Marathon Pictures

brightroom event photography

I don't feel like I look like the chick in these pics, but she does look like she can kick a marathon's ass :D

Please

The View

Is the view so different
From where you are?
It's not that we have to see
Eye to eye
On everything
All that I ask
Is that we are careful
Not to blindside each other

Although now
I'm not even in your sights
Your periphery
Perhaps
I'm in your rearview mirror
Or do you not bother
To ever look back
And if you do
Do you sneer
As you look back
Grateful
For the mess you left behind
Or do you appreciate
The fact that I tried
And gave everything
I had to give
And would've given more
Just to know you
One more day

The view from here
It's lonely
And I have to stop
Looking back
To my happiest days
So that I don't lose my step
Again
I seem to keep
Tripping over myself
One of these days
It may not be so easy
To stand back up

Letting Go

"Complications of the Heart"

I started this drawing what feels like lifetimes ago.  It was possibly even a blog ago, but I'm too lazy to go back and look (besides, I'm really supposed to be working).  I think I mentioned back then I never wanted this drawing to be finished.  I started it at such a happy time in my life.  I was in love with the man of my dreams, at a time when I dared not dream.  Against all odds I fell, hard and fast.  Too hard and too fast for my tortured self to handle.  Over the days and weeks and months I spent working on this piece there was fight after fight after fight.  Each one feeling worse than the last.  And this went on for six months after we officially broke-up.

After the last fight I wanted to tear this drawing apart.  Just rip it to shreds the way I felt my heart had been handled.  I am so glad that I didn't.  I am more resilient, my heart is more resilient.  It felt like dying because a part of me which had been so alive, so in love, did exactly that.  But I am so much more than the part that died.  Not only that, but my love, the love I have for him, that can't ever die.  I will hold it and cherish it for the rest of my days, for all the beauty and realization, creativity and inspiration, growth and maturation it brought to my life.  Through him and the love he once shared with me I made great strides in becoming the woman I've always wanted to be.

And so, as may be quite obvious to followers of this blog, it has been difficult for me to let go.  But here, finally, in declaring this drawing finished, in completing the most difficult marathon I've yet to run, in taking action instead of waiting and reacting, in accepting all that's come to pass along with the unknowns of the future, I'm letting go.

It's still an uphill battle for me but if I've learned anything in my lifetime, it's that things are always going to get harder.  And I will always rise to the challenge.  Because that's just the kind of woman I am.

So I ran a marathon

My results

It was the most difficult marathon I've run to date, for a myriad of reasons.  I should feel good about finishing, about getting my best time to date, about showing-up for work the next day when I'd intended to take the day off.  I really should feel good about myself, about this accomplishment.  I suppose somewhere, deeper inside than I'm looking at this moment, I do.

I'm still suffering though.  I lost a lot in my life and have only myself to blame for it.  My dear ones all tell me it was never right, and that I'll see that someday.  They tell me I'm not entirely to blame.  But I know that it was, and I know that I am.  And he knows it too.

He closed the door finally.  And while that's a wonderful thing in the long run, it's what we both needed, being shut-out never feels good.  I gave it everything I had to give at the time, and it wasn't enough.  Or, perhaps, all I needed was to stop giving, and everything would've balanced out.

Anyway.  I ran a marathon.  Yay me. 

Silly Me

I found myself thinking feeling like I don't want to be around people.  But that took me to such a lonely place.  And I realized that I was feeling sorry for myself.  I found myself feeling since he didn't want to be around me, didn't want to know me anymore, I must not be worth knowing.  Silly me.

I reached out tonight.  I called friends, old and new.  And you know what?  They wanted to be there for me.  They wanted to hear me cry (okay, maybe they didn't want to, but they didn't leave me hanging either).  They wanted to see me.

I love my friends.  And I love that they allow me to tell them that as much as I want.  They allow me the room to be who I am, instead of carving out a spot into which I have to fit myself.  And they tell me I've been acting stupid, yet they've never once said that's what I am.  And still, all these months, I've been ignoring them and following my heart.  Or really more like scooping it out and throwing it at a basket which is not only way too high, but vigorously defended.  Silly me.

It's just that I made that shot once.  And it felt so good.  And I've spent a year chasing that feeling.  But the basket went further and further away.  And the defense got tougher and tougher.  But still, I think to myself, practice makes perfect.  I can make it again, I just know it.  Silly me.

The worst part?  If I had the chance, I'd still try to make it in.  No matter how high it gets, no matter how vigorously it's defended, I believe if I try hard enough, I can make it happen.  And I'll always believe that it's worth it, all that effort.  I'll always believe, and I'll always put my heart out there.  Silly me. 

Conversations with Abacus (#2)

Tonight Abacus and I got into a conversation which started with a discussion of different "Michael's". Michael Jackson came-up and he said he was in heaven. This started a discussion about heaven and who was there.  I said, "Do you know Grandma and Grandpa don't believe in heaven?" (which was meant to spark a discussion about Judaism), the following conversation ensued:

Abacus:  "So, they will when they get there."

Me:  "Oh, and when will that be?"

Abacus:  "In like one year.  Or maybe two."  *pause*  "Actually I think six...no...seven.  Seven or eight years."

Me:  "So what's my expiration date?"

Abacus:  "Oh that's not for ten thousand years."

This music feels good in my ears right now

Thanks @KushiQ