Me vs. Us

I think, despite my history of ricocheting among intermittent commitment, all-consuming fixation, and wandering focus, I am finally becoming something of a runner.

After days, weeks, months, years and years of near-obsession; after ruining what might have been a perfectly good life-long relationship; after wasting what should have been the most productive years of my youth; running and/or athleticism and my body have lost their death-grip on my psyche. My day is no longer lost or won by the turn of a workout.

I have always wanted to be this person. And despite myself, I may have even become quite fast.

I am thrilled.
I am having enormous fun.
I am tired.

This morning at the gym as I was enjoying the fruits of my previous blazing workouts, Cindy informed me that I have too much energy for my own good. The realization, after the initial shrug-off, that I was pouring all that energy out at 6am at the downtown YMCA hit me rather hard.

All I could see in the wake of Cindy's comment was an image of my 8pm self, struggling through barbies and duplos, hoping that Pip goes down quickly and easily so that I can get a little rest.

Pip was not at the YMCA with me, neither were my family and friends. The only things present at the 6am downtown Y were me and my self-centered pursuit .

I frankly don't really know what to think. I know that it is just another chapter in my never-ending saga of Deborah versus mother, but I can't seem to shake the guilt or second-guessing.

Running is a hobby of seemingly endless benefits; I get quality girl talk time with my friends, I work off stress, I fend off depression, I get outside, and I rejoice in the shear physical pleasure of it all. But it comes at a price to everything else.

So where do I end as an individual and begin as a mother? I know that I need to feed myself in order to optimally care for my baby, but where does (should) the dividing line fall?

I expect to be wresting with this for eons to come.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I think I might be broken

We have been sick; lethargy-inducing, stupefyingly sick. The sickness has come in waves, with a better day here, a worse one there. Through it all though, I have never ceased feeling like a terrible person.

The thing is I am crotchety. Little things are getting to me and I am taking my irritations out on my family. My irritability has formed a toxic miasma in which I reside. Its foul odor emanates from me, and I witness its foggy tentacles creeping out before me as I step into a room. The frothy pink bubbles rising from my mother's, father's, and baby's lyrical play put up stiff resistance but can, and do, succumb to my malodorous cloud. I am toxic.

The toxic haze is even less called for and more puzzling during this most recent bout of familial illness. My mother, the unfailingly generous and kind woman who cares for my daughter while I am at work, woke the other morning feeling worse than she had the night before. My response, the response of an adored daughter who should thank her lucky stars to have such a giving mother? I sighed. I sighed, became irritated, and started contemplating what this latest development would do to my morning run. Who behaves that way?

The trouble, on top of the toxic fumes that intermittently burn the eyes and throats of my loved ones, is that I am having a really hard time changing. I most emphatically do not want to be an irritable person, but the sourness inevitably wells up inside. I am meditating, writing thank you notes, running, and generally trying to be good, but I have not yet banished this foul, ungrateful creature inside. help.

- well, there it is... posted from my iPad