Sunday I took two buses to get to church early and meet with my priest to talk about getting a job, but I ended up telling her how lonely I am instead. She was unbelievably helpful: a good listener, but to the point, and talked to me about Meyers-Briggs, which I love. In the end she helped me to realize that maybe I'm not crazy for feeling trapped in the grocery store. Maybe I just really do need a job that's less immediate, tactile, and more goal-oriented/intuitive. So I guess that's where I'm headed next; I'm going to reconfigure my resume.
On the way back to the front of the church, I ran into a friend I've only met once before whose wife is home sleeping off an over-night shift at the hospital. He told me hello and that there's a Russian festival in Capitol Hill later and do Pat and I want to go? Which, of course we do, but he's not with me at the moment to ask. I took his card and promised to call.
You see, Pat wasn't with me that morning because he went to the Free-Methodist church instead, the one right by his new house on his new side of town by a new school, a clear sign to me that our relationship is on its way out. And even though we still have plans get married next year, I now find it almost inevitable that we'll also never go to church together, fundamentally disinterest and disappoint each other, and end up estranged and miserable. So after my talk with Mother M. I decided to skip church, and walk through Queen Anne to meet him.
It was a beautiful walk, almost breathtakingly quiet, and the streets were shrubby and quaint, and the sun was shy on my face as I climbed the hill. I thought about how what M. said is true, that finding a job is another full time job and that I just can't waste my energy imagining how and why exactly each job doesn't want me professionally. It's probably nothing personal. (Or else maybe it is. It is possible that I'm stunningly incompetent and write soppy, worthless cover letters. But either way, I guess it makes no difference whether I dwell on it, and I really have no choice but to press on.) Then and there, or else on the way, I somehow stumbled upon the will to go to the grocery store Monday morning with my head held high. And I have to say, the past few days of work have been cheery, even content, something I haven't felt since January.
When I got to the church dizzy and flushed with fresh air, I asked Pat if he would leave me if I become agnostic. He sort of patted my shoulder awkwardly, staring at me with that befuddled look of exasperation and pity I know so well, then said, “Kristin, meet J, my classmate and pastor here at the Free-Methodist church.” I shook her hand and she told me how much she loves Patrick and how smart he is, which I told her I already knew. Later on the bus to Capitol Hill while I was trying to call S, squinting at his business card, I saw Pat shake his head out of the corner of my eye, grinning. “Agnostic,” he said, almost whispering, and put his arm around me.
We both found icons at the Russian festival: Pat's is St. Simeon. Mine is the lamenting virgin. I've only ever seen it in a book before, and I think it is incredible. It is a picture Mary, obviously, and as is typical in an Orthodox painting, she's robed and beautiful with big almond eyes and invisible hair. Her arms are outstretched as if holding the tiny Christ-Man, but in this particular version, he's not there. Mary simply holds out her hands, her head and body leaning to one side, the corner of her eyes turned down in an unmistakable expression of piercing sorrow. She is supposed to represent the words spoken to her by Simeon the first time he sees Jesus, “And a sword shall pierce your heart also.”
I fell in love with it the moment I saw it in Pat's icon book. To me it is a heart-breaking foreshadowing of what humanity faces forever after the death and disappearance of God. This empty longing, this wishing for something we don't even know how to name. The desire not just for a scrap of truth or hope or morality to cling to, but for a body, a piece of flesh, a reIncarnation of the divine.
I couldn't help it. The icon made me think about my job. There is a pitifully similar elusiveness in the longing I feel: I want something I don't even know right now. Not just an idea to carry me through the next eight hour shift, but something I can lay my hands on: something mundane and made of flesh.
