Escaping safety
I was running a few minutes late this morning, cutting it close for making it to the bus stop on time. I would have been fine to miss it, really; it merely would have meant I'd get off work half an hour later. But I'd woken up and struggled to get ready in time for this bus, dammit, and I didn't want to miss it.
While I was jogging the short-cut through the small courtyard near the bus stop, I tripped. I fell over the top stair, landed hard on my hands and knees. I felt the deep thrill of pain, the friction of my jeans on newly scraped skin. I jumped up anyway, ran the rest of the way. I just barely caught the bus.
The pain made me think. I have been so careful these past few years, so very careful. I've avoided pain with prudence and foresight. I've done everything I "should" to avoid pain both physical and mental. And yet... inevitably they peek in again, say hi, remind me there's no way I can hide from them forever.
My thoughts were not on frustration with this inexorable tide. They were of frustration with my care interfering in my daily experience. I miss pain. No -- this is not the self-harming, masochistic longing of depression. This is the acute reminder that part of life is being tripped up once in a while, falling flat on your face and suffering the indignities of spilling your own blood on the ground. Not because you are fighting some greater cosmic malignancy, but because you forgot to tie your shoe. Pain of mortality, of insignificance and triviality.
I miss running through the grass after a soccer ball, crashing headlong into someone and finding myself lying on the ground, dizzy, my breathing so heavy that the stars in my eyes are as much from lack of oxygen as impact. I miss the scrapes on the knees that come from making a flying leap across the ground and falling awkwardly. I miss the burning tears behind my eyes that come from having made an effort to be a friend, only to have it fall short, fail to work.
And I realize this is where I am now. I have been feeling trapped inside the past few weeks, not wanting to reach out to people, keeping conversations as short as possible so that I can safely return to my inner sanctum, return to fantasy and wishing for what could be or what should be without concerning myself with an attempt to make the change on the outside. I have been inert.
I don't want to be here any longer. I love my mind. I realize it is the seat of my greatest power. But it is not my only tower. I want to be out in the world, participating in that which I observe, absorbing the experience as much as the sight.
I miss being a player on the stage.
I'm going kayaking for the first time in two weeks. Hiking, camping, horseback riding, rollerblading and community sports will follow shortly.
While I was jogging the short-cut through the small courtyard near the bus stop, I tripped. I fell over the top stair, landed hard on my hands and knees. I felt the deep thrill of pain, the friction of my jeans on newly scraped skin. I jumped up anyway, ran the rest of the way. I just barely caught the bus.
The pain made me think. I have been so careful these past few years, so very careful. I've avoided pain with prudence and foresight. I've done everything I "should" to avoid pain both physical and mental. And yet... inevitably they peek in again, say hi, remind me there's no way I can hide from them forever.
My thoughts were not on frustration with this inexorable tide. They were of frustration with my care interfering in my daily experience. I miss pain. No -- this is not the self-harming, masochistic longing of depression. This is the acute reminder that part of life is being tripped up once in a while, falling flat on your face and suffering the indignities of spilling your own blood on the ground. Not because you are fighting some greater cosmic malignancy, but because you forgot to tie your shoe. Pain of mortality, of insignificance and triviality.
I miss running through the grass after a soccer ball, crashing headlong into someone and finding myself lying on the ground, dizzy, my breathing so heavy that the stars in my eyes are as much from lack of oxygen as impact. I miss the scrapes on the knees that come from making a flying leap across the ground and falling awkwardly. I miss the burning tears behind my eyes that come from having made an effort to be a friend, only to have it fall short, fail to work.
And I realize this is where I am now. I have been feeling trapped inside the past few weeks, not wanting to reach out to people, keeping conversations as short as possible so that I can safely return to my inner sanctum, return to fantasy and wishing for what could be or what should be without concerning myself with an attempt to make the change on the outside. I have been inert.
I don't want to be here any longer. I love my mind. I realize it is the seat of my greatest power. But it is not my only tower. I want to be out in the world, participating in that which I observe, absorbing the experience as much as the sight.
I miss being a player on the stage.
I'm going kayaking for the first time in two weeks. Hiking, camping, horseback riding, rollerblading and community sports will follow shortly.