Today I Write

Today is another day. Woke up feeling like a bus hit my head. Isaac ran in saying "need new diaper" (and he really did!). David scratched his belly button and needed a lot of pampering, lotions, Band-Aids an special shirts. He even suggested that a bath might help. 

My neighbor made us breakfast and we ate it on her back deck watching the corn grow before our eyes (it is over 6 feet tall). A man in a baseball cap walked through her garden with a dog and we had to tell him not to trample her melons. 

David's hard thing from yesterday was that I would be leaving all day today. On top of that, he woke in the night because he dreamed that Andrew and I left him. This morning when my neighbor suggested that I go and sit for a few minutes while she watched the kids, David said, "You don't really want to sit alone, do you? You want to be with me." I get emotional thinking about it. I want to want to always be a happy mom, to write, to run to live, but it all feels like either too little or too much. I can't win. 

I committed to 12 weeks of writing and completing 4 short stories. The weeks few by and I feel frantic at how much is not edited. I am sitting for 4 hours to finish four stories. As I sit in a working space, there are books on the wall and all I can think of is how I can avoid writing. I could eat lunch, buy coffee, run, or online shop. But the consequences of avoidance are sheer agony. My body is tense thinking about it all.

I am also doing a running plan where I should be at 78 miles this week. It is Thursday and I have 17.5 complete. I was short 8 last week. Each day I struggle to want to take the time, but also can't not run. I am in that incongruent space between action and stagnation, I suppose like a dog chasing it's tale or a swirl of leaves in a corner. So much energy is taken in just thinking about what to do and I know that if all was decided and I just went for it, I would feel major relief. For today its writing, left overs and a long run at twilight.