Free at Last

The 'rents are gone as of 30 minutes ago and all is well and right with my world again.

My run was very satisfying yesterday, but difficult for some reason. My knees felt great - and no swelling at all afterward, by the way - but for some reason I had a hard time beginning at mile 2. I began to have "give up and walk" thoughts. Of course I didn't give up, but grimmaced and forced myself to continue. Sheer willpower had to take over. After a bit the weak feelings passed. I wonder now if it's possible to just have a bad running day for no apparent reason. I sometimes have bad days for no apparent reason, so surely it's possible for it to trickle over to running??

** warning -- short rant coming; please skip over if needed **

As a parent, I can cannot imagine a time in my life in which I would NOT be aware of my child, say, being on the school track team.

Apparently, however, my Dad somehow never knew I was on the track team when I was in the 9th grade. He even argued with me about it! "Oh, you were not," he said. He asked me what events I participated in and I informed him that "I ran the mile and the 2 mile." "Oh, well it was just for a year," he said, as if that excused the fact that he had no idea that his daughter ran track on her high school team. I'm pleased to announce that I didn't feel angry or upset at all upon learning this. I did say to him, "You should feel very guilty." But I felt nothing other than interest and mild surprise.

I've come a long way, baybee.

I used to ONLY feel anger, sometimes hatred, resentfulness, etc. toward my parents. I think I can safely say now, though, that I can look at painful times from a distracted distance - much like skimming through an old photo album and seeing photos that I only vaguely recall participating in....

Please don't ever let me be like them. Please let me always see the beauty.