a way

I do that sometimes.

I still haven't figured out how to put all my thoughts -- particularly the sloppy and awkward ones -- on the page with and without a filter. So sometimes I paint those broad, polished, black and white brush strokes, when one must fill in the blanks in the absence of gradation. That's how details get lost.

I'm unsure how to paint the picture of the last twelve days. They've been full. Overflowing. I'm trying to see in technicolor, but mostly - honestly - I just see black and I see white. Perhaps another time.

Melissa and Joel and their kiddos spent the weekend with us. That was sweet. Earlier this evening, upon their departure, a high-browed, white-gloved realtor stopped by unannounced in the wake of clutter and chaos. That was not.

And tonight, my right eye won't stop twitching and I'm chewing gum. Tonight, my mouth and my mind and my eyelid are working over time, perhaps so my heart and my soul won't have to. It's nearly 11, and I am copiously pounding away at my gum and my keyboard. After twelve full days, it feels difficult - virtually impossible - to deal with the empty spaces, the unknowns and the silence any longer. So instead, I am tapping and twitching and chomping away.

Not tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.

There is that word again... sigh. And then there was yesterday.

Yesterday, I was scheduled to start my race at 7:16 a.m. That was impossible, however because at 8:30 yesterday morning, I was still at a hospital in downtown Denver, where I had arrived eight hours earlier to attend my last birth.

Somehow -- I'm still not sure how -- less than two hours later, I crossed a finish line 30 miles away.I ran my race in 52.07. I ran my fourth Bolder Boulder six minutes faster than my last and more than seventeen minutes faster than my first. I still can't believe I was there.

He will make a way where there is no way. Yet, tonight, I'm still here. I can't believe I'm here. I'm miles away from where I began, yet somehow, I'm still here. I'm full. I'm empty. I'm done. I'm undone. I'm ending. I'm beginning. I'm there, and yet I am still here.

There is always a way. Please, help me to remember. Please help me to find my way.