The icon is as long as my pinky finger and twice as wide. I tucked it into my pocket and S and his wife convinced us to come along to a friends house, where we were not really sure we were invited. We stopped on the way to buy flavored Triskets and Tillamook cheddar cheese to offer as an apology for crashing their party and headed on over. At first it was strange and awkward and nobody offered us a chair. I was horrified that we'd ruined their evening, and then suddenly everything changed. In an unforeseen turn of events, I wound up in a conversation with the hostess and suddenly we were talking about jobs and religion and our families. And when she and Patrick debate the issue of going to a church where you fit in vs. going to a church where you feel doctrinal tension, I found myself seeing Pat in a new way. I've always just wanted to find a place where I feel known, and where the questions that bother me the most aren't ignored, and I can finally stop appearing cynical and pushy and just relax. But Pat doesn't feel that way at all. Those are his questions you know? And he wants to sit with them through his tangly Methodist roots. And even though I'm still not sure I'll go to church with him ever, I still think he's smart and good.
The conversation turned and the hostess vaguely mentioned that she is in the process of adoption. “Wow!” I said, “That's exciting.” And she nodded, and I found myself a little unsure of what to say next. For some reason I couldn't remember what questions are rude, and which are allowed. “Is it a... long process?” I tried. And she launched easily into an explanation of her agency and how they're not choosing a baby, but waiting to be chosen by parents looking for help. “Oh,” I said, surprised. They're just waiting? There's no timeline? “So... when...?” I asked gingerly, and she smiled sadly and shook her head. “Any day.” She glanced at her husband across the picnic table laughing in the midst of another conversation. “We're just waiting for the phone to ring.”
My head swam with sudden empathy. I knew just how it felt to stare at the phone, willing it to ring. The emptiness, the helplessness. And then my stomach blossomed with shame that I could ever compare our situations at all.
“Its been seven months,” she said quietly. I thougth ruefully of my month of melodrama. “We just have to stop thinking about it every moment,” she went on, smiling, “And enjoy sleeping in while we still can!” We laughed, relieved. A few minutes later it got too dark to see and we exchanged numbers and shook hands and Pat, S, J and I walked to the car. On the way home I unburied my icon of Mary and stared at her arms reaching, the sad tilt of her shoulders, the heaviness reflected in her bright eyes.
On Monday I got up at five fifteen AM and walked to work in the dark with my thumb on her face, clenched tight in my pocket and hoped that the phone would ring.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
An unmarked anniversary
It's been one year this month since I moved to Seattle. The weight of what has happened is so heavy today as I walk around cleaning that I can hardly breathe.
I don't know what I thought would happen if I moved here, but I'm glad I'm not leaving, because it hasn't happened yet.
The quiet unraveling of a friendship I never even expected, the dark, shifting feelings of my own self, the job that I wanted so much, now a reality pressing so heavy that I feel paralyzed.
I apply and apply, but the phone doesn't ring. I know its normal. I know it happens, and they've got a lot to do. But if they knew how much was at stake-- if they knew it was the difference between forward and no where at all--
???
I guess if they knew the kind of lunatic I've been this week, crazy with my desire for something pressing and structured in my days, they'd have even less reason to pick up the phone.
I don't know what I thought would happen if I moved here, but I'm glad I'm not leaving, because it hasn't happened yet.
The quiet unraveling of a friendship I never even expected, the dark, shifting feelings of my own self, the job that I wanted so much, now a reality pressing so heavy that I feel paralyzed.
I apply and apply, but the phone doesn't ring. I know its normal. I know it happens, and they've got a lot to do. But if they knew how much was at stake-- if they knew it was the difference between forward and no where at all--
???
I guess if they knew the kind of lunatic I've been this week, crazy with my desire for something pressing and structured in my days, they'd have even less reason to pick up the phone.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Still Broke(n)
Right after it happened, I heroicly emailed my ex-prospective employer and asked, very dignifiedly I think, if there is anything I can do to interview better in the future. Even though I thought the email had a distinctly business-like tenor, she responded with less help for the savvy working woman in me and more comfort to the pathetic sap who stayed up till three and woke again at 7:30 to think about being alone for the rest of her life.
"Don't worry!" she cooed. She is, after all, a preschool teacher. "You did fine! It was nothing you did wrong at all!" And "Good luck to you! You did great!" Smiley face, exclamation point, smiley face. Jesus, could she hear me weeping? But it was kind, and very generous of her to take the time to write to me at all.
