Catharsis

The cool thing about feeling low is that even a little bit of lightening feels very dramatic.  And when the clouds part and you actually start to see the sun peek through...  There's nothing quite like it.

I've been carrying around a big heavy bag of marbles for a while now.  They were unwieldy and hard to manage, but they were mine.  And if there's one thing I've learned in the last year or so, it's to feel what comes as it comes.  Good, bad, ugly: it's all part of the growing.  It's all important.

Still, it gets old.

One of the things I've discovered that works to help clear the clouds for me is exercise. I run - slowly, and without grace, and not very far - but I do it.  I have learned that the act of putting one foot in front of the other does more for my soul than 100 hours of therapy.  (And that's saying something, because I LOVE my therapist!)

This morning I had one of those breakthrough moments.  I was chugging along, in the last quarter of my route. when a song came up on my playlist.  Heaven When We're Home by the Wailin' Jennys.  It's a sweet little song, with some beautiful harmonies, but it was the lyrics that washed over me today.

Don't know what time it is, I've been up for way too long

and I'm too tired to sleep

I call my mother on the phone, she wasn't home,

and now I'm wondering the street

I've been a fool, I've been cruel to myself

I've been hanging onto nothing

when nothing could be worse than hanging on

And something tells me there must be

something better than all this.

I've fallen many times in love and every time

it's been with the wrong man

Still I'm out there living one day at a time

and doing the best I can

Cuz we've all made mistakes

that seem to lead us astray

But every time they helped to get us where we are today

And that's a good a place as any

and it's probably where we're best off anyway

It's a long and rugged road

and we don't now where it's headed

But we know it's going to get us where we're going

And when we find what we're looking for

we'll drop these bags and search no more

'Cuz it's going to feel like heaven when we're home

It's going to feel like heaven when we're home

There's no such thing as perfect,

and if there is we'll fnd it when we're good and dead

Trust me I've been looking

bu tonight I think I'll go and take a bath instead

And then maybe I'll walk a while

and feel the earth beneath me

They say if you stop looking

it doesn't matter if you find it

And whose to say that even if I did

it's what I'm really looking for

It's a long and rugged road

and we don't now where it's headed

But we know it's going to get us where we're going

And when we find what we're looking for

we'll drop these bags and search no more

'Cuz it's going to feel like heaven when we're home

It's going to feel like heaven when we're home.

As I rounded the corner to my beautiful home and saw sweet little Mittens the kitty waiting for me on the front stoop, I realized - I'm going to be OK.  It's all going to be OK.  I can carry marbles if I need to.  They are my marbles after all.  And each one is a lesson that moves me down that long, rugged road - to a place that I know is going to be exactly where I need to be.