...and miles to go (before i sleep)...

"You look...tired."

Thanks. I know that. I am.

Were we chatting IRL, there'd have already been an uncomfortably long pause, as I struggled to locate that brain-to-mouth connection.  Silence would stretch into awkwardness, as you waited for me to keep up to my end of the conversation.  "I'm sorry. I'm so tired.", you'd hear.  Over and again.  A mindless repetition during even the shortest of exchanges.

(Just ask my *Sea-Star...she can attest!)

I. Am. Tired.
In all the ways.
And it shows.
I look, in my less-than-gentle appraisal of self, much like a worn out pillow...gone all soft and mushy and grey about the edges.  My shoulders slump in like empty casing, and my waist...ugh...what waist...
Where once I stood tall and firm (in disposition and musculature), now I slouch and slump.

I am tired.

There is added weight...both figurative and literal, round about me.

The postpartum pounds that are stuck like glue, by prolactin and cortisol.
The grasping toddler limbs that need constant reassurance and pick-ups.
The strain of caregiving that spreads out far wider than just this little household.
The burdens of others very real and very present and very overwhelming needs, and my own inability to not dive in to try to help.

The unwanted weight of shackles round my feet...roots I can't yet untangle...others' luggage strapped on my back...

I am tired.
And I am tired of being tired.

Because I remember the alternative. I remember the me of 4 or so years ago.
I remember her, and I want to be her again.

I want:
 her energy and her spark
her sparkle and her creativity
her resourcefulness and her grit

Four years ago, after biking through the bay area at Sandy Hook.

And oh yes...I want her body.

The one that could recover.  The one that could stretch and lift and power through.
The body that I could push beyond its limits...take 5...and then go again.
The body that wasn't so tired.

~~~

"You look...tired."

Thanks. I know that. I am.

I'm not getting enough sleep. I'm not getting the right fuel.
I don't have a village...or even a hamlet.
The team? It's me.  I'm the team.
(I'm also the problem.)
I'm so damn over-extended in serving everyone else.

~~~

I'm tired.

Of this.

This version of me that doesn't feel or look or act like me.

This version that is Just Worn Out.

So I've gotten back on the bike.

Not this one, sadly. This one was crushed when a tree fell on the storage shed.
Like most of the losses, it's yet to be replaced.

Literally.

The stationary cycle.

The one that, for a while, I was cranking away at each day.  On which, for a short while there, I was putting in my daily 20, sweating my way through lockdown/postpartum and distance-learning and Covid and social-distancing.  Pedaling toward victory...until I quit.

When things got...hard...harder...more complicated...more chaotic...

I've chosen September to start back up.

I've a plan in place...a challenge to only myself...

1 mile for each date.

1 for September 1st

2 for September 2nd

and so on...

through the 30th

And as for accountability?

This.

This page.

This post.

Where today it's the 8th of September and I've done

the 7 and 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1

of this month's yesterdays.

Where I was about to finish up typing and hop back on finish out my 8...

but now it's storming outside, and I've boys to wrangle into the safest corner.

465 miles.

By the end of the month.

465 miles, just for me.

Cycled in silence...or in the chatter of a phone vent sesh with my *Sea-Star...or in the sweaty hands turning the page of a book read for pleasure.

465 miles and all the minutes and hours I'm taking for myself in which to cycle through them.

Because I'm tired of being this tired.

I want to be strong again.

*Sea-Star: the nickname for one of my

biological half-siblings as we navigate

our strange sisterhood of genes and

choice and overcoming.