Even though I would have been pissed as hell if she didn't.
But she did tell me something that will help. The individual they did hire, she said, has a minor in music and can wear two hats for the program. This sort of snapped me back to my senses. I have to start selling myself! (End boyfriend/lover analogy HERE.) I am great at music, as a general, preschool-level skill, and I guess my resume doesn't say so. I was a band freak in high school (this is one step beyond geek), and I led music at Girl Scout camp all the time. Why, when she asked me what I'd bring to the program, did I ramble on and on about how I think kids need more than the love of a teacher, and that individuals should be taught in individual ways? I never thought to say, "I am great at music, and would be comfortable singing with the kids." And now I will. So thank you, heart-break. You've taught me yet another lesson.
* * *
My Stages of Grief
1. Crying
2. Splurging
3. Hibernating
4. Eating Cereal in Bed (this constitutes an entire, separate stage, independent of #2)
5. Solitude or Running
6. Writing
"Don't worry!" she cooed. She is, after all, a preschool teacher. "You did fine! It was nothing you did wrong at all!" And "Good luck to you! You did great!" Smiley face, exclamation point, smiley face. Jesus, could she hear me weeping? But it was kind, and very generous of her to take the time to write to me at all.
Even though I would have been pissed as hell if she didn't.
But she did tell me something that will help. The individual they did hire, she said, has a minor in music and can wear two hats for the program. This sort of snapped me back to my senses. I have to start selling myself! (End boyfriend/lover analogy HERE.) I am great at music, as a general, preschool-level skill, and I guess my resume doesn't say so. I was a band freak in high school (this is one step beyond geek), and I led music at Girl Scout camp all the time. Why, when she asked me what I'd bring to the program, did I ramble on and on about how I think kids need more than the love of a teacher, and that individuals should be taught in individual ways? I never thought to say, "I am great at music, and would be comfortable singing with the kids." And now I will. So thank you, heart-break. You've taught me yet another lesson.
* * *
My Stages of Grief
1. Crying
2. Splurging
3. Hibernating
4. Eating Cereal in Bed (this constitutes an entire, separate stage, independent of #2)
5. Solitude or Running
6. Writing
The Break Up
Christy is always telling me that applying for jobs is just like hanging out with a new boyfriend. To which I of course reply with vehement disagreement.
"No, its not," I sigh impatiently, "and we've been through this. You can call the job you want as many times as you want and its not needy; its determined." And I always believed this was true. Until today at 4:16, when I was dumped.
By a preschool.
And suddenly I'm back in college, freshman year, huddled on the floor of my dorm with my roommate, eating microwave Easy-Mac at twelve in the morning, hysterical laughter spilling over the throb that sits right behind my soft pallet, tickling my throat, the corners of my mouth, tempting me to give into the tears and the grief and the loss. Why, why, why
As it was then, its not the actual lost thing that represents the first prickly wave of grief. It is instead an overwhelming sense that one's life is now somehow less organized and meaningful. I am familiar with this notion, and I've always resented it because I don't believe it is true; I am convinced that life is powerful and wonderful and necessary with or without a mate. Yes, everyone needs The Other, deeply, complexly, compellingly. But the other, the lover? Optional.
But this evening as I sit sifting through my thoughts about the job, I realize that its not the particular lover that is at the heart of the loss; it is the trajectory this one represents, or has represented- the sense that one has momentum. And with the loss of this direction, the infinite alternatives sprawling ahead are too paralyzing and lonely to compel the adventurer you once were. The first pain, I realize tonight, is the loss of your own identity and motion. And as a result, the particular specifics of one's loss isn't really immediately felt. That, unfortunately, comes much later. Because of this, sometimes it is less painful than it initially seems to be. Sometimes it is worse.
I imagine in this case it will be much easier than it feels now. To be honest, I knew about the preschool for less than 48 hours, only waited thirty hours in between the interview and the actual break-up. But they were a beautiful thirty hours, filled with plans: how can you not? Budget configurations, many phone conversations with my enthusiastic mom, a new schedule drawn up, a decision to buy a bike, vision after vision after vision of myself: peddling to work, talking to the kids, seeing them later at the grocery store, little by little regaining the self-worth I've laid to rest working at a job where I feel less than myself.
