Inspiration

I used to be a runner.  Ran in HS & all through college.  Continued on sporadically to my first marathon.  It was hard, really hard.  Then it tapered off.  I tried again when the first one was young.  Ran a few halfs, got under two hours, but then more children came.  Little time to run, but more likely, little inspiration.  It's hard to get back; a few miles hurt.  But not just physical hurt.  I'd lost my inspiration.  There's the heat and the sweat pouring down within the first few minutes (oh, how I despise south Florida), and the lack of something...beauty I guess.    I've been getting "Runners' World" again.  Within the first few pages is the "Rave Run".  It sounds so beautiful, rave run.  I don't have that, rave - there's sun beating down and pavement.  Little more.  My goal for the new school year is to find my rave run.  Where can it be?

My daughter is struggling; she’s so unsure of herself and thinks we are against her.  Where do I go with this?  She is a product of me and my parenting.  She is influenced by her father who has taken his clues from me, for lack of any better source.  He seems to see me when I am struggling most, when the day has wore me down and there is little left of any patience I could have had.  I am more frustrated with myself for not being stronger, for wasting too much of my time on me and not giving it away to those more needy.  I want to engage and connect with my kids.  Not to be their friend, but to mentor them, to train them up in the way they should go.  But I so just want to be left alone.  Just leave me alone, give me my time, my leisure.  I try to remember when I had that.  It was lonely, and I wasn’t really all the more productive.  It still took me four years to paint my living room.  Never did finish that trim.  My inherent laziness comes out.  I don’t want to be responsible, and I surely don’t want to keep working when everybody else doesn’t have to.  Yes, it took the kids 12 hours to clean their room, but I’m still not done.  I tried to pawn it off on them.  Bribery didn’t work, cold hard cash wasn’t enough.  How can I direct them down the good path, when I’m such a poor example of the way I should go?  I partake judgment on myself.  I see myself in them, all the nasty, biting language.  All the conviction of the wrongs is reflected in them, right back to me.  They are a clear mirror of how awful I am doing, a spotlight shining down on my flaws.  How do I love my children?  No, not the “I love you” rhetoric.  But how do I truly love my children?  I am to lay down my life for them; I just hang on tighter to mine.  So no promises to do better tomorrow, no resolution that I will love.  I will go to bed tonight, heavy-hearted.  The weight of my own failings will drag me down.  But sometimes we must go way down into the pit before we even realize we are there.  Then once we know, we must wallow in it for a spell.  That’s where I am now, actually have been for a long while, wallowing in the pit.  Knowing that I suck, but unknowing and unwilling to do anything about it.  How long have I been ashamed of my own behavior?  How many more times will I be speaking, well really yelling, the words and hating that they come out of my mouth.  My seventy times seven has long past. I am into, ad infinitum.  When do my kids grow wary of me and my flaws and write me off as a bad mother?  Is it time in my life to finally step out of the pit?