The light seems so refreshing in this picture, I just want to drink it.
Well, now I know. Running really is the nightmare that I remember it being. Holy cow. My chest hurt for hours afterward. I wanted to give up, immediately. Listen to what reality is telling you, my father is fond of saying. And yesterday reality was hitting me over the head with a big stick. (Also, my respect for runners grew exponentially.)
Instead of listening to reality, I have forced myself to try it for one month. If after one month it still sucks that bad I'll still be there at the run- I'll just be at the sidelines with a slushy, cheering my friend on. If, on the other hand, by some miracle I make some improvement, I'll keep going.
Here is my schedule: I will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will walk for five minutes to warm up and then I will alternate short jogs with longer walks, gradually increasing over the next four weeks. Then I will drag my ass home, collapse on the couch and watch documentaries on Netflix.
Oh by the way, as of yesterday I lost another pound! Yay! Also, yesterday I figured out how to eat pizza. The trick is to eat a huge salad first.
I feel different. Younger, in some ways. And I feel like I am overflowing with creative energy. I feel the urge to craft, for one thing. What in the world has gotten into me? I am not a crafty person. I am not a runner. I am not a photographer. It's as though I have so much energy that it's just overflowing into all these areas I've never considered before.
At night I am flooded with dreams. I dreamed that I was a ghost, living in the basement of the house where I was killed. The basement was crowded with dark, old and dangerous equipment, I was scared of what could be lurking in the shadows.
I decided I wasn't going to live there anymore. I bent the bars over the casement window and slipped out through the glass. Outside there was sun on the grass and fresh air. I was ghost, so no one could see me. I could go and do as I liked.
Across the street was a little shop with clothing outside on a rack. I picked out new clothes, spring clothes. I saw a man I liked, so I slipped into his car as he was pumping gas and talking on his cell phone. He got goosebumps as I slipped past: all he felt was a sudden wash of cold air, but he wasn't scared.
Then I woke up. My therapist says this dream is about power. I think so. It's about the power to reclaim one's identity. I left the place of my abuse, I left the sense of self that abuse gave me, which is like a place where I died. I freed myself from that and then reclaimed my original self.
Except that in the dream I was still a ghost. Which is probably speaking to the fact that I'm still on the outside of society. I don't want to change that, I don't want to become a more social person. I've been considering the possibility of that, but I don't think I want to.
Being social (other than blogging, facebook and the few friends I have now) feels like a huge burden. If I'm on the outside, if I form no social group around me, than I'm free, like a ghost is free. But I'm also unconnected from anyone, isolated.
We'll see.
