We'll all float on Ok...

I don't seem to know who I am anymore.

Not so long ago I felt like I had it all figured out.  I'm a mom.  I'm a runner.  I'm a teacher.  I'm a friend.  Things were going well.  I had a wonderful new daughter, two amazing boys, and a fantastic support system of friends and family.  I literally had no complaints and was perfectly content any happy.

And then I broke...again.

This wasn't like the first time I felt that I had broke, when my dad had died.  When that happened I feel apart all at once so it was almost easier to out myself back together.  The pieces were right there and easier to find, not scattered over space and time.

I wish I could say I knew the exact moment that it happened, but really it was a series of events that started small, each one separately almost microscopic in size, but together crumbled my world into a million pieces.

I cut back on my running and dropped out of the NYC marathon.

An old friend came back into my life just when I thought I was finally over our past.

I lost a person in my life who I thought was a good friend.

The separation began...and ended...and began...and changed so much that I don't even know where we are at this point.

Most recently I've done things I probably shouldn't have.  I've eaten things I probably shouldn't have.  I've stopped running altogether.  With each passing day, the numbers on the scale keep inching closer to where I said I never wanted to be again.  And the worst part of it all is that I just don't seem to care.  Not about being a bad person, or losing certain people from my life, or even losing everything I worked for.  None of it.

I feel like I'm on the roundabout on the playground spinning more and more out of control each day.  The sad part is that I know I'm the one that's pushing it to go faster and faster.  I am in complete and utter control of this and I can't seem to jump off and just stop. Because I know that when I do I'm going to break even more from the impact.  I know that I'm really going to have to work to find all the pieces and put myself back together again.  Not only in the "now" but in the past too.  The task seems daunting and so impossible that 99% of the time I don't even have the desire to try.

But then, out of the blue, today happened.  The 1%.  The one glimmer of hope I had been hoping for.

We're driving to the park and the library and all three kids are squeezed into the back seat.  Charlotte is singing along to Modest Mouse playing in the background while Oliver and Max argued about how many sheep are in an adjoining field.  The sun was shining in the blue sky as wispy clouds float by, my hand out the window rising and falling in the warm air.  I finally felt it.  What I had been longing to feel for so long lately.  A sense of peace and contentment.   A sense of placement.

This is where I was supposed to be.  Maybe not forever, but at least for right now.

And with that tiny feeling of hope, I know that pretty soon I'll have enough courage to make the leap off the roundabout.  And maybe, just maybe, my feet will actually hit the ground and I'll be able to pick myself up and begin to collect all the pieces.

Posted in: family,friends,hope,life,love,marriage,maybe,separation,zen