We're On a Road to Nowhere....

I had this song in my head all day long and I can't quit humming it! Worse things in life than David Byrne so I'll live with it.  I do like the song so no big. But still isn't it funny how some tunes just mysteriously appear? I hadn't heard this song for quite a long while and today it seems I just woke up with it.  Like I had a mental tryst with this ditty overnight and now it sheepishly goes off on it's merry way but not without leaving me with its melody. 

Or maybe I did hear some sort of muzak version and didn't realize it... but I don't think so. I choose to believe that this song came for a reason: mostly that I feel in stasis before this race.  13 days out from the Chicago Marathon and I'm both scared witless and terribly excited.

And I've come to learn that I really don't know the difference between the two.

I also am in that mysterious place known as "TAPER."  I have been told that taper madness strikes during this slowdown phase.  And I think it is so.  I have very little appetite suddenly and after two days of solid rest (an unthinkable 8-9 hours+ each night) I'm wired.  Of course, the added coffee and tea ingested probably helped.  But with that much sleep in my system and no run today, I have reserves.  I am not at all comfortable with this bounty, mind you.  In fact I think I'm headed for trouble because the very thing I don't want to do is think about this next chapter. ANY OF IT. Actually I'm really pissed off to have this hole, this void suddenly to contend with.   I'm bored.  I'm upset. What to do when I so successfully ran from the things that were chasing me all year???? Seriously, I think I've been pushing myself so hard that to stop seems foreign, wrong.  Out of sync.  Because to stop I'm going to have to think about where I'm going. And I still don't really know. 

Am I happy with my lot?  Am I prepared to stand up and tell the truth finally.  To say my marriage is withering into something I'm not really prepared for. That I'm scared to move on but more petrified to stay?  That I miss having a dream. Am I at peace with the fact that my grandmothers are waning as this winter approaches? Who the fuck will I be if my grandmothers aren't here anymore? How can they go on suffering if they stay???  Am I prepared to fight the good fight in this marathon and champion self and will and light and yes even Love's existence itself --- in this mad dash of middle age vigor and vim. To prove what?  That I'm not dead, I only feel that way sometimes.  That I didn't have a baby (greatest sin) and I'm a failure except for this. (If this is really going to be a redemption story.) That I desperately am afraid to stop. BECAUSE TO STOP means feeling.  Just stop. Stop. Stop running, stop pretending, stop lying, stop trying, stop everything but sitting with this monstrous reality of myself and just be.

Yes, Virginia, these thoughts sucks ass.  No two ways about it.   

But I suppose this quest is worthy of some pondering.  Some soul searching.  And yes even a tear or two.

So I sit here with my cat on my lap purring, realizing that this moment -- like all others before it will pass.  And maybe the best thing to do is get acquainted with all the nasty little bits of me that I've been running from so I can finish this race with the best parts of me intact and the rest integrated. 

So yes my shadows can come along too because by hell or high water, we're all going to cross that finish line one day.  Why not for this race?  Get a'packing troups:  we're on a road to nowhere............