Good Aloneness

Ahhhh!

Internet.

I feel like I've been living like a caveman without access to the internet. Even though I wasn't 100% cut off! We went to the library a couple times, and I used my phone for little things, but it just feels so different to type and to have a big screen to work with. And it's so much faster than maneuvering through the internet with a couple fingers on a little phone screen (thank goodness that little phone is supplying the internet right now, though)!
So again, ahhhh.

I'm nearly halfway with my marathon training! Crazy! The half-marathon is just a couple weeks away, and I can hardly believe I'm already that close! I'm excited, too. I've been strangely tempted to go run the half now just because I know I could. But after a few days of resting from a cold (which thankfully responded to the rest and went away), it was a little hard to gather the motivation for getting up this morning.
I woke up all the way right away, so I couldn't use the excuse of being sleeeeepy. I finally stood up and wandered around a little bit, trying to think of reasons I might not have go quite yet. I whispered to Michael some kind of weak-sauce excuse, and he said "you'll be happier if you go now."

Dang. I knew he was right! So I did it, and I felt wonderful while I ran this morning. I didn't feel so tired, and I felt like I had lots of energy stored up for it. And something else...a couple weeks ago when I did my 9 miles, I decided to save some phone battery and not listen to music for the first hour (it took me a little under 3 hours, and I walked the entire way because my hip was pretty tired). But it felt so nice to really swallow myself up in my head, thinking and paying attention to what I was thinking. Ever since then, I've been far less interested in listening to music while I run. That is so weird for me. I thought for the longest time--years--that music was the best way to get me going, to pull me through and motivate me. It doesn't bother me, that's for sure. But I should have known that of all people, I would enjoy a pocket of aloneness in my day. No invasions. It's heaven.

There are a few different kinds of aloneness, which is probably obvious. The kinds that I use in mending myself from day to day vary depending on my needs. Like one kind of aloneness I enjoyed today? Singing to my music while I ground wheat in my Blendtec. The blender gets really loud when it does that, so I put in my headphones and sang while I scooped wheat berries in and wheat flour out. I couldn't hear myself singing, which made it all the more fun! (I could tell I would have sounded bad). I was the only one home, and it made me smile.
The whole wheat rolls I'm going to bake a little later today make me smile too. And the white sandwich bread I just pulled out of the oven. And the banana bread cooling on the counter. :) I've been pleasantly busy.

When I was in high school, I sometimes craved a moment of guaranteed privacy where I could cry and think and write and not think. The best way I ended up finding those moments was to climb onto the roof. Sometimes I wasn't able to cry when I thought I needed it-- I kind of hate crying, and I'd hold off until here and there I'd desperately need to cry to just purge my feelings in one go. Sometimes I thought I would write something deeply amazing, and I ended up doodling funny pictures instead. But it was always healing for me. To climb onto the roof where people don't really look...to sit alone, crouching and hugging my knees, maybe even wishing someone would look and discover me there, those times when part of my aloneness came from loneliness.
I have a lot of good memories of rooftop ponderings. Recently, I found a way to get that kind of therapy again without abandoning the kids and pulling a ladder out. I've started a private blog.

Late in high school, I discovered blogging, and I had every intent to keep my blog private. But out of some ridiculous guilt that I had no business feeling, I told my then-boyfriend about it (believing it would be wrong to keep secrets from him). Once he started reading it, I never wrote again.
When I write in my journal, I'm ever-aware that it will be read by my kids or friends or other family someday. That doesn't bother me, but it does change how I write in it.
After I wrote a couple times on my private blog, I felt incredibly lifted! There was my rooftop!

It shouldn't surprise me every time I realize that I'm a private person. What's a little funny is that I'm equally surprised whenever I share something private, like I'm almost caught off guard by the simple act of "opening the gates." Because I do it so seldom? I never do it by accident, though.

Please excuse me for indulging in a Self Essay. I didn't really mean to (but writing often lets me do it too easily).