So tonight I will do what I've done before: buy a huge tub of chocolate ice cream and watch Gilmore Girls. Erase my new budget, schedule, spend the money set aside for the bike on something pretty and useless. And maybe tomorrow when I wake up at God knows when, I'll have the energy to make my bed and take a shower. Maybe I'll even make a few phone calls.
Then again, maybe not.
"No, its not," I sigh impatiently, "and we've been through this. You can call the job you want as many times as you want and its not needy; its determined." And I always believed this was true. Until today at 4:16, when I was dumped.
By a preschool.
And suddenly I'm back in college, freshman year, huddled on the floor of my dorm with my roommate, eating microwave Easy-Mac at twelve in the morning, hysterical laughter spilling over the throb that sits right behind my soft pallet, tickling my throat, the corners of my mouth, tempting me to give into the tears and the grief and the loss. Why, why, why
As it was then, its not the actual lost thing that represents the first prickly wave of grief. It is instead an overwhelming sense that one's life is now somehow less organized and meaningful. I am familiar with this notion, and I've always resented it because I don't believe it is true; I am convinced that life is powerful and wonderful and necessary with or without a mate. Yes, everyone needs The Other, deeply, complexly, compellingly. But the other, the lover? Optional.
But this evening as I sit sifting through my thoughts about the job, I realize that its not the particular lover that is at the heart of the loss; it is the trajectory this one represents, or has represented- the sense that one has momentum. And with the loss of this direction, the infinite alternatives sprawling ahead are too paralyzing and lonely to compel the adventurer you once were. The first pain, I realize tonight, is the loss of your own identity and motion. And as a result, the particular specifics of one's loss isn't really immediately felt. That, unfortunately, comes much later. Because of this, sometimes it is less painful than it initially seems to be. Sometimes it is worse.
I imagine in this case it will be much easier than it feels now. To be honest, I knew about the preschool for less than 48 hours, only waited thirty hours in between the interview and the actual break-up. But they were a beautiful thirty hours, filled with plans: how can you not? Budget configurations, many phone conversations with my enthusiastic mom, a new schedule drawn up, a decision to buy a bike, vision after vision after vision of myself: peddling to work, talking to the kids, seeing them later at the grocery store, little by little regaining the self-worth I've laid to rest working at a job where I feel less than myself.
So tonight I will do what I've done before: buy a huge tub of chocolate ice cream and watch Gilmore Girls. Erase my new budget, schedule, spend the money set aside for the bike on something pretty and useless. And maybe tomorrow when I wake up at God knows when, I'll have the energy to make my bed and take a shower. Maybe I'll even make a few phone calls.
Then again, maybe not.
Monday, August 24, 2009
A Question to say 'Yes' to
Since the marathon I’ve been spending my long afternoons at home, alone, watching Scrubs reruns and peeling slivers of string cheese. Today was no exception, except I felt worse. I hate my job, and I work at five or six in the morning and there’s nothing worse than waking up at four and preparing yourself for something you feel terrible doing, but aren’t able to change. I try to think of things I wouldn’t mind doing at this time of day: family bike rides maybe, a nice long workout, a good day of hiking; certainly not transferring frozen bags of pasta from frozen cases to frozen shelves while The Chiffons bleat in my ears beneath the fluorescent glare. Twice a week I find myself sitting on the floor of the bathroom at work, biting my arm to stifle the noise of my sobs as hot tears trickle down my cheeks. Its not fair that I have to work somewhere I hate. I moved to Seattle with my freshly printed diploma tucked under my arm, feeling that it guaranteed me something stellar and bright for the future. And I ended up in a grocery store.
