Seconds after we pulled into the driveway from a trip to Waffle House, the lake house, and dropping Grandma and Grandpa off at the airport, Evelyn said, “I’m bored.”
Seconds.
That statement usually sends me to Mom purgatory. Somewhere along the way my brain got wired to believe that it’s my job to give her the richest, most meaningful childhood imaginable. Always. No matter what.
I just deleted my last sentence. I’d written that sometimes I wish I hadn’t become a parent. That isn’t true. What’s true is that I don’t like how much responsibility I feel. I don’t like carrying around the belief that her joy, boredom, growth, or happiness somehow rests in my hands.
I try not to use that power. But is it even power? Or is it something else entirely? I feel jumbled up.
Evelyn has what we call the “skunk feeling.” It’s a name we made up for when her mind latches onto something and can’t let go. She wants something she can’t have, and it sits just out of reach.
Playing the piano seems to help. I imagine the attention it requires—the coordination of her hands, the sound, the intention—settles something inside her.
Running does that for me. Or rather, it used to.
Lately, resistance has settled over me like pea soup fog. Funny how resistance convinced me that running was the problem, when really the problem was the resistance itself.
I bought new shoes. Bright pink Brooks Trace 4s. I put them on and ran a lap around the couch and the kitchen island. Clouds. They felt like running on puffy clouds. So light. So squishy. So supportive.
Tomorrow morning I’ll go. Before the school buses roll down our road, I’ll head into town, to the park loop, to breathe, notice what there is to notice, quiet my mind, and get to work.
Three months until the half marathon. Three months. That amount of time feels like pressure. Urgency. A countdown. But maybe that’s just the resistance talking.
Maybe it’s fear. The fear that I’ll never get back to where I was. That I’ve somehow lost myself. That I’ll always be buried beneath the noise of responsibilities and meaninglessness.
I think what scares me most is my own depth. So I stay near the surface, where it’s bright and busy, while quietly longing for the ocean floor. The silence. The darkness. The eerie stillness of the silty bottom.
I imagine it holding me, and me holding it, rocking gently with the current. Weightless. Free.
And I will melt in its bosom of expansive beauty; it will hold me as long as I’ll allow.
Love, Jaclynn
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