Best of ’09: Moment of Peace

2009 hasn’t been exactly what I’d call a peaceful year.  In fact, it’s been the opposite.  From pink slips at work to family health troubles to moving in with the boyfriend to a variety of other issues, 2009 has brought ups and downs, highs and lows unlike any other year. 

I am exhausted.  Seriously. 2010 better be freaking awesome to make up for this year.  It was difficult for me to think of a moment of peace, in all honesty.  But then, I remembered one.

It was the week after my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and the day after my family was gathered in a hospital waiting room and told that my grandmother might not make it.  I was profoundly sad.  I’d been grumpy and horrified and exhausted and at the same time, I was angry.  So, so, angry–the kind of anger that bubbles up and makes you snappy and feel awful.  I’d yelled at my students and my boyfriend and the cat and the people on the road.  I couldn’t yell anymore—there was no one around, or you can bet your butt I’d have yelled at them, too.

I arrived home from work, and did something completely uncharacteristic for me: I strapped on my running shoes.  Too often, I find solace in the couch and a cup of fro-yo, but nothing could satiate the anger and sadness and general awfulness I felt that day.  I felt as if I was going to burst out of my skin.  I had to get out of the house, so I walked to a nearby nature trail.

And then I started to run.  Hard.  The kind of run that hurts, that makes your lungs ache and your face sweat.  The run that will kill your quads the next day.  It was 90 degrees and uncharacteristically humid, and the trail was dusty, so I could feel my own sweat mixing with the dirt rising up, but I didn’t care.  I turned up my iPod and ran for my life. 

I kept going, despite being out of breath, until I literally couldn’t breathe.  I stopped, heaving and knelt in the dirt.

And cried. 

I cried for my dad, for my mom, for my brother and I.  I cried for my grandma.  I cried because I was pissed off that this was our family’s lot at the moment.  I cried at the unfairness of it all.  I cried out of fear of the unknown, of all the things I could be crying about if things didn’t change.  It was the ugly cry—snot, red face, animal-esque noises and more tears than I knew I had.

And then, I stopped. 

I don’t mean to sound like some quasi-hippie wackadoo, but I felt something.  I felt calm, like everything would be okay.  My anger was sapped, and my sadness was replaced with an intense peace, a knowing peace, that it was going to be okay.  I picked myself up off the ground, wiped my face and walked home.

That isn’t to say that I never felt anxious again, or that I didn’t worry, but I held on to that ugly little moment when poor, fat me, couldn’t breathe in the dirt after running harder than I ever had before.

And sure enough, everything has been okay.  My dad is healing, my grandma is alive, and it seems that everything else is going just as it should.  And I am grateful, beyond all words and measure, for all that has happened since then.

Maybe I should run more?  Can you imagine how peaceful I’d be if I trained for a marathon?  Good lord. 

All kidding aside, I will never, ever forget that moment, when a peace gripped me and propelled me through the days to come.