So today I got to the part in the series where Turk asks Carla to marry him and she says, “I don’t know,” which really floors him and he’s just sort of dumbfounded and ego-struck for a while. After about fifteen minutes of the show, however, he tries a new tactic, and asks her several times a day. Each time she says, “I don’t know,” and each time he seems only more determined. But eventually something in him seems to snap, and her indecision actually wounds him a little, so he walks away; finally, in the last two minutes of the episode, she comes to her senses and decides she’s ready to commit. She calls him on the phone and says simply, “Ask me again.” And he hangs up the phone, drops what he’s doing and runs across town. As the camera pans out, they meet in a park, at which point music begins to play and the viewer only sees Turk bend on one knee, Carla nod her head, and J.D. run in with sparklers to zoom around them while they kiss. The song that drowns out the unnecessary dialogue is by Rhett Miller, called, “Question.” One line of the song goes:
Someday somebody’s gonna ask you
A question that you should say yes to
Its obviously a song written about engagement, and romance, but the words that hung in the air long after I stared at the blank screen didn’t remind me of getting engaged (an idea that is- admittedly- on my mind more and more these days), I wasn’t even thinking about Pat at all. I was thinking about the Eucharist.
If there’s a hinge question in my life right now, a question that I should say yes to, its probably something practical like, ‘Will you ever stick to your bleeping budget?’ or ‘Will you stop nagging Pat about leaving his stuff around your house?’ I’m not really feeling anxious about religion at this precise moment. There’s just not really a crisis right now, oddly enough. So it surprised me today when I felt this great surge of emotion in my chest at the thought of saying yes to God. I wanted it; I wanted to say yes.
Patrick had left for work several hours before. On his way out the door he realized he’d forgotten to take off the ring I gave him for Christmas last year, a ring that we worked on engraving together. The words printed around the outside are essentially the invitation to communion from the liturgy. Since he didn’t want to take it to the grocery store with him, I’ve had it on my finger all night, and it seems fitting to wear a ring this particular night that speaks a proposition. Every once in a while I move it from my right hand to my left, and I stare at it, and I keep wondering if it will make me kinder to him, more patient, a wife. It seems somehow both appropriate and confusing that the ring feels like something between my answer to God and an engagement ring.
Does a ring make you a good person, or the love of running, a runner? Will my surge of emotion, the yes that sits ripe in my chest make me a Christian, a real living, breathing model? I felt something akin to my high school enthusiasm, the version of me that wanted to run to the center of town and just feel something, just do something about the way that I feel, and to just be a Christian in that moment.
But it didn’t last in high school, and I know it won’t last tonight. To be a Christian, you can’t just feel something, or even tell someone else you feel it. The question isn’t, “What do you feel that has allowed you a moment to say ‘Yes’?”, but instead, “How will you live in light of the ‘Yes’?” How will I live in light of my encounter, the moment I was asked the question and found some miracle within me that allowed me to answer in the affirmative and survive to tell the tale, now nourished and sent forth?
But my moment of elated puzzlement only lasted for one lovely, ignorant moment, and then it burst like a soap bubble
I already knew the answer. Its was clear as day, and I’ve probably known it all along:
I have to go to work. I have to do my job.
And okay, there’s probably nothing wrong with searching for another job, or working on my resume, but when I wake up at five this Tuesday morning, I’m going to have to spend the next eight hours at the grocery store, and I might as well appreciate my job, not for the store or the company or for the mighty beast, capitalism. But because its work. And it’s the work I have- at the moment- been given to say yes to.
So today I got to the part in the series where Turk asks Carla to marry him and she says, “I don’t know,” which really floors him and he’s just sort of dumbfounded and ego-struck for a while. After about fifteen minutes of the show, however, he tries a new tactic, and asks her several times a day. Each time she says, “I don’t know,” and each time he seems only more determined. But eventually something in him seems to snap, and her indecision actually wounds him a little, so he walks away; finally, in the last two minutes of the episode, she comes to her senses and decides she’s ready to commit. She calls him on the phone and says simply, “Ask me again.” And he hangs up the phone, drops what he’s doing and runs across town. As the camera pans out, they meet in a park, at which point music begins to play and the viewer only sees Turk bend on one knee, Carla nod her head, and J.D. run in with sparklers to zoom around them while they kiss. The song that drowns out the unnecessary dialogue is by Rhett Miller, called, “Question.” One line of the song goes:
Someday somebody’s gonna ask you
A question that you should say yes to
Its obviously a song written about engagement, and romance, but the words that hung in the air long after I stared at the blank screen didn’t remind me of getting engaged (an idea that is- admittedly- on my mind more and more these days), I wasn’t even thinking about Pat at all. I was thinking about the Eucharist.
