Two months! He makes the sweetest conversations.I got up in the darkness to go to kickboxing yesterday morning, the only time we've decided it works with our crazy life and the life and health of our boys to do it. So I sucked it up and did it, quite willingly, actually, despite the little thoughts of "gas money!" going through my head as I made the twenty minute drive there.
It was fabulous, just as I remembered (only my butt shakes more and so do my bigger boobs in the mirror) and then the rest of the day I could barely walk because I have two or three good size blisters on each foot from the turning and twisting on my recycled virgin kickboxing feet. Then by last night I felt it, the soreness in my neck and shoulders and triceps and hamstrings and calves and abs...you get the point. A massage on these sore muscles would be heavenly, and I have decided to spend some of my December spending money on one.
I got a massage last month at a women's retreat in Tahoe, and as I laid on that soft bed, feeling the masseuse's big hands kneed out knot after knot, I thought, man I need these more often. Afterwards I felt like I had spent time with God.
The retreat was restful, leaving me feeling peaceful and serene, with clear thinking and understanding about things that normally are smokey in my everyday mind. I went up wanting that to happen, but for the first day and a half, it was just a big old house crowded with a lot of women I didn't know. I still had Noah, still had the minute by minute demands a newborn puts on it's mother, so I really wasn't feeling the whole "retreat" thing.
But after a couple of sessions of worship, of playing my guitar for the first time in a long time in worship, of deep sharing and prayer with two women who are in such a different stage of life than I am but whose guts and hearts feel the same pain and torment as mine, I started to feel God's heavy, comforting presence.
I went for a run, thinking of my past. It was at this same retreat center that I realized I loved Joey, enough to take a step into the unknown and marry the boy. The mountains looked just as big and beautiful as they did six years ago, the lake just as clear, like turquoise liquid glass. The air was cold, making my face feel like refrigerated play dough. I could see my breath coming out in front of my face as I ran. I thought about Joey, and about the insaneness of us having two boys.
On the way home Joey's mom and and I talked about family history, of people and addictions and overcoming odds that seem like insurmountable mountains.
I know one of my mountains is fear.
"...but perfect love casts out all fear." This is what I am trying to understand, to know, to experience. I'm staring at the big ugly thing head on.
"...behold, old things have become new..."
3 comments:
Love it. I'm so glad that you were able to see what you saw when you were first in love. Sometimes you just need to see it again. I think of those times at the Fire Escape when Martyr 2:10 used to play and I get so weirded out thinking about how that SAME BOY and I have slept in the same bed for 8 1/2 years, and have 3 kids. We've been parents longer than Martyr 2:10 was a band. It's so good to be reminded of those times. To think about how I used to feel, and to know that I still need to choose to love him just the same. It's good to remember what made me fall in love with him. And it reminds me of what really, really matters.
i want to try kick boxing so bad it looks so much fun! where do u take your classes and how much are they?
Freestyle Martial Arts on Fourth and McCarren. There's different prices depending on what package you want, but you can come try a class. It's fun the the best workout out there, seriously.
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