Breathe; Repeat.

My steps are steady, because my life is heavy. There is no room for light treading, padding, through this quicksand. These footfalls are my lifeline, high, marching, meant to carry blood to my heart and lightness to my soul. The path is ominous, sometimes lighted, but mostly shrouded in thicket and sand. The air is thick with oppressive moisture, making it difficult to breathe cleanly. Panting, I’m always panting. There are a few hands to guide me, lend a hold when I stumble, but never fall. Most are there to grasp me, hold me, push me, tear at my skin while swatting the others away.

“Breathe deep, swallow hard, fear gone, carry on.”

Close your eyes, tilt your head up, breathe in, don’t stop. The reason you’re traveling, lies just over the dune, and nothing is keeping you from a sight for sore, almost blind, eyes. From the sounds that no shell can replicate. The best part, the shuddering deep breath that will only cleanse your toxicity laden lungs. I’m used to breathing heavily, but this heaven on earth, it allows me to catch my breath.

“Breathe deep, swallow hard, fear gone, carry on.”

Some days are lazy, but most are too quick. Leaving behind a wanton need for rest. Always happy to say goodnight, but never quite prepared to greet the sun. Anxiety peppered wake-fullness moonlights as a nightmare that I can’t fall asleep to wake up from. I’ve always maintained that display of tears constitutes weakness, but maybe tonight I’ll begin thinking of each unchecked tear as my body expelling my fears. Perhaps tonight, all things previously regarded as weak, which I’ve been diligent to avoid, will turn to strength. Your strength.

“Breath deep, swallow hard, fear gone, carry on.”

An Apple a Day Keeps My Pride at Bay

I reach for my lunch, an apple purchased just yesterday, and bring it to eye level. I notice a few discolorations, bruising. I frown while running my fingers over the skin, feeling many indentations. I furrow my brow in annoyance. Strange that I would make such an oversight, considering how much I detest the brown blemishes which curb my appetite. I set the sullied apple back on my desk and lean back in my chair. I start contemplating how many times a simple oversight has caused me to miss out on enjoying something, anything. Quite possibly too many to remember, much less name. I glance back at the apple with even more disgust. A bruised apple, from this point, will always serve to remind me not just of it’s in-edibility, but also of my numerous oversights which have kept me from enjoyment.

I realize I'm staring. I reach to pick it up, repeating my examination with a bit more reverence, memorizing its imperfections. I begin to ponder how wasteful I plan on being, discarding this food simply due to a few discolorations. How fruitless would it be to toss it in the garbage? How many times have I eradicated seemingly imperfect things from my life, only for them to be proven valuable at a most inopportune time? I let out a long sigh, find an area with no flaw, and take a resolute bite. I’m startled, it’s quite possibly the most delectable bite from any apple I’ve ever had before. Perhaps this is what humility tastes like. It's absolutely delicious.

Notice of Condemnation

Alright Body, it's now week three of Operation Work/Death. By now you're pretty much used to the fact that I'm seriously only allowing you 4, if you're lucky, 5 hours of sleep daily. There have been minimal side-effects. Honestly, the whole delayed left eye blink was pretty disturbing for the first several days (or were they only hours?). But after discovering that my eyes would eventually be permanently squinted? Really isn't all that noticeable now. I can't recall a time that I haven't been at least 99% caffeinated. Which has lead to its own side-effects, namely, hypersensitivity of the senses. Especially the "HOLYGAWDWHATWASTHAT?!!?!?" sense. Oh what was it really? A fly landing... on me... felt through my jacket. I've been wrong all these years, I am NOT Batman. I am actually Spiderman. Wrap your head around that!

*Side note: I can fall asleep walking. No, not to be confused with sleep walking. I literally fall asleep while walking. Managed to escape without injury... so far.

Look, so here's the deal B, you're used to this treatment, a'ight? So now I’m going to start incorporating daily semi-weekly gym visits after you get off of work at 6am, still with me? No guh, I'm not talking about a light jog around the 'hood. I'm talking RUNNING, like SUICIDES running. Yeah, that's right. What else you ask? Piano lessons on Thursdays at the PEAK of your exhaustion, photo-shoots booked on every Saturday until you croak. Oh, and also, let me mention that I'll be cutting your calorie intake to 1200 a day? Yeah, even though you're awake/dead for 20 out of the 24. Deal with it, you can have absolutely all the cocaine caffeine, you need because at the end of this I want you looking like no one else but Lindsay Lohan. What's that you say? "Bring it"? Man that's hot.

Time well spent in front of a mirror

You're annoying and rude. Do you see that you're being transported publicly? We all paid to be on this contraption, and you're imposing on the silence with your blatant disregard for the other passengers. Why have you decided it is acceptable to listen to music via your cell phone speaker?

