. We are left bewildered and outraged collectively asking the question, "Is there no safe place?"

Shall we all retrieve into our foxholes and dens, never living with one another, never touching each other's lives? Is there no sacred place? Was our crime so severe that we are sentenced to generations of terror?

...Mercy

My prayers and my thoughts go out to those personally affected by this horrid act.

A Lifting Run

A walk with the kids followed by a good run on a perfect spring day will do wonders to lift your spirit. This is what I did today, and wouldn't you know it, I even got all of the laundry done!

I forwent the rum and Coke on the deck in exchange for an evening out at the baseball park. I sat in the fresh air with my family for three hours. The weather was perfect, the children behaved, the home team won, and there were fireworks! That in itself was a perk-me-up package!

More amazing, though, was the difference that a walk and a fifteen minute run made (still working my way back to the 5K). I would have stayed inside all afternoon, but it was a beautiful day, and the kids needed to get out. I felt the sun, the flowers and the air changing me. I decided the walk would be a good warm-up for an afternoon run.

I had heard time and again about the benefits of exercise on depression, but I don't think that I had ever truly experienced it. It was not really very dramatic - I was just feeling a little low...but I felt like I was sinking. After the walk and the run, I was no longer struggling to stay afloat, and as counter intuitive as it may seem, I certainly had more energy.

So thank you, my Anonymous Contributor, for the recommendation. I must have known you were going to say that :)

Slipping

I want to sleep and not wake up.

I am not suicidal; I'm just that tired and overwhelmed. I want a break (this from a woman who just came back from vacation). I want to be able to finish all the laundry and still have time to sit out on the deck with a rum and coke - that kind of break. I want to have enough energy (and time) to clean up all the paper clutter in one sitting.

My mood is slipping. It has been since early this week. Just little falls...small enough that I can catch myself. I don't want to be sad. I am trying to hang on, climb back up.

I am so tired.

Differentiation

Chicken...Cluck...Cluck...Cluck...Chicken!

Yes, I was a chicken today in therapy. I did not have the nerve to go through, or even bring up EMDR.

I played it safe and talked about my husband instead. I talked about the hurt and anger that I felt on Tuesday after his apathetic response to my caring gesture. I went out on a limb emotionally. I offered kind words to him, and he responded with cold indifference.  I felt hurt as I remembered why I had not displayed this type of kindness to him in several years. I decided not to be this open with him again. As my therapist phrased it today, I resolved to hide emotionally from him.

...So fine...I'm not over it.

Differentiation, in my experience, is the process by which embryonic cells specialize into their future specific functions - a lung cell becomes a lung cell, and a skin cell becomes a skin cell.

Today I learned from my therapist:

Differentiation is the ability to remain true to your nature regardless of someone else's behavior. In other words, if it is my nature to write sweet words of encouragement to a person who is hurting, his repugnant reaction to my kind note would not hinder me from expressing my love in the future.

All I ask is...how do people do this?

Back to EMDR

I have not seen my therapist in...like a month. Too long. I've started to miss him.

Today I will see him again and probably return to EMDR. I am so reluctant to go through another session. It hurts...it just hurts. I am already feeling kind of down today, and I know what I usually feel like afterwards - raw and fragile. It takes me about three days to get a grip again.

Putting off EMDR is like putting off knee replacement surgery. It's going to hurt, but the longer you put it off, the longer you are going to limp around. After the surgery, you are going to walk a lot better.

I might build up the courage by this afternoon, but first I think I need to talk about this sadness.

Chariots of Fire

When I started running at the beginning of last summer, I could not run longer than a mile (or 12 to 15 minutes). It's not that I had never run before. I had been on the cross country team in middle school and, as an adult, I have run on and off for exercise on the treadmill - but never more than a mile.

I started running again last summer for weight loss. My weight started increasing seemingly inexplicably. I was not eating any more junk than I usually did, and I was not exercising any less than usual (it's hard to do less than nothing!). I therefore came to the conclusion that my metabolism had changed...and not to my advantage.

Not being much of a dieter - I become lightheaded and nauseous if I do not consume enough calories - I realized that the only way to return to a healthy weight would be to exercise. I also realized that the only exercise that I could engage in that would be independent of the children's schedules and the availability of childcare would be running around my neighborhood...at 5 AM.

I believed I could...so I did.

Gradually (very gradually), I increased my distance. In September, I ran my first 5K...EVER! I continued to run. I increased my speed. I lost some weight. In December, I ran another 5K with my eight year old daughter. It was her first race...EVER!

Then I stopped. I told myself that I would take two or three weeks off, because I needed to use that early morning time for Christmas preparations. After Christmas, the bitter cold set in, and after that...it was something else...

In February, when I tried to run again, I got very sick during the run. I was not physically prepared for the distance that I had attempted, and my heart certainly sent the message. It was frightening. At that point I realized that I had to start back at mile one and gradually increase my distance...again.

I had not run since that day. After losing all the stamina that I had so painfully gained, I was discouraged. Eventually, I even lost the desire to take care of my body and my health in that fashion.

...Until one day last week on a beach in St. Augustine. While laying on a beach towel, I mentioned to my husband that I was inspired to run on this beach. Then something unimaginable happened...he encouraged me!! He said that I should certainly do it if I wanted to and that he would be happy to watch the kids while I took a little run.

Unimaginable!

Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of encouragement from the right person at the right time.

I grabbed my "Little Coach" (my name for the running app on my phone), and took to the cool sand along the shore. I ran a mile - the most important mile. This was the mile that said I was back in the race. It said I was willing to start again...loving and caring for myself. I ran like in Chariots of Fire, barefoot on the beach, splashing through tidal pools, with the salty wind on my face and in my hair and the roar of the ocean as my playlist.

My Atlantic

After almost a week of shorts, flip flops and pony tails, I am home again - back in the solitude of my private space with my hands on the keyboard and my thoughts flowing through my fingers onto the keys like electricity.

I had missed this.

Vacation was lovely, but I hardly got an opportunity to be alone and write. All these thoughts have been anxiously waiting to come alive on the screen.

The beach was as healing and restorative as anticipated. The temperature was in the mid 70s - warm enough for a comfortable beach day, but not enough to warm the water. The ocean was an ice bath!

Yet I went in. How could I not? I went in tentatively at first, squealing like a child each time the ice found a new dry patch on my body. Then I remembered who I was - Goddess of the Waters, Queen of the Sea! "Do not be afraid", I told myself, "This is your Atlantic Ocean, the same one that you grew up in. It is to be respected but not feared."

With that, I dove in and became one with the frigid waters, my body heat somehow blending with the arctic water and neutralizing the cutting chill. I challenged the waves and dove in and out of them like a dolphin. I tasted the briny ocean on my face and emerged triumphant and proud to have once again danced with Neptune himself.

I was home.

This is my peaceful place.

Off to Warmer Shores

Tomorrow I am headed towards warmer shores.

I have so much work to catch up on around the house that I initially thought I would spend the week at home cleaning up clutter (the plight of a working mother). However, I also need a break from the chores - a catch 22, isn't it?

Considering all the stars and the planets lined up right, and my husband and I both got the same week off for vacation that the kids have for Spring Break, we could not miss this golden opportunity to get away.

I deliberated whether I should bring my laptop with me, and ultimately chose not to. I would like to be completely present for the children, and I think having the computer with me would be too much of a distraction. I would have wanted to have it for writing, but if I feel like I absolutely must get my thoughts out (and I predict that I will), I can use the diary app on my phone.

...Or there is always the old pen and paper.

Until next week...

~RisingSong