A Girl in Her Teens

981 run/19 to go

Nineteen. The teens. I've been savoring the miles, taking them slow and portioning them out. The near complete accomplishment is delicious. I meant to run three this morning, but I got to three and wanted to keep going, got to to four and no way did I feel like stopping. The math of the 1000 fell away, it was just a run and I realized that I have most definitely come nearly to the end of the project. I'd like to be able to run without specific purpose. I'm not quite done, but the finish line is just ahead and, like the cheeky sign located right outside my cousin's house on the beach in Virginia, I'd like a cocktail in hand when I arrive please.

So what's next? I'm Miss New Year's Resolution now, Do again! Do again!

I spent this year dismantling 1000. I like the idea of now creating something. My aunt suggested that I save the same number of dollars as I ran each week for a year. I love that idea. Seems a pretty painless way to save $1000, as long as I don't let the dollars get broken down into lunch money sized bits along the way. My friend Susan offered to gin up some shame so that I'd write the story she's been trying to midwife along for quite a while now. Everyone needs a Susan.

A dear friend recently told me that he wants to finally be working at something where he creates, where there is some THING at the end of a process. The words resonated. I'm a mother, I created people and have spent the past thirteen years (and will spend the next 50 or so), in one form or another, shaping these willful little balls of clay.

My friend A, told me a story at work the other day. She and her husband were running very late, trying to get to a family event. Her four year old son was wearing a half zip sweater with a t shirt underneath. The t shirt was either too big or too little, but the end result was that it looked like he had no t shirt on at all. My friend halted the process of leaving the house and told her husband he had to bring their son inside and get a new t shirt.

Her husband looked at her like she was crazy, they were late, it was just a t shirt! I'll admit that I was teasing her at this point in the story too. She told me that she finally broke through what seemed to be a haze of crazy to look her husband in the eye and ask him "Do you do your very best at your job? Do you want the world to see that you believe in what you do and work hard to do it well? Well, this is my job. These kids are all I have to show the world and I will be damned if I show up with my baby looking like little Guido because you are in a hurry!"

They got the shirt.

When we moved to Belgium, I brought only a few pictures from home, probably ten total, but I made sure to bring a certain three: in each, I am holding my new born babies.

I'm great at being pregnant and delivering my babies. I love pregnancy, I love the breath robbing pain of labor, I love pushing, I loved my pregnant body - I had a plaster cast made of my torso, neck to hips, when I was in early labor with Luke. He was stubborn and kept his foot pushed out through my belly against the quick drying plaster strips. We tried in vain (thank God) to smooth away the oblong bump of the foot, blind to the mini miracle of his footprint being captured while he still inside of me.

In each of the three pictures, I'd just nursed them. There is nothing on earth; not sex, not artistic creation, intellectual endeavor or athletic endurance that is as viscerally satisfying as nursing a hungry infant till they fall asleep, milk drunk, warm and heavy in your arms. Heaven on earth. That kind of satisfaction starts a self perpetuating bond of devotion that gives a person the (sometimes completely shocking) wherewithal to withstand the slings and arrows of raising babies into people. Hopefully, people you like. I've created something fine and lasting in these kids, I do like them. I like them a helluva lot. To say I'm proud of who I have given to the world does not even begin to touch how I feel about my three.

I'm not off now to sell my kids and start afresh, but first grade happens and the necessity of pure presence will soon take a back seat. I've been spoiled, by the knowledge that every bit of energy pointedly directed at the full time job of raising the kids has been used to create beauty, it has delivered good right straight out into the world. That is an addictive feeling.

And so what next? I cannot wait to figure it out.

Be well,

Jenny