Rita's Ritin Challenge #34

 

Walking thoughts

The forced walk up the path is an adventure of its own.  Shes takes a different route every other day so that it becomes less boring. She's been yo-yo-ing again with her weight.  She wasn't Obese just Overweight, that's what her doctor told her - "Your BMI is in the Overweight category".  Her weight never was a concern until her husband said "You look fat and ugly".  For a moment she was taken aback, then she felt the hurt when it dawned on her that it was his way of saying "I don't/cant love you".   No, she wasn't being dramatic or over-reacting... nor was she being Presumptuous. She just knew the lines between his lines.  She felt the tears sting, but held them back- "I wouldn't want his pity or derision" she thought. 

Walking past the Cemetery a truth slowly dawns on her "All things in nature have their beginnings and their demise, so it is with love, there is a beginning and an ending only the Time between have different ranges", she knew it was inevitable.  The beginning of love is usually when the hormones are at their peak for breeding and the end is when things slow down in the reproduction scene.  That's the observation she's made about Nature, and people are part of Nature. In the beginning, there's holding hands,  "honey, I am home" kisses and deep "tantric sex"  looks in the eye when the couple look at each other only to change over time to the weekly headaches, "I am tired",  the chores that never get done until the husband sleeps or the office work that spills into home time that brings the husband late to bed etc.. For the First Phase of the Breeding Process we give a grand name - LOVE and create all those illusions like an epic saga and when it ends we build another illusion called DUTY, she liked to call it "Learning to love without the Love".  Either way, its a wonderful Fantasy we like to create so we can measure Life's Worth.  The Truth is, Change is a constant, Love will have different definitions at different times.  Just like these tombstones, that shine today and are called Tombstones, that will gather moss as the ones who care for them pass away.  Someday in the distant future, it will just be another Rock, not a tombstone.  We all change and the ones who are happy are the ones who can roll with those changes with the least amount of damage.

She counts her steps, 450, 451.. mentally, then she loses count as she watches the squirrel scurry across the road making it to the other side just as the car whizzes past.  "bravo!".  On the other side, there was a woman jogging.  Such a skinny thing, if she were lost in a desert, she would be safe, the vultures wouldn't pick her.  It would be too much work for scraps of meat that wouldn't fill their stomachs.  Was that envy? or was that a smart alek comment? ah! never mind....oops lost count... 460, 461.. Hmm what was that she read about mindfulness.  Was it to let the mind wander but be aware that the mind is wandering or was it bring the mind to focus on what we are doing at that moment?  If its the former, that's done already, but if its the later, What was she really doing? Was she thinking as she was walking or walking as she was thinking?

Another 15 minutes and one hour quota of exercise per day will be complete.  She will also be home. What was the count again?  "I have to get a step-o-meter" she thinks.  Glad to be in the prison people call home, takes of her shoes and gets on the yoga mat to bend, flex and stretch. Oh! she forgot to be compassionate to herself.. so she consciously asks herself - "How am I doing? Where has life taken me? What am I really doing these days? Do I want an answer?"   She lets the answers slide, cause if she said out loud what her heart knows as truth, it would be "Not so good, not anywhere, not anything". The "Nots" stalks her.   After a while she gets into the foetal position to hug herself with Love, repeating the words "This too shall pass and I will survive to look back and laugh at this time".  A Love, that is just beginning and maybe, just maybe, will last far longer than those induced by hormones.

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