When you worry about expenses or about how unfair life is and doubt what is possible, you become stuck. Life becomes limited. Victimhood limits your vision of what life could be. ~ Tess Marshall of The Bold Life
Aaah, Tess, this post is just for you and your precious Kristy (but everyone else can read, too … please do!)
I’ve had a strange and amazing energy today ~ I worked like crazy at my day job, all the while, itching to get out of my cubicle and LIVE! I sketched a snowman and a horse in the margins of my work, and dreamed about how they’d look in multi-color!
I took pictures of myself at lunch, just because I was happy, and had on my pink vest, and the sun was shining ~ and then, a little later in the afternoon it hit me ~ the expansion was too great, and I thought I’d explode. I typed this email to my friend Susan … who’s an amazing singer, a beautiful creative, and one of my best cheerleaders! I knew she would understand ~
“I feel like I’m going to explode! I’m sitting here in my cubicle, being calm, and getting lots of work done! I want to scream! All I want to do is run, and laugh, and be free!
I’m practicing patience, compassion, peace, love and grooviness … but still, my energy is growing … I feel like I have to run or I’ll spontaneously combust!
How can I keep from singing?This is not a sustainable life. That quilt, the one made of patchworks from all that’s expected, all that I need to fulfill, all that I need to take care of, is mashing me. I want it off of me!I need to run!” …. a few minutes later I added ~
Expanding and the box is just too small!
I think I’m going to need a bigger box!
I wasn’t happy … I was frustrated and a little angry … and then, I knew I had to run.
You see, tonight was my first run since November of 2005, shortly after moving to Raleigh, and shortly before the chronic pain I’ve lived with since 1995 finally sapped the life right out of me.
5 years since my last run, Tess!
Since November of 2005 I’d been in steady and severe decline, and then (in the summer of 2009) I really began to find some answers. I began to uncover some food allergies, and to learn that our FDA approved food isn’t always good for us, and that some of my diagnoses were mis-diagnoses, and that, as my wonderful therapist, Sue, told me many times, emotional pain truly does manifest in the physical body … truly it does!
What a relief! If emotional pain manifests in our physical body … there is HOPE! We stop eating the foods we’re allergic to, we stop taking the medications that we’ve been needlessly prescribed, and we find ways, whatever measures it takes, to heal our emotions, and heal our bodies!
My story is long, and I can’t write it all tonight … (or else I’ll run the risk of spontaneous combustion again, from standing still too long) … but it’s HUGE important!! So many, millions of people are suffering, from the same things. Millions!
I could not wait to run! I set the time for 6:30, which gave me just enough time to get home from work, blaring Natasha Bedingfield, “If You’re Gonna,” all the way … just to be sure I didn’t lose my momentum. As I was driving, all I could say, between belting out the lyrics was “Shi**pickles!”
I ran in the door, really, and put on my new tennis shoes ~ the still-in-the-box tennis shoes I haven’t worn, because I was afraid they would make my neck hurt again, and maybe my knee, and then they’d be worn, and I wouldn’t be able to take them back …… holey moley ~! NO FEAR, Tess!
I put on my pink hoodie, a pink scarf, and gloves … my running pants that are just a little tight, but who gives, right? … and my new sneaks, and I was off! For the fraction of a second when I feared I’d get tired, I thought about Kristy, and you wrote “There were times her stub would be cracked and bleeding. She played anyway,” and I knew I could do it ~ and I didn’t get tired.
I didn’t just run, I danced! I sang out loud with Paul Simon, “Loves Me Like a Rock” … the beat was right, so I played it over and over … and I ran, probably a mile! Can you believe it? I laughed, and sang, and flew like an airplane, and drummed with the drums, and strummed with the guitar, and waved my arms like a bellydancer, and ran zig-zags on the road … I was so very happy! So very free!
I walked home (and skipped a little, too), scanning through the rest of the CD … “Late in the Evening” (fun drummin’), and just as I got back on my street, my favorite … “Senorita With a Necklace of Tears.”
We are born and born again, like the waves of the sea,
that’s the way its always been, that’s the way I like it, that’s how I want it to be
that’s the way its always been, that’s the way I like it, that’s how I want it to be
As I’m finishing up this post, just this moment, I got a reply from Susan, who said ” … and you are like Isadora Duncan“. There are no words to describe how Susan speaks to my soul with these words.
I’ll stop now, before I get sappy. Keep writing, Tess. Keep making a difference in this wonderful, imperfect world.
Oh, and Tess, I think I’m gonna’ need a bigger box!
xoxo Jane
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