Saturated...

I must finish work. I must finish work. I must finish work. Magical incantation of three. It is like when I was younger and athletic (not so much now, though I have been thinking of taking up a team sport again, just because sweating towards a common goal feels so good) and I would run... soccer camp, I was often one of very few girls, surrounded by boys, cloistered as the goal-keeper, off by ourselves. funny, most of my sex education was gleaned by the off-color boy commentaries, and it took me several years, yes, several, to understand why my flexibility should have been of such interest to the lascivious Irishmen, and Trinidad and Tobagans who insisted that one day I would make some man very happy. These are the types of things that parents don't want to imagine their little girls being exposed to when off by themselves at summer camp. But I enjoyed the attention, and I learned to talk big, even if I didn't fully grasp the effect of my words on the poor, unsuspecting trainers.

So, when we were running ourselves into the ground, July heat from the heartland, bearing down, artificially green grass sparkling. I would run and run and run and keep thinking. "This has to end. It will. Eventually. If I just keep running it will end. It will. It will. This pain (searing semi-asthmatic lungs) will have to stop, or I will die. In an hour this pain will be a distant memory..." That's how I feel tonight (writing here instead of writing the lovely annotations that must be completed) if I just hold my breath and dive in, it will _have_ to complete itself. By this time next week, I will be free! free! free! To read a book I would like, OR... to write the book I would like. That is the comforting thought that I keep whispering to myself.

Friday I meant to get more work done, but instead, Miguel and I went to the beach and lay intertwined, napping in the sun. My sinuses draining downwards like when I am getting a massage and my face has been hanging too long. We spent the afternoon crying together and then we picked up Isabella. She will miss him, I think. It is scary to think about mothering alone, even if it _is_ temporary. Of course, this is all still in its hypothetical stages. And that makes it all the more scary. But suddenly, I feel like I am me again, whole, integral, me. Even if he decides not to go, I think that I have recuperated my self-ness, and _that_ will carry over. Now the me-ness aside, it is imperative that I focus, something that I have been unable to do. I am doubting whether I really want to spend the next six years doing this. I love reading stories. Of course, I am an addict. I love reading poetry and analyzing it and delving into the minds of the writers... but I wonder if that is really something that can be a life's work. I am wondering, but as I wonder, I might as well keep doing. That is the thing. We just keep doing until it doesn't make sense not to keep doing. That's when I freak out and slam on the brakes, or I hit the control, alt, delete buttons to cancel out the program that is running, but not necessarily responding.

Today, we went to the SB Zoo. I was delighted, of course, to see the animals and at the same time conflicted by their captivity. "Life of Pi" had this way of advocating for the maintenance of zoos as an institution, but now I am again doubting. Part of me just wants to race around and unleash all the captives in the world. Animals and humans... but then I remember that mental captivity is a much stronger force than physical boundaries, and that we forget what our freedom is, we begin to fear it, preferring a cushy slavery to an aching freedom. What was that line... "if you love someone set them free" ?

I am trying to be that big. To say, go forth and be who you want to be. Find that dream and if that means leaving me, then so be it. I am trying. Meanwhile I have this work to do and I can't seem to focus. Full circle. That is it. I have given myself time to process, and now, what is pressing must be attended.