Feeling my feelings

 Sunday, 12/26/21

I sat down to work on my novel but I don't want to anymore. 
What I want to do is
name what I'm feeling,
which is

sad. 

Sadness is a tightness in my throat.
Sadness is a weight in my chest.
Right in the middle.
Heavy like a metal trash can filled with rocks. Not pebbles.  Not boulders. Rocks with heft that could be lifted one at a time without too much trouble. But in a pile like this, they can't be picked up all at once. 

And that's how I'm feeling right now: 
sad.

I would lay on my bed and scroll through my phone but that wouldn't feel good. 
Running didn't exactly feel good today. 
Putting pen to paper feels good, though. Drinking this warm tea feels good. 

Today while I was running, I came across a tree down across the trail. I had to climb over it to get by, and as I did so I stopped and stayed perched on it for a moment. Some thoughts floated through not fully formed. I wanted to catch them but I knew they weren't ready to be caught. I'm not sure if they're ready now, either, but I want to write them down, see what they look like. 

I am the wind.
I am the wood.
I am the one who watches.

I am the silence.
I am the crash. 
I am the silence
again.

I am
this
present
moment. 

And this one.
And this one. 
And this one,
too. 

I'm not sure I feel any better. But was better the goal? Was there even a goal? 

Write the next true thought:
I feel visible. 
I can better see myself. 

I put my hand on my chest, right where the sadness lives.
I ask my body what it needs. 
Which is the same thing as asking the sadness what it needs.
I think.

This is what I hear:
A little more room, please.

I can do that. 

Deep breaths give more space.
One after another.
One after another.

The sadness doesn't go away but it feels seen and held. 
And that's all it needs. 

This is (not) about Running

During the lead-up to a race, I always get nervous. Often, the night before I can't sleep at all. My guts do an unpleasant gymnastics routine the morning of. 

This annoys me.

Why is this happening?!? What for?!?

The stakes are quite low overall. I'm a solidly mid-pack runner. It's not like I'm trying to win anything, or even qualify for something. It's always me running alongside my own expectations. That's it. And even that's not a lot of pressure. Things don't always go as planned, and I'm okay with that. I love the process more than the outcome, anyway. 

So why the nerves?

It's this:

I'm willingly putting myself in the path of pain. 

I'm saying yes to it. 

I know that doing this is going to hurt. 
And I'm doing it anyway. 

I will be uncomfortable. 
But I want what's on the other side of the discomfort
more than I want to avoid it. 

I'm so curious about what's on the other side. 

I'll admit: time, pace, place -- I'm curious about those things, too.
Every time. 
I want to know what I'm capable of.
I want to see the metrics. 

But I'm even more curious about this:

What do I have the capacity for?

This is different than the numbers. 

This is about how big my container is.

How much can I hold?
What am I willing to feel?

My capacity is not fixed. 
It's made of something flexible. 
It can stretch. Unfold. Expand. 

Also I have choice. 
I can stop. I can opt out.
I can get away.  

But what if I want to stay?
What if I want to stay but pain is filling my body?
What then?

This:

I don't want to do this anymore. 
That's ok.
Remind me where you are.
Right here. 
Where?
Dirt under feet. Trees overhead. 
Wind singing in my ears and across my skin.
Stay there. Stay there. 
Okay.

I'm tired. I don't feel good anymore.
That's okay. You expected that. 
What can you do to let your body know
that you are safe? 
Drop my shoulders. Relax my face.
Get breath in my belly, not just my upper lungs.
Smile. Even if it's an imagined smile. 

Do that. Do that. 
Stay. 
Stay.
I will. I am. I will. I am. 

What do I have capacity for?
    Anything.
       Everything.

How much can my container expand?
    It's unmeasurable.
      It's infinite. 

Choose to stay. 
Stay. 
I'm here with you. 

suspended between

          My hands are on my knees.
I'm pitched forward, eyes on the ground
                                                     but not seeing it. 