Deep breath, close my eyes. The other side: It’s possible that you love music as much as I do and happen to have forgotten a personal listening apparatus. I’ll give it a chance, so I'm straining to hear the lyrics and even putting forth a halfhearted attempt to acknowledge the beat. Quickly frustrated, I give up because cell phone speakers suck and ya know what? So does that song! But perhaps you’re partaking in the same chill inducing music eargasm I achieve from my own personal selections of music. Maybe other passengers are even enjoy- nope, I glance around, the people who aren’t homeless and earbudless are tapping their feet in annoyance and glaring at you. I chuckle a bit. Amazing how in this moment I'm stricken by how much I strive for acceptance only to be humbled by how adverse I am to tolerance. Cause that's what that noise blaring out of your shitty cell phone speaker deserves, my tolerance and perhaps even more so the respect to play it through something a little more personal and a lot less tone deficient.

Resigned, I lean back in an attempt to dismiss you to carry on invading the section of this train with that racket while I carefully place my headphones over my ears. I blast the volume to ensure that it’s drowning out your trebled cacophony and I'm sure the elderly woman next to me can hear my music clearly. She sighs and closes her eyes, so yeah, she can definitely hear it. I don't turn it down, lost already in the tune and smiling humbly because your supposed ignorantly rude behavior just taught me a little bit about how much alike we are and how I'm totally willing to accept that.

It doesn't take an MD to see that you're OPENLY judging me...

When possible, I've started checking Dr. As a prefix for my mail. Do you know how rewarding it is to receive mail to Dr. Rachael M Weaver? ESPECIALLY when your really attractive mailbox neighbor is kind of curiously eyeballing your... Wait, okay, wow, that’s actually strange. WHY are you looking at my mail?

Do I not LOOK like I could be a doctor? Why, cause I’m not wearing scrubs? Well maybe I’m not a resident or a dentist! Huh? What about that? Maybe I wear business casual clothes only to don a white coat and stethogra--scope(?) when I walk into the office of my very OWN private practice?! That's fine I don't even have to be an MD. How insultingly presumptuous do you plan on being over a piece of my mail which so obviously states that I have a doctorate? Truth, maybe I'm not old enough to have graduated medical school, but that doesn't mean I don't have some totally valid doctorate in something deliciously absurd, like, Poultry or Epic Winning. How about that, Debra McDoubterson?!

Alright, well, as fleetingly “attractive” as I thought you WERE, the fact that you’re so openly judging me and completely violating my privacy at the mailbox is a rather clear indication that you’re definitely not in THIS doctor’s league, okay? And no, the fact that I'm holding a copy of Maxim magazine is definitely NOT why you're scrutinizing me. Cause, yeah hate to break it to you, but according to them (them being Maxim address people. Very respectable. Don't argue.) I am, in fact, a doctor. Gah, the nerve of some people.

You're killin' me, Smalls!

Why is it that so many high school and college athletes feel the need to work that into practically every conversation? I get it, I really do, it was a huge part of your life, but ya know what? I’m not relating. In fact, I stopped listening as soon as the word “ball” came out of your mouth. And by the way, do you see this book that I'm holding in front of my face? My eyes aren't just going back and forth because I'm pretending to read, I'm actually attempting to READ this BOOK! You boasting about the fact that you were gonna be the next Alex Rodriguez before that unfortunate groin(vomit) injury is not impressing me. This means you have to cease incessantly reminding me that you “played ball” in college.

For the love of Pete Rose, remove Sandlot from your instant queue and then retire your college baseball apparel. Because your beer belly? Yeah, it’s preventing you from tucking in that shirt that fit your 18 year old body. And you know what that means? You're assaulting my retinas because I can definitely see the bottom of your baby bump. Finally, please, for health code reasons, WASH your HAT, because it smells like decade old unwashed dreads and that is in no way shape or form “lucky”. It is quite possible the reason you have not “gotten lucky” (as you so eloquently put it) SINCE you “played ball” which was roughly fifteen years and 3.2 million beers ago.

Two Steps Backward and Sixteen Forward

I turn to walk away because I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because this much wisdom and good nature can't be bestowed upon me without some horrific end. All the bravery and clarity thrust upon me can't just be grace, it has to be the means to a terrible end that's closing in on me and that I'm trying desperately to determine. Straining my eyes, heart and mind to predetermine so I can keep from falling. This is my feeble attempt to place more distance between myself and my fate. Your fate. The fate that you've chosen for me and the one I'm so paralyzingly fearful of.

Finally, the clarity comes back and with it you allow this tiny seed that has me wondering, hoping, that all this preparation, all these gifts are not for something terrible afterall. These gifts will be called upon and not by some horrific and dastardly event, but by the trials that I face daily. The words, the disappointments, my truths, me. Maybe you're molding me into someone and something that I'm to carry out daily through Your words, Your breath, Your hands. You taking over me because I'm tired of fighting you yet again. So here I am, falling again. Falling so quickly to my knees in my tears and handing you my truths, my heartache and troubles. Because no matter how many steps I take away, no matter how many times I trip and collapse I'll always be righted. Because your hand is there and that hand has helped me and shaped me into precisely what you've ordained. Through your grace, no matter how much distance I put between us, I'll always come crawling, running, sprinting back to you because I know you'll be waiting with an open hand. There's nothing to turn from, because I'm not mine, I'm yours.