Run, Forrest, Run

I’ve always hated running.  So many people find it therapeutic and say it is a wonderful way to stay fit.  But I’ve never gotten into running — I can think of no more torturous activity!

When I was a young girl, I was very sickly, small, weak, anemic.  I could never keep up with my siblings or cousins.  They were always running, jumping, climbing, wrestling.  I was always coming from behind begging them to wait for me or to help me.  It was annoying to them and, eventually, they just ran off, leaving me with the younger cousins who also could not keep up.  As I got older, I continued to TRY to keep up – to compete with everyone else;  jump higher, ride faster, climb farther.  I developed a very competitive nature but, sadly, was never quite as athletic as I wanted to be.

However, I am the champion of running on the inside.  As I’ve grown into adulthood, and now as I grow into “senior” adulthood, I have learned much from different counselors, self-help books and articles about facing your fears, allowing yourself to feel, confronting things head on, etc. etc.  But when you know how to run, its so much easier to run.

Running on the inside is not physically strenuous, you don’t have to monitor your heart rate, it isn’t hard on your knees or back.  Although, after a long period of running from emotions – your body will begin to show signs of fatigue and depletion.  Emotional running is automatic.  It is part of our “fight or flight” hormonal response.  When in the midst of some emotional upheaval that we know we cannot “fight”, we take flight.  We’re off and out of the blocks; running INSIDE our heads.  We start searching for something tangible to DO with our hands, our minds.  We busy ourselves with something, anything.  Eating, cooking, cleaning, drinking, Pinterest, Facebook, and most of us will find someone or something that needs our attention MORE than whatever we are trying to avoid.  We will throw ourselves headlong into something ELSE and give it 110%.

Conversely, running may involve isolating ourselves, sleeping a lot, “zombie-ing” our way through our daily lives.  Laughter and enjoyment are a distant memory.  We trudge along and think only about the fact that we are trudging along.

For some of us, running is second nature.  Even if we have learned the skills needed to stop or slow that internal fleeing – it is our first and most dominant response. I understand meditation is a good method to overcome the need/desire to run.  I have yet to accomplish this particular method of countering that predominant need to flee.  Frankly, I can’t sit still long enough to meditate!  Just like the character in “Eat, Pray, Love”, I watch the clock and my mind is racing from topic to topic, coming back to the fact that I can’t stand just sitting there!

At some point in running that suppression marathon, perhaps when there is a need for hydration or to catch your breath, you can begin to intercede with some of your “learned” coping skills — begin to process WHY you are running, where does it HURT, how can you slow this race and begin to slowly FEEL, let yourself touch the surface of the fear.

This is the point at which I have finally arrived.  Writing about it is the first step.  Next up – breathing, slowing my internal pace.  If only I felt this much like actually running on the OUTSIDE….

Just ruminating…..

Guilt.  Pure Catholic?  OR Female based?  Or, heaven forbid, a combination of the two!!!  I’ve always wished that, for just one day, I could be a man and think like they do, make decisions based solely on my own notion without considering the feelings and judgments of others or the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” I carry with me or any of the usual worries I have in making most of my decisions!

I have always wondered – is it nature or nurture?  Were we born with this innate desire to please, to mold ourselves into whatever is needed by the situation?  Or did the situation mold us into this caretaking creature?  I suppose it is a combination of both — exacerbated by a lifelong history of male domination, female submissiveness.

Here is my take: in the beginning, it WAS nature.  Women had the gift of reproduction – they needed to be protected, fed, valued for their contribution of keeping the species going.  Somehow as life transpired, instead of being valued they suddenly became demeaned as weak, helpless, useful only as a sexual gratifier and child “rearer” as if they had no other contribution, no intelligence or strength.  Women became a commodity, like breeders.  They were bargaining pieces, for sale or trade.  In turn, women became reliant on men out of necessity.  They had to modify their behavior constantly, to maintain the status quo or to be desirable on the open market.  They had little choice or liberty.  Sometimes, they were given for marriage to a far-older man – the highest bidder with the best offer.  Often times, they were given over into cruelty and abuse.  Bear in mind, these were women of intelligence.  They had to use their wits to survive in the worst of conditions.

Conversely, there were women during the same period who lived easier lives.  Those who were given over to more comfortable surroundings and significantly better financial means.  However, they were under a different lock and key – limited to “female” pursuits; child bearing, sewing, taking tea and dressing for dinner.

Gratefully, through time, women have evolved.  Women began to take a stand, to exert their will.  It was a long hard climb and it was fraught with much difficulty.  To this day, there is no clear path for most women.  True, we are now more likely to be educated, strong, intelligent and many have specific and fulfilling careers.  But we are still the breeders.  We still WANT and LOVE our children.  In most cases, what has happened is that women have merely taken on an additional role – breeder and bread winner.  And despite our best efforts – we can’t do it all.  Who would want to?

Women evolved and took on whatever we were given.  Men sat back and let us do it, waiting for us to fail.  In other words, the men DIDN’T EVOLVE.  (Side bar: I must qualify that statement. Some men did evolve.  Some only partially.  There are men who DO fully support their partners, who are present and focused on making an equal contribution to a familial relationship.  Some men “try” but are still men, after all…).  There were men who didn’t believe that women could ever be capable or “equal”.  They were perfectly happy to sit back and let them roll in, work hard and sometimes surpass them because they knew they were in control of the purse strings and that is all that mattered.  The glass ceiling is their secret weapon and secures their dominance for eternity.  This is their way of thinking.

