Just another day.

Today is my birthday. :)

I will celebrate by continuing to pack up my home so we can move on Saturday. Well, we. I'll be staying behind to clean for a couple of days, Then I'll join my family in a two-bedroom apartment while we look for a home to buy. It's a little daunting, I'll admit.

I'm hopeful that I'll be able to steal a few moments of quiet time, though. It's always been my tradition, even when I was a child and everyone else forgot that this was the day of my birth, to just take a little bit of time and celebrate me. It was important. I needed to remember that this was a significant day in my life. I still need to remember that.

Last year I talked with my family about maybe doing something a little bigger to celebrate on my next birthday. Darrin got very enthusiastic about throwing me a party which effectively killed my tiny desire to have a small celebration. He was miffed at my lack of enthusiasm and threatened to throw me a surprise party. I told him, if that happened, I would walk out. He thought I was being churlish. It took seven months to help him understand that I'm not, I just need to have control of what happens with me on this day. It's difficult for me. I don't need someone taking that control away from me, even when they have the best of intentions.

So instead of a small celebration this year, I'll be getting ready to move. And that's okay. But in the meantime, happy birthday to me! I was born! Yay!

Addendum: I had to go to the doctor today. As I was checking out, a small child was reading a book that would play The Birthday Song whenever you opened it. So I got a song today, too.

Running Again

Midnight, and I should be sleeping. How I feel the need to keep typing after doing transcription this entire day is baffling to me. Too much on my mind?

I'm packing up years of living during the next couple of weeks. Throwing out things that have sat waiting for that event for too long. Packing away books and games. Wondering if they will be stored for the rest of my lifetime or if I'll find the energy, one day, to open the boxes in which they reside.

I run every morning now. My feet know every inch of the trail I've traversed for the past two decades. It's August. The baby hawks are now adults, circling in the blue sky as I run below. Most of the wildflowers are gone. Yellow clover persists in its blossoming, along with some red-petaled daisies. Occasionally, the intense blue of my favorite flax flowers shows. Their season finished with July, but a few of the plants forgot to stop blooming. Grasshoppers with colorful wings leap in front of my feet. Shiny black beetles and spiders scurry from me. The prairie grass is long now, and golden.

Soon I will run here no more. Will I miss it? Tolkien Boy asked me this a long time ago. And the answer is yes, but this has never been my home. I'm not sure there is a place for me anywhere. For now, I will savor the moments I have left before I move to a new place.

In the new place there will be times when air quality will preclude running outside. A track or treadmill in a gym will be my new haven. No hawks. No wildflowers. No prairie grass. I think I will miss it then.