Le mot injuste

Today I felt a feeling that I haven't felt in years and years. It's that feeling which is shared between the experiences of getting dumped, dumping someone, someone dying, and saying goodbye to loved ones when you first set off on a big trip. You know that one feeling I mean? Not the big awful grief of death, not heartbreak. Heartache, I guess. There's probably a better and more specific word for it in some language I don't know yet. I think REM called it losing your religion once upon a time. I used to love and respect the person I'm upset with at the moment so much and now I'm just down to love. That's hard for me. I have so little respect for anything, respect is a scarce commodity in my consciousness, and it turns out it's horribly difficult to let go of the dribs and drabs I've clung on to over the years.

(Monster of selfishness exhibit one: his son is so victimized by his behaviour and I know I should be feeling, if anything, sympathy for his son, but right at the moment the strongest thing I feel about the situation is ashamed.)

Well, be that as it may, today Godzilla waved at his uncle Elvis. And then at me. And then at everybody who waved at him first. I feel like he entered the human race today. Which made up for the losing the religion. It made up for the fact some poor little 18 year old rear-ended us at a red light this morning and then burst into tears. It made up for the fucking cretinous fruit plucked by the F-word yesterday or the day before or whenever it was. My son is officially a little person who communicates.

Running away from my problems

So today, the F-word did something - and I write this in love and respect - cretinous. Or rather, he didn't do it today, but today the thing he did some time ago bore its cretinous, cretinous fruit. Nothing too interesting - no sex, no crime, no bloodshed - an honest, if fucking enormous and insanely cretinous mistake, which he apologized for whole-heartedly as soon as its extent became clear. But I came as close as I come to hitting the wall - very close indeed - as this cretinous news was laid on me on top of a bad night's sleep with a restless Godzilla, deadlines, and a last desperate push to finish the coursework for Chinese class while my parents are still around Shanghaiing Godzilla daily - we're leaving their house on Tuesday.

Anyways, I didn't hit the wall, and I went for a run instead. A good, angry run, that lasted an hour, and gave me time and the chemicals to let go of my utter fury and contextualize the problem in the greater scheme of our shared life, which made it seem small indeed - and indeed, I hope it is. So all's well. Ish.

But it got me thinking about something I've been pondering since Godzilla was born: how the hell do new mothers who don't have time to exercise not lose their minds? How do mothers whose professional and emotional lives don't permit them to break an aerobic sweat daily not fucking kill everybody ever? How do you deal with this much exhaustion, this much responsibility and concern, this much bending, lifting, and twisting while a beautiful 25 pound sack of awesome clambers all over you, without having an opportunity to run around a bunch and keep your energy even? I have no fucking idea. I really don't. People are amazing.