Running

When one of your main people dies, you wake up each day a little more disconnected.

Part of you isn't here anymore.

Then you go running, tip your chin to the puffy clouds above and fall into a giddy default daydream about seeing him over Christmas or Oh! maybe Thanksgiving? 

And you wake up, already awake, to wonder at yourself for not knowing for a few seconds.  When you always know.  You never stop knowing.  Every minute of your day is spent paler, further away, hungry for something it wants but can never have again:  the way it was when things were perfect.

Jimmy is my giddy.  My look forward to.  My can't wait to see him.  He is our Trump card for the holidays or birthday parties.  If you have Jimmy then everyone will come because they want to see him, not eat your dinosaur birthday cake.  Jimmy is the reason I ever wrote to get things out of my head.  To show him that yes, I get it, words fit together when nothing else does and now I can't stop either.

I can't stop missing him.  And like my mom says, we won't.  Our main person is gone.  And also like she says so innocent and precious-like, "I like missing him.  It feels like he's close." 

I've taken up running again.  Not for fun, I hate running.  I want to miss him purely and uninterrupted for 30 whole minutes.  24 whole minutes with a six minute cool-down if I'm being honest.

During the run, I watch my legs - strong and pounding like hell on a road I barely know or give a sh*t about yet.  Making peace with new surroundings seems apropos with making peace with this new life. 

Except I'm not making peace. 

I'm making motion.  A slow plodding jackass crawl through this steamy air so I can miss him and pretend his legs are mine, strong and pounding like hell on a road he barely knows or gives a sh*t about.  Motion feels right.  Slow motion feels annoying but it's all I've got.  The Tortoise Girl.

Jimmy was a runner through and through - fast, strong, often.  He wouldn't stop for anything.  Not even a broken heart. 

Through some of this new disconnect, there is a tug I feel toward the sky - like an ongoing conversation.  The message sometimes lost but this vast landscape shows patience with me, with my tendency for looking down.  It waits with decent clues for when I'm exhaling in twos and forgetting everything.

The human in me wants to process, shelve and categorize but thankfully I'm enough gypsy to know that's just science. 

The sky tugs at me like a child does to the hem of her mother's shirt.

Like my own, it's determined to get my attention;  it will not be ignored.

I'm running.  I'm listening.

I hear you, Jimmy.