Let the Healing Begin

Me and the girls three weeks after I'd withdrawn from student teaching. The exposure is a little off in this photo, but only a litte. The sad thing is my color had improved by the time this photo was taken. Training: Week 4, Day 3

Distance: 13.04 miles

Time: 59 minutes

Weather: 83 & Humidity 57%

Power Song: Bicycle by Queen

April 2004- So now what? How does one go about healing?

Do you sit around on the couch, watching television and let your body go at it? I can't do that, I'd die of boredom before the week was out.

Do you start out with slow walks along the river listening to Enya? Okay, time to reveal a deep dark secret that's even more embarrassing than my Angry Ass issues. I own every Enya CD, including holiday specials.

Do I clean out the self-help section of the library? I do read a lot of 'relationship' books... but usually my 'relationship books' involving a dashing lord and a brave heroine in a great dress.

Do I call one of the 1-900 physic hot lines? This one is out. I don't have a job and I don't think I can mow enough of my Dad's lawn to make up for one phone session.

Maybe following a 12 step program would help: Step One: I admitted I was powerless to my disease and that my life was no longer manageable. Check. Step Two: I've come to believe that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity.... Okay, well I don't think I'm insane, so does this one really apply to me? I guess the 12 step program is out.

I'd been in denial for three years and now that I'd accepted that I was sick, I didn't know what to do. Worst yet, I'm not a person of inaction. 'Just being' is a mindset that has always been incomprehensible to me. Concepts don't 'sink in' with me unless I'm distracted by something else. For me meditating leads to brooding, which leads to over thinking, that then knots itself into a complex bitter little ball. No sitting around my parent's house, watching television and 'just being' for the summer was not going to work for me. But I was too sick to lead my old life. So where do I go?

And within hours of moving back in with my parents my denial morphed into anger.