Detachment
I am reminded, again, as I am spinning through this moment of my life, that attachment causes misery. I can see how letting go of my desired outcome frees me from the boiling acid of dispair which eats away at my heart. But detachment alludes me.
I relax my gaze. I cleanse myself in holy water. I allign myself with myself and release and surrender to that part of me which is connected to, is part of, the divine. I listen to the messages the fey, the ancestors and my own soul bring to me. I forge the iron pentacle within me and step into my fire. I find comfort and strength. But the desire is still there.
I cannot release it fully--that which I have always wanted, that which I was programmed to want, that which I resent wanting but cannot feel complete without. I cannot release it, and I cannot fulfill it. And thus, the longing creeps back in and empties my strength, replaces my joy with a thinny that fills me with fear and revulsion yet draws me into its cold, clammy depths.
The message of my first marathon was "Mile 24." At mile 24, I was exhausted. My legs were cramping from my ankles to my hips. My feet ached and burned. My mind was numb from the emotional highs and lows which had washed over me as I ran farther than I had ever thought possible. But my body had become accustomed to the movement of my running, and any change in its motion brought even more excruciating pain. I feared that if I stopped or even slowed down, I might never move again. (Don't expect rationality from someone who has just run 24 miles.) The message of Mile 24 is that sometimes you are there. The message of Mile 24, is that soon you will reach Mile 25, and then 26, and then the finish. The message of Mile 24 is that it is part of what you must go through to run a marathon. The message of Mile 24 is don't stop.
Am I simply now at yet another Mile 24? Is all of the pain and confusion and dispair just part of what I have to go through to fulfill my desire? The marathon was so much easier. I knew when I was at Mile 24. And I knew when I was there, that I had 2.2 miles left to run. I only seem to be able to see the mile markers in my life after I have already past them. And I don't know how long this race is meant to be.