If there’s a hinge question in my life right now, a question that I should say yes to, its probably something practical like, ‘Will you ever stick to your bleeping budget?’ or ‘Will you stop nagging Pat about leaving his stuff around your house?’ I’m not really feeling anxious about religion at this precise moment. There’s just not really a crisis right now, oddly enough. So it surprised me today when I felt this great surge of emotion in my chest at the thought of saying yes to God. I wanted it; I wanted to say yes.
Patrick had left for work several hours before. On his way out the door he realized he’d forgotten to take off the ring I gave him for Christmas last year, a ring that we worked on engraving together. The words printed around the outside are essentially the invitation to communion from the liturgy. Since he didn’t want to take it to the grocery store with him, I’ve had it on my finger all night, and it seems fitting to wear a ring this particular night that speaks a proposition. Every once in a while I move it from my right hand to my left, and I stare at it, and I keep wondering if it will make me kinder to him, more patient, a wife. It seems somehow both appropriate and confusing that the ring feels like something between my answer to God and an engagement ring.
Does a ring make you a good person, or the love of running, a runner? Will my surge of emotion, the yes that sits ripe in my chest make me a Christian, a real living, breathing model? I felt something akin to my high school enthusiasm, the version of me that wanted to run to the center of town and just feel something, just do something about the way that I feel, and to just be a Christian in that moment.
But it didn’t last in high school, and I know it won’t last tonight. To be a Christian, you can’t just feel something, or even tell someone else you feel it. The question isn’t, “What do you feel that has allowed you a moment to say ‘Yes’?”, but instead, “How will you live in light of the ‘Yes’?” How will I live in light of my encounter, the moment I was asked the question and found some miracle within me that allowed me to answer in the affirmative and survive to tell the tale, now nourished and sent forth?
But my moment of elated puzzlement only lasted for one lovely, ignorant moment, and then it burst like a soap bubble
I already knew the answer. Its was clear as day, and I’ve probably known it all along:
I have to go to work. I have to do my job.
And okay, there’s probably nothing wrong with searching for another job, or working on my resume, but when I wake up at five this Tuesday morning, I’m going to have to spend the next eight hours at the grocery store, and I might as well appreciate my job, not for the store or the company or for the mighty beast, capitalism. But because its work. And it’s the work I have- at the moment- been given to say yes to.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Road again
I went to the Food Bank on Thursday morning and picking up food donations with K. she told me, "Kristin, I can't believe you haven't run since the marathon. That's gotta be stressing you out." And I have to say, I was quite surprised. I still feel somewhat heroic for what I did, despite my roller coaster of self-pity, and it caught me off-guard to hear someone say that I should get off my butt and hit the roads again when I feel so deserving of a break. But maybe she's right, that its emotionally stressing me out, so I got off my butt.
For about four miles, but it still felt wonderful-- not my legs, of course-- but really wonderful, you know? I got to University bridge and- it was boiling hot- there were boats really simply everywhere below and the air sat heavy around me like a coat covering my bare arms, but I just sunk into it, and it felt like a bath full of epsom salts. I looked out at the loungers on the back of motor boats or the adventurous kayak-ers in their life jackets, drinking from sport-top water bottles, and I just felt like the luckiest. Maybe not the one having the most fun, or the best off in that weather, but the luckiest-- just to be a witness to life, to Seattle, even to myself. It felt good to be able to count on Running again, for it just to sit below my heart, locked in my machine-knees while my head marched through a litany of thoughts, piecing ideas together, processing motion, change and the desire to stay still and throw down roots.
