Today was a strange mix of highs and lows. It was a rainy day, and as I walked from the parking lot to class, my shoes and socks got wet and stayed that way all day (multiple trips between parking lot & class). Sigh. In my morning class, we finished a film about how women are portrayed in the media, and then followed that with discussion and a power point presentation full of really lovely (not) images--ads showing women objectified, sexualized, dehumanized. It. was. awful. I have pretty much eliminated tv from my life--I literally do not own one, and haven't watched anything since the Olympics were on back in August. I think the last movie I saw was Inside Out, which came out over a year ago. I never pick up the kinds of magazines (women's magazines, especially fashion) that I imagine would carry the kind of ads we saw in class. In other words, my eyes and brain were naive and innocent, and the nearly pornographic and violent images our professor showed were just too much. I sat there, trying to breathe, and realized my heart was pounding. It didn't feel like a panic attack, but in hindsight, I realize my body was in fight-or-flight mode. I felt wildly unsafe, viewing those images, and hearing the discussion of them. The class was a a very safe place, but...just seeing those images, I felt overwhelmed at how unsafe the world, and my place as a woman in it, felt just then. Who makes these images?! Who thinks this portrayal of women is okay?! And who--how many hundreds of thousands of people see these images and just casually flip the page, not feeling anything is amiss?!
Do you feel like something is wrong with these?!
I had to leave class. It was just too much. I cried a few minutes, wishing I hadn't had to see those images and experience/feel that, then realized that this is important. Feeling unsafe and enraged is an important first step to doing something to change this.
And then a high: I took 153 pounds of my ex's stuff to FedEx to ship to him1. I stood there and imagined that weight being removed from my shoulders. Sigh! The bonus was the guy who helped me was just so damn nice. He asked for the return address, and I started to give it to him, then remembered I don't want my ex to know where I live, and changed to my parents' address. We chatted while he worked, and he generously reassured me it gets better, that he was happily remarried after a bad first marriage, and will be celebrating his 20th anniversary next week. After helping repack several boxes and explaining the tracking numbers, he shook my hand and wished me good luck. I left and just felt so stunned at how sometimes the kindness of the least significant people in our lives can mean so much. A doctor can save lives, offer hope & healing, but so can the guy at FedEx. God bless him.
Back to school for my afternoon class...where we finished watching a documentary on rape and sexual assault on college campuses. SIGH. After the morning class, I just wasn't feeling very up to it. I hated to walk out of a second class in one day, so I doodled anxiously in a notebook to dissociate a bit from the film. Oh, you should see that sheet of paper! It is a mess of misquoted poems (I have them memorized, but couldn't recall them well in the emotional state), random words in alphabetical order, Japanese hiragana, most of the 50 states (also alphabetical). It was a tough class. After class, I spoke with the professor a bit and shared that I'd left the morning class because it was just too much. I half-joked that if she'd taught these topics at the start of the semester, I'd have dropped out, but now I'm trapped and have to finish the semester. I also half-joked that I planned to go home and cuddle my cat the rest of the afternoon and evening. She apologized, but I told her it's really okay. This stuff is real, and while it's awful, not learning about it, knowing about it, facing it, feeling about it, won't change it.
I left school and drove home, crying again about the two difficult, too-difficult classes. I stopped at the post office to mail a few things, and lo--another high! There was no line. And it was 4:30pm! How is that possible?! It sounds ridiculous, but seriously. I have bad, BAD luck with post offices. This was like a winning lottery ticket. In and out, and only $3.40 poorer :)
Just over four weeks until the 5k. I'm so excited! I'm up to 5:00 jogging / 2:00 walking intervals, x5. My total distance is right around a 5k now (actually 4 miles today!), and the jogging sections are easy enough that I sometimes push the pace a bit harder. I'm feeling very optimistic :D The other day I jogged far enough to discover a lovely boardwalk path back into a marshy area of the Arboretum. It's a great motivator to jog just a bit farther. This evening by the time I got home, it was getting dark quickly, drizzling still, and rather chilly. Not especially inviting weather to go jogging in, but I headed out anyways. I came across a muskrat (!), and Lake Wingra was a beautiful shade of gray, matching the sky perfectly. Despite being a chilly, dark-and-stormy-night, it was a really great night for a jog. I just feel like it's so great to get out, no matter the weather, and LIVE and remember there's a whole world out there, beyond tv and internet. It fills me with joy :D
This past week, the jogging got suddenly and unexpectedly easier and more fun. As I wrote, I'm feeling very optimistic about the 5k. Originally, I thought I'd just get through it, cross it off "the list" and quit jogging for life (haha) but...now I'm not so sure :) I have a feeling after this run, there may be something else...another (faster!) 5k, or a 10k. I feel so strong and powerful and beautiful (in my strength) when I'm out jogging. I don't think I'll quit after this ;)
And so that was my day...low, high, low, high. Intense, but I still wouldn't trade it for boring :) Months ago, I read a brief piece on being "Soulfully Single and Open for Love". I thought: yes, this. This is what I want. To be soulfully single. I think it definitely took me a few months to get there, after leaving NYC, but I've been feeling the soulful acceptance of --whatever life brings-- the past month or so. I may have even gone a bit overboard--I'm may be feeling a bit more "Intimidatingly Independent" than "soulfully single", haha (intentional capitalization there!). If anyone wants my love, he's going to have to really run to catch me, and I'm getting faster and stronger every day :D
No comments:
Post a Comment