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Your laugh brought me joy today.

There a song lyric that I repeated to myself like a mantra when in the depths of the emotional purgatory that is my mind: It’s always darkest before the dawn. 

It’s the fortitude of your character and the incredible strengthen of your backbone that leaves little doubt you will survive this divorce. 

However, it’s because you haven’t lost the light in your eyes that I’m confident you will thrive on the other side of this emotional abuse.

I came in hot to the conversation with the shitshow that is my marriage because I wanted you to know you’re not alone. And even if my marriage was healthy, I still want you to know that I’m quietly standing beside you along with the rest of your people. No one is going to let you fall. We’re all there for you to collapse against each time you lose your footing—Regardless of lapsed time or distance.

What a remarkable group of women at brunch today. You all are a true blessing to my life. It doesn’t matter where we are in the time space continuum. I know I can tap any one of you. You know you can tap me.

Oh, and my kid just learned the middle finger at school. We talked about how it’s meant to be hurtful and disrespectful. However, given the opportunity, I will implore her to join me in using both hands to vehemently flip the bird at the poor excuse for a human that is your soon-to-be ex-anchor. And then I will high five her. 

On August 6 I declared, “The next three months I’ll spend trying to holistically rid myself of this depression through yoga, talk therapy, St. John’s Wort, massage, and exercise.”

What’s that quote? Life happens when you’re making other plans?  Yep.

I have a new thing. I’m sure those closest to me could tally up quite a list of the new things I’ve proclaimed over the years. There was the year I didn’t eat McDonald’s. The time I wanted to see how long it took me to see the license plates of all of the states and D.C. in my home state. Then the times I did Crossfit, trained for the marathon, joined a water ski team, took a pottery class, then a stained glass class, joined a yoga studio, ate healthy during the week and whatever I wanted on the weekend, not to mention the time I only ingested smoothies for lunch or the time I wouldn’t watch television if I hadn’t exercised for at least 30 minutes…

I probably have about a 70% success rate because I did run a marathon, I did ski with a team for two years, I did make pottery and stained glass, I did see the plates of all fifty states and D.C., and I did not eat McDonald’s for an entire year. The most glaring failures have been with food and exercise.  I’m obviously not picking sustainable things for me. Even yoga. I really enjoyed the workout, but am not driven to do it. In looking at the one activity in which I’ve had the most success, it’s running.

Treads has been with me since 2006.  Together, she and I have run two marathons, four half-marathons, and hundreds of miles in between. We’ve run in snow, rain, at 5:00 a.m. to avoid the heat and at 8:00 p.m. because that’s the only time we could. We’ve run through my mom’s stroke, her husband’s unemployment, S’s cancer, the death of her grandmother, an so on. We’ve run in every condition – both environmentally and emotionally.

I’m not successful in running because I like it. I’m successful because it’s something that my living, breathing journal and I do together.  I’m successful because it’s cathartic.  Running gives me the opportunity to release negative or positive energy and then immediately burn it off.

Treads and I will pick back up in March to train for a half and a full marathon in 2014.  But I need to figure out what it is that I will do between now and then. I’m beginning to think the stagnation is a catalyst in my malaise.

I have until November 6 before I said I would see a psychiatrist about antidepressants.  Since it’s my desire to do this organically if possible, I better kick the August 6 plan into gear or, in the least, figure out a new thing that is sustainable and will aid in recovery from this depression.