For about four miles, but it still felt wonderful-- not my legs, of course-- but really wonderful, you know? I got to University bridge and- it was boiling hot- there were boats really simply everywhere below and the air sat heavy around me like a coat covering my bare arms, but I just sunk into it, and it felt like a bath full of epsom salts. I looked out at the loungers on the back of motor boats or the adventurous kayak-ers in their life jackets, drinking from sport-top water bottles, and I just felt like the luckiest. Maybe not the one having the most fun, or the best off in that weather, but the luckiest-- just to be a witness to life, to Seattle, even to myself. It felt good to be able to count on Running again, for it just to sit below my heart, locked in my machine-knees while my head marched through a litany of thoughts, piecing ideas together, processing motion, change and the desire to stay still and throw down roots.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Small steps...
I am in a state of numbness about running. Unfortunately, my legs are not. It still hurts to bend and stand and lift heavy crates of lettuce, which I have to do a lot at the store. My running partner, C. is not sore, which is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that I am. Why, though?
I want to walk my old running routes-- like the two weeks between cross country and track in college, when I missed it so much I couldn't stay away-- and think about my life and try to understand why seasons change and things die, but I can't. Short walks tire me out. I miss running; I miss races, but I don't want either of them right now. I have this terrific feeling that running is all at once everything and nothing to me. That it still defines me, is almost closer than my name, but still I hate it. Why didn't anyone tell me that a marathon is the slow, torturous version of a truck hitting your whole body?
On Sunday Pat and I sat out side the library on the grass with two bowls of ice cream and a notebook and made a list of pros and cons to help him decide if he should go to grad school (he got accepted the night before the race). Though both lists were a fair size before we called it a day, in the end all we could really see on the 'con' side is the money thing and the family thing. I miss my family, and I don't want to be in debt, but weighing on the other side were massive things like community, vocational direction, and the fact that we will stay in Seattle, which I also love. And its only three years, after all. Not a decade, not a lifetime. After a few moments silence while we both stared off into space, Pat looked at me with a grin shyly forming and asked, "Well, Kristin, what do you think?" I thought for a minute.
"I think I'm going to run another marathon," I said. Which he said he already knew.
So yesterday we caught the 30 to the campus and walked around a little bit after he turned in his intent-to-enroll paperwork. So that's it. Pat's a student again! Which has inspired me to get my own proverbial shit together and start perusing Craigslist for a teaching job. Just a couple months now left of freedom before Pat moves and embarks on a task which could very well send a new wave of stress into our relationship, but I really couldn't be more excited.
I want to walk my old running routes-- like the two weeks between cross country and track in college, when I missed it so much I couldn't stay away-- and think about my life and try to understand why seasons change and things die, but I can't. Short walks tire me out. I miss running; I miss races, but I don't want either of them right now. I have this terrific feeling that running is all at once everything and nothing to me. That it still defines me, is almost closer than my name, but still I hate it. Why didn't anyone tell me that a marathon is the slow, torturous version of a truck hitting your whole body?
On Sunday Pat and I sat out side the library on the grass with two bowls of ice cream and a notebook and made a list of pros and cons to help him decide if he should go to grad school (he got accepted the night before the race). Though both lists were a fair size before we called it a day, in the end all we could really see on the 'con' side is the money thing and the family thing. I miss my family, and I don't want to be in debt, but weighing on the other side were massive things like community, vocational direction, and the fact that we will stay in Seattle, which I also love. And its only three years, after all. Not a decade, not a lifetime. After a few moments silence while we both stared off into space, Pat looked at me with a grin shyly forming and asked, "Well, Kristin, what do you think?" I thought for a minute.
"I think I'm going to run another marathon," I said. Which he said he already knew.
So yesterday we caught the 30 to the campus and walked around a little bit after he turned in his intent-to-enroll paperwork. So that's it. Pat's a student again! Which has inspired me to get my own proverbial shit together and start perusing Craigslist for a teaching job. Just a couple months now left of freedom before Pat moves and embarks on a task which could very well send a new wave of stress into our relationship, but I really couldn't be more excited.
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