This morning I helped my son finish his math homework while supplying adverbs and exclamations for my daughter's Mad Libs and simultaneously packing lunch, making coffee, and trying to stuff enough breakfast into them to carry them through their busy school morning.
Last night I arrived home late after two days of work in Baltimore to ice and snow everywhere, the news that my sometimes mean cat had scratched the heroic woman who cleans my house twice a month, and an enormous meltdown and then tears and a big conversation with my son who hadn't done his math homework, wanted to play Minecraft with his friends, and is feeling the pressure of a big school project, the upcoming 4th grade musical, and a friendship that has taken a wrong turn.
My children are nine and seven. And it wasn't until two years ago that I realized that somewhere in their early childhood years I had forgotten how to breathe.
So with homework finished we were running late and we all dashed upstairs to dress and brush our teeth. I chose to dress in my running gear. All the paper on my desk from two days away was calling to me. But I nodded to it and acknowledged that 40 pre-8am minutes would be better spent in a run than slogging through email. That the 40 minutes I "lost" during my run would be made up, and then some, in efficiency later on.
This morning, and the choice I made in a hectic moment, reminded me of all of the perfect moments in life that I would miss if I didn't run. Prospect Park was quiet. The air crisp and cold but my body warmed quickly with the exertion. The brilliant morning sunlight sparkled on the snow-covered lake and the rolling hills of the Park's meadows. Hundreds of footprints made winter patterns. The few fellow runners out nodded and exchanged smiles. Sweatered dogs everywhere, pulling their owners across snowbanks. The Park's grand trees, snow on their branches, towering over and witnessing it all. Sounds muffled by winter. No music. And my breath, steady and even in the quiet.
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