Sticking it out for one more day

My writing lately is awfully  moany and complainy, and that's too bad.  But it's where I am.  Writing is an outlet and a safe-zone for me.  I've already snapped several times today and cried at least once, although I'm possibly repressing the memory of other cries, but as soon as I sat down here, I felt better.  Not good or optimistic, exactly, but better.  I'll take better.

So I validate my need to somehow express the way I am experiencing life right now.  I know from a conversation yesterday that others feel at least corners of what I am feeling, and I also know that suddenly learning that you are not the only mother in the world who seriously SERIOUSLY considers the logistics of running away (which are many and difficult) can make you feel less crazy, less guilty, less alone with your loneliness.

Nonetheless, I feel called to acknowledge that from the depths of my pit, I can still recognize that beauty exists.  I may not be in a place to be all silly and exuberant about it, but merely taking the step to see that it is there is helpful.  Knowing (because I've rather frantically tried to work it out) how hard it would be to disappear, it sometimes helps to think of the things that I would miss about this life.  It makes staying here for another day (that's all I can handle at the moment) seem a little more acceptable.  So I'm going to start a list of reasons to stay here on this planet, a list of things I appreciate and would miss.

*the color of a freshly roasted beet, right in the center.  I swear it is such a luminous color, it almost glows.
*yellow trees against a fall-blue sky
*the way a pile of leafs sounds under the wheels of a bicycle
*the weight of a four-year old on my lap
*chai, and then a little more chai (having a whole box of concentrate down in the fridge)
*sitting in the sunshine on an October afternoon
*running under the stars
*200m reps with 200m recovery: run fast, recover fully to do it again
*feeling the rhythm of the bass drum through the soles of my feet and the backs of my ribs
*apple cake
*"Pas de Deux" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker
*a soft bed with clean sheets
*hot showers
*friends who knew me back when....
*friends who really know me now (and like my anyway)
*chocolate

I'm going to bike the girl over to soccer class.  

Later, I may still write about my quitting fantasies, since between the computer and the driveway I will have to walk through the house.