Even in the best of times, as women, we continue to modify our behavior to accommodate our situation.  As a gender, we will always be encumbered by our traditional roles.  Motherhood, caretaking, teaching, guiding…these are our strong suits.  It isn’t that men are not capable or can’t excel in those suits, if the need arises. But to their way of thinking, the need never arises.  SOMEONE has to step up, 9 times out of 10 it will be the woman.

As an example, I will site my own case.  My husband is a good man.  He is strong and loving.  He loves children and is good with babies.  When our children were little, he fed them, changed them and took care of them while I worked or had other pursuits.  When we met, we were both working at jobs that we enjoyed, our dream “career” jobs.  As our family grew, it became more and more difficult to work these jobs because we were both working shifts.  Finding babysitters became difficult and we were struggling to keep a decent schedule.  We decided that I should get a “day” job so that at least one of us had a steady, reasonable schedule.  The truth is, I had no choice in the matter because he was making twice as much money as I was and it made more sense for me to take a cut in pay and work as a secretary.  This also meant that I would now take on 85% of all household duties, and childrearing responsibilities because he continued to work shifts and was either working or sleeping during regular family “living” hours.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t willing to help and participate, he did what most men do in that situation — he figured if I needed his help I would ask him.  I did what most women do — I figured, if he were paying attention, he would see that I needed help without request or instruction.  Therein lies the rub.

If you are in a partner relationship – married or no — you know that there are definite differences in the thought processes of the gender roles.  (I wonder what it is like in gay relationships?  Is it the role or the gender that defines the process?)  Men don’t worry.  They don’t watch, listen or ruminate.  Women wear down the carpet of worry.  We read body language like a romantic novel, absorbing every detail.  Not only do we listen, we rehash every sound, word, inflection.  The focus for each gender and the means of dealing with each circumstance is, by nature, very different.  It becomes far more obvious in a relationship when childbearing and childrearing begins.

“It’s not right for a woman to read.  Soon she starts getting ideas and thinking….” Gaston, Beauty and the Beast   Women think so much.  Too much really, because we are ruminating over the SHOULDS, feeling judged, judging ourselves (far too harshly), anticipating a need….frankly, it is exhausting.  At any given moment, you can ask any man, “What are you thinking?”  He will never respond with a worry or any thought in connection with an emotion.  It will be a thought about a mechanical process or about the weather (what is their obsession with the weather?) or a physical process — calculating or building something inside their head.

Logically, we have to be different.  In any relationship, there is never a 50/50 split of duties and responsibilities.  We each have different strengths and weaknesses.  Generally, one partner provides more income.  One partner is responsible for keeping the finances.  One partner vacuums, the other one mows. One partner remembers to send birthday greetings.  So on and so forth.  Each partnership will execute the dance of compromise, deciding who will undertake which duties.  As the partnership evolves and transitions into various stages of growth, the dance changes as well.  It is the responsibility of each partner to clearly state their needs and desires AND they must be willing to compromise or there will be resentment and balance will be lost.

Awareness is key.  It is too easy to fall back into traditional roles — men will pull back and wait to be “told” what to do and women will let them, feeling angry that they still aren’t mindreaders even after all this time….  While there are times that I do wish I could think like a man, cast aside all of this guilt and insecurity; most of the time I am glad that I don’t.  Who would take care of all those little details, feelings, and sustain life as we know it?

Dreaming

This morning, I dreamed about dying.  In the dream, I was crossing over an ice-filled river and fell in.  There were several of us in the water (for some reason) and we were all floating toward the falls (of course, there was a waterfall).  We were all trying to climb on to the larger ice chunks toward the side of the river.  Interestingly enough, the water was not cold.  Also, there were people along the banks of the river watching us struggle.  Just as I was making my way to the edge of the river to climb out onto dry land, one of the onlookers said, “It doesn’t matter, you’re going over” and I went over the falls.  In the dream, I said to myself — this is a dream and you never hit bottom in dreams.  Sure enough, I didn’t but as I transitioned into the next scene of the dream, I began to realize that I had, indeed, died.  People could see me but didn’t know me as me.  They were talking about my passing.  I began to wonder how long I would walk on the earth as this other being, watching my finale as an observer.  Probably the most striking occurrence in the dream is that I KNEW it was a dream and kept a running voiceover in my mind, something like, “It’s OKAY, this is just a dream”.

Many parts of the dream were obvious rationalization of things going on in my head.  My mother’s death, floating in the current – trying to get back on land, realizing others are struggling in the water and in life, as well.  Feeling as though I am watching the world go by without my participation.  Keeping my head above water.  And of course, the most obvious, thinking of my own mortality.

When I was about ten years old, I went through a phase of fearing death.  Each night, as I went to bed, I would begin to panic that I was going to die in my sleep.  I would experience shortness of breath and it would escalate into a full-on panic attack.  At some point, either my mom or dad (I honestly can’t remember which) told me that none of us ever know when we will die so we can’t look for it or try to hide from it.  When the shortness of breath comes, relax and slow your breathing.  Say the Lord’s prayer and it will help calm you.  Naturally, I’m paraphrasing, I don’t remember exactly how they told me I just know that when I am really worried or afraid, I automatically start saying the Lord’s prayer and breathing very slowly.

I don’t FEEL as though I am upset about my mother’s passing.  I’ve already been grieving for the last few years.  But even though it isn’t in the forefront, it is like a program running in the background.  Every now and then, the little “throbber” (an animated graphical element used to show that a computer program is running in the background) comes up and spins to remind me.