the aging process
Yesterday, I turned another year older, but still not any wiser. When does wisdom begin? Sometimes I still feel like that lost little girl blowing out her birthday candles. Or that teenager without hope for the future and a deep pain that it took me years to fully understand. For much of my "adult" life I've felt like those two people, I just ping-pong from one to the other. There's progression, regression, and change but there are still those times where I feel like a younger version of myself. Does everyone feel that way or am I just missing the gene that makes you feel like an adult? Do we ever really feel like a grown-up or is there always that sense of who we used to be hovering beneath the surface? I look in the mirror and see the same eyes, the same freckles, the same scars. The features are just sharper (due to the weight I've lost the past year) but I still see the same girl that was always there. There's just an intimacy that comes from knowing yourself, all the thoughts and the secrets and the changes that others don't see so at the end of the day, you feel almost the same as you always were. I used to be terrified that I'd wake up one day and not recognize myself. It's a thought I had when I was about 11 and it has stayed with me all these years.
Today I rode the bike I got yesterday and it lightened that gnawing feeling I've had in my chest since Friday. I woke up yesterday and read all these articles at yahoo about the tornados that wreaked havoc across the midwest. I paused and my heart squeezed when I read about all the towns that suffered massive damage in southern Indiana, close to where I spent the majority of my growing years. It's like a panic came over me although I'm about 800 miles from there, mentally and physically. Like a hole got torn into my memory, like everything and everybody changed because of that reality. And there's the anxiety that comes with reading about tragedy. It's just different when it strikes places you were/are familiar with. It brings another shade to the picture. My cousins are okay, they're far from the areas where the tornados struck but there's a question mark over other members of my family. I pray they are, despite our estrangement, I wish them no ill.
But to digress back to the bike ride. It felt good to get my foot back into the pedals of a bike, it has been years since I've ridden a bike. It was a little awkward and crooked at first, but I quickly readjusted. Sometimes feeling the wind across my face makes me feel less alone, more in tune with my faith and the world. It grounds me. I just get this urge to run when my feelings are overwhelming, something that opened up inside me when I felt like Leslie was forgotten (see my last post). So the bike ride helped with that, it helped me reconnect with God. To see more clearly. Just the start of a long process.
My mind is such a jumble lately, it's hard for me to put two thoughts together and I doubt any of it is coherent. All I know is that the words don't express the feelings accurately. But all I can do is try, try to understand what's going on with me or to at least make peace with what I don't see. Some things are probably always going to be a mystery, maybe life is better that way.
Today I rode the bike I got yesterday and it lightened that gnawing feeling I've had in my chest since Friday. I woke up yesterday and read all these articles at yahoo about the tornados that wreaked havoc across the midwest. I paused and my heart squeezed when I read about all the towns that suffered massive damage in southern Indiana, close to where I spent the majority of my growing years. It's like a panic came over me although I'm about 800 miles from there, mentally and physically. Like a hole got torn into my memory, like everything and everybody changed because of that reality. And there's the anxiety that comes with reading about tragedy. It's just different when it strikes places you were/are familiar with. It brings another shade to the picture. My cousins are okay, they're far from the areas where the tornados struck but there's a question mark over other members of my family. I pray they are, despite our estrangement, I wish them no ill.
But to digress back to the bike ride. It felt good to get my foot back into the pedals of a bike, it has been years since I've ridden a bike. It was a little awkward and crooked at first, but I quickly readjusted. Sometimes feeling the wind across my face makes me feel less alone, more in tune with my faith and the world. It grounds me. I just get this urge to run when my feelings are overwhelming, something that opened up inside me when I felt like Leslie was forgotten (see my last post). So the bike ride helped with that, it helped me reconnect with God. To see more clearly. Just the start of a long process.
My mind is such a jumble lately, it's hard for me to put two thoughts together and I doubt any of it is coherent. All I know is that the words don't express the feelings accurately. But all I can do is try, try to understand what's going on with me or to at least make peace with what I don't see. Some things are probably always going to be a mystery, maybe life is better that way.