As I said I would, I went out into the snow today. I returned to the trails of our park next door. It has been a while since I ran those tough hills. It was brutally cold. My app registering 9 degrees. The wind and snow blowing nearly horizontally. Beneath the canopy of trees it eased up as I picked my way across icy rough trails. It is never an easy run doing that loop and today was no different. Today I had the beauty of the snow. I ran around the length of the lake. Climbing to the highest spot and looking down at the stark black trees contrasting against the background of white. I can’t help but remember a trail run last winter when all I wanted was to sit down under on of those trees and peacefully go to sleep. It was my suicidal mind at it’s most docile. It wasn’t violent. It wasn’t angry. It was letting go and giving up. I didn’t stop that day though I wanted so badly to. I forced myself onward in the fresh snow. I have made that decision many times. I have made the right choice so many thousands of times. I should be proficient at it by now, though I don’t trust myself to do the safe route. I have made the wrong choice before. Why doesn’t the thousands of times cancel out those numbering less than a dozen? The ratio is so skewed. If I were a betting person it would be easy. My successes far outweigh my failures. But in my head that ratio doesn’t hold. I only see the failures, the weakness and the bone numbing depressions. I lose sight of the work that has brought me so very far. I lose sight of all the times I held on and rode it out. The times I survived. Those should be what lives in my mind. They should be my defining moments, not the others. That isn’t the case. I can only see the worst of it. The scary parts. The terrifying disconnection from everyone and everything. I see only my ability to do myself harm. What is there to do when you are the one traumatizing yourself? It isn’t some masked stranger that creeps in the night, it is me.
So how does one accept what they have done and move on? Can I find distance and peace from the fear I feel? Is there a way to move on and realize that it is in the past and does not determine the future? It seems all I have really accepted is the worst case scenario? I have not accepted my pain, surely I have not. It only suffering now. I cannot even begin to understand how to embrace this state of being and find acceptance. My only instinct is to move away from this, not toward it. Yet, I am different now. I am not in either place. Instead somewhere in the middle and unsure of this new middle ground. It is not disconnecting and drift off from everyone though it isn’t coping well either. I am not really sure what to make of it. As I slide closer to my normal departure route I come back to the middle. I somehow can’t make that swift shift away like I used to. Is that a good thing??? Seems a healthier route than those walked in the past. I can figure out this place. I just cannot accept the pain that comes with it. Do I need a thicker skin? Do I need to find devotion? religion? anything- something? I am at a loss here.

A loss for words, and thoughts. I know I’m in new territory here and don’t even have a map. Who knew to grow emotionally could be so damn confusing. Don’t get me wrong I am amazed at how far I have come. I’m just unsure of where it leaves me right now as I battle the usual demons and the temptation to follow old worn paths is all too easy. So I stand here unsure and tentative. I just don’t know.