          My breath is coming fast. 
                                             I'm letting it come fast. 
It is a reaction to extreme stress:
                                                bodily stress
                                                      emotional stress
                                                             energetic stress.
One exhale
            hardly ends
                        before the next inhale
                                                     begins.
           My arms are getting tingly. 

"I need you to do something for me,"
                                                   you say.
        "I need you to take a deep breath."

An exhale comes.
                  A quick inhale.
                                Another crashing exhale.

At the bottom of that breath I sense myself
Suspended between.

Suspended between
this exhale 
and the next inhale.

Suspended between
fear
and action

Suspended between
I don't want to do this anymore
and We have to figure out
       what we are going to do next.

No time passes.
It is a snapshot.
It is an illusion.
            It is nothing.
            A space where there is no
            thing at all.
                Neither inhale nor exhale.
                Neither fear nor action.
                Neither resistance nor planning. 
            It's the narrowest sliver.
            It's the widest gap.
            It's all dark.
            It's all light.
                It's neither.
                It's both. 

In that gap
I choose.

I choose that the next inhale
will be slower.
The next exhale
follows the example.

The panic passes.

I stay present. 

***

Suspended between
the past and the future
                  is
            right now. 

Right now is the only 
real thing.

It's a still point.
It's part of a trajectory. 

It's both, depending on the perspective.

Zoom all the way out
and you can see a line,
Every moment that's ever been.
Every moment that will be.

Zoom all the way in
and it's a single pixel,
out of time. 

How will we experience it?
We get to choose.               

                                                 

did not finish

20 minutes of contemplative writing,
recorded 2 days
after running farther
than I ever have
before

***

Equal. Even. Equal. Even.  

Preparation does not equal success. 

Effort in does not guarantee an even measure of reward.  

These are very static statements. Black and white thinking. Not really any room for softer perspectives.

  

I’m thinking too hard. Or rather, I’m thinking, period.
Trying, pushing, forcing.

Flow is found when the effort to find it isn’t there at all.
Sometimes the conditions require effort, and flow never comes.  

And that’s okay.  

One of the most important take-aways 

from running 

                           63 miles 

but not officially completing the race course 

because 

I missed a turn 

and ended up lost 

                           in the dark 

                                              was this: 

Sometimes you do everything right.  
Sometimes you find the flow  
                             not by looking for it  
                             but by running into it,  
                                          running with it  
                                             and on it  
                                             and through it  
                                             and part of it  
                               because it’s part of you. 

Sometimes the magic really is there. 

   And yet.  

      And yet.  

And yet  
               you find yourself 
                                             miles from where you’re supposed to be.  

Miles from where you’re supposed to be, 
          with only the pack on your back  
                   that’s unfortunately empty of food  
                             because you ate what you had  
                                and you were supposed to be somewhere else 

                                                hours ago,  
                                with all the provisions to choose from.  

Miles from where you’re supposed to be  
          with only one of your oldest friends by your side. 

I realize it sounds scary.

For a little bit there we were both really scared.
But of course, people knew where we should have been
and of course, people who know what they're doing
looked for and pretty quickly found us.  

But still.  

  But still.  

                  

                     And yet.  

                               And yet.  

Not finishing does not equal failure.
Just like preparation does not equal success. 

I don’t like the words failure and success. 

I don’t  
             haven't 
                           will not ever 
                            consider this event a failure.  

It was a  
                    Multi- 
                              Faceted 
                    Experience.  

Ugh. I wish I would have chosen to go a different direction with this writing.  

Missed turn. 
Darkness. 
Headlamps flashing on signs
that pointed the right direction 

                               for the wrong part of the course. 

 

I don’t know where I hoped to get in this writing 

        but it doesn’t feel like anywhere.  

And that’s okay.   

There is no finish line.  
There actually are no course markers.  
Just one foot in front of the other.  

Sometimes pain.  
Sometimes elation.  

Close and far. 
Almost and not quite. 

 

Time  
        and distance  
                               and right here  
                                       right now. 

A truck’s headlights break the night behind us.