fog.
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
Fog.
That is the best word I can find to describe myself in the past year.
And, I decided that today, a year (plus a few days) after my last blog post here, is the day I would write about it.
There have been times – moments, days, weeks even – when the fog lifts and I see the beautiful landscape of life surrounding me. In the logical, cognitive part of my brain, I know there is so much good around me: a loving and supportive family; a warm house with a cozy fire; a kitchen full of amazing smells and nourishing foods; a strong body that is capable of running for hours at a time in the morning, and still able to play and dance with Emma in the afternoon; two self-started businesses that have become pretty darn successful in my opinion.
But the emotional part of my brain truly has a mind of its own. In that part, the good stuff is enveloped in a fog. At first that fog crept in slowly, and it wasn’t until sometime in the fall when I realized I had been living under this low-lying cloud for the past several months. I can recall the exact moment when this realization occurred: it was a few days before cross country Sectionals, and I finally recognized that those hours I spend at practice and at meets, surrounded by fun-loving, goofy, hard-working high school runners, were the hours when I actually felt normal, felt good, felt happy. The other 22 hours in the day? Foggy.
We can all point a big ol’ finger at Covid for a good chunk of our challenges in the past two years, and I know I am not alone. For a long time, I felt that I had handled the pandemic stuff pretty well – sure, I got frustrated and “over it” just as easily as anyone else, but all in all, my family wasn’t directly impacted financially, health-wise, or socially too much.
Alex and I made a decision to become certified as foster parents, and took on a placement in April 2021 that really challenged us – like, really challenged us. We were in over our heads, and not receiving the support we needed, wanted, or felt we should have. But we were also emotionally invested in the long-term outcome, so that kept us “in the game” probably longer than we should have been. I’m not going to share any more details about this because it is confidential and personal, but just trust me when I say we bit off more than we could chew, and we paid a big price for that.
Finally, we did have a Covid “outbreak” in our house, and it caused me to miss the cross country State meet, and spend most of 4 days in bed. I was devastated. I went from running a 20-minute 5k in a workout (literally right before getting swabbed out of precaution before travelling), to barely being able to walk to my mailbox, and climbing the stairs as if I were climbing a mountain. And then a few weeks later, Alex, who had somehow escaped the November outbreak here, got Covid when travelling for work, and we spent the week leading up to Christmas apart. We’re all good now, but those two bouts took a major emotional toll on me. Christmas was pretty lonely here, no matter how much I surrounded myself with Emma’s snuggles, family gatherings, and Mannheim Steamroller on repeat.
***
In late October, Alex and I hiked Big Slide in the Adirondacks. It was a dreary day, and we didn’t have any views at the summit – we were literally in the clouds. We love hiking and knew we had accomplished something really cool – but we were still in the cloud and that diminished the pride and joy of the whole journey, at least for me. While he doesn’t fully grasp this as a comparison to my personal fog, it’s the best I can do.
This is my life right now.
I am at the summit of a mountain in a fog …
And no matter how badly I will the fog to lift, it just does not want to budge.
***
This blog post was about me, and for me (yep, I am being selfish today), and nothing to do with physical therapy or running or coaching or the community. This fog is a part of my life right now. The work that it will take to have the fog lifted seems totally reasonable on some days, and completely unsurmountable on others.
I acknowledge my fog. I am ready for a bluebird sky when I reach my next summit.