With hope of a settled mind, I returned to the woods. It was mild and foggy. I fell into my usual pace and ran. As if on cue, my mind emptied, like an overturned bucket. Nothing. And so I ran. Picking my way over rocks and roots, splashing thru mud and ice. I ran, and ran. I wanted nothing more than to stay in that mindful place where nothing exists, except the trail and my body. It never lasts though. I can only go so far. At the two hour mark I pulled up and ended my run. Driving home I noted each worry drift by. Intruding into my pristine empty mind. Marring the landscape I ran so hard and so long to create. There isn’t any hope of it staying that way. There is reality here behind this gate. In all its awful detail. The sadness, and fear. The anxiety and anger. All of it staking a claim to my peace. I tried hard to hang tight to my run. It didn’t hold. As I sat in the my tub of ice a deep edgy sadness replaced the empty void. A sadness coupled with exhaustion. Not physical exhaustion, though my body was a bit worn out. No, this was a different type of tired. The type that lulls you into believing life if just too fucking hard. Impossible to outrun, an all encompassing exhaustion. I could care less about anything when I find myself in this type of place. The foreclosure, the insurance, the debt, none of it. Gone is the worry because it has been replaced by apathy. I understand this place. It is learned helplessness. I have been here often, usually on the heels of something really emotionally challenging. When I have been pushed past that invisible line of coping vs. not coping. I always marvel at my ability to go from a state of pain and emotional mayhem to this state of nothingness. I know that it serves a purpose, and was carefully forged by a mind that faced incomprehensible pain and trauma. It is my escape hatch. Sadly, the escape is into a place that does not serve me well, and is decidedly unhealthy. It is a state that is difficult to climb out of. Rendering me senseless to the helping hands that offer a climb out and up into the world of emotions.
For now I am settled into this numb state. I prefer it over where I was yesterday. There may eventually come a time for me when we can swap this, and numb becomes the uncomfortable scary place to be. Now is not that. I can only linger here and hope, in time, over the next day or so that I can reconnect.