The Big Dipper

Today... I saw a message... It wasn't good news. Rather, it was extremely upsetting news. My mood began to plummet and rapidly. I was talking to someone who understood. It was nice - that's always nice. But it didn't quite do the trick... I then started to two episodes of Homeland that I hold on to. The last two, specifically. The first one mostly shows the main character fly into a wild manic state, while the second one addresses more her depression. I watch them because they're so true and so accurate. Some of the people around me don't get me as well as a TV show's writer. Ironic, I think.

After the show... I decided to go for a walk. I hadn't walked in a while and, with my fibromyalgia, I figured I needed it. My fibro pain had seemed to subside after what was previously a nuisance of flare up that lasted two or three days. I started my walk and immediately could smell a familiar... but old smell. A smell I smelled in Maryland. It was a mixture of moistness, deciduous trees, and grass. I walked around for most of my lap... but then decided to take a detour. This was far beyond unusual for me.

I turned on one of the north-south streets and headed south. Somewhere down the line, I actually decided where I was going. My sister's school is almost directly south from our house so I headed there. When I got there (about a half mile walk, now), I decided to go a bit further into the adjoined park. I stopped at about 0.8 miles toward the far end of the park (thank you Google Maps.) The crazy part is that I was able to run - or rather, sprint! - across streets and some of the park! It's one thing for me to walk a distance... it's a whole other thing to be able to sprint at all. Fibromyalgia pretty much prohibits that... but I was free from its clutches... somehow.

I laid down on that park bench, my head facing south, my toes facing north, and I stared at that night sky. The clouds soared through the sky, speckled stars appearing and disappearing through their cracks. I just laid there and laid there. It was probably five or ten minutes until I decided to get back up and start walking back. As I started walking back, the northern part of the sky, at least, started to clear up and I at first saw the big dipper, and then as I was almost home, the little dipper showed its face. I don't remember the last time that I actually saw the big and little dippers. Everytime I looked up at the sky, a building or tree or cloud got in the way, but as I was walking north along the road, nothing obscured my view.

I don't know the last time I could run like that - at least over a year. I don't know the last time I smelled some of the things I smelled. The memories - good memories - that conjured up seemed to have been long forgotten before tonight. I didn't follow any thought when I went on this walk - which was about 1.6 miles - at night. I followed scents. Smells conjured memories, and those memories drove my walking. It was so out of my comfort zone, the whole time I was sweating, even though it was cold out. I was looking around, flinching at every crack of a stick or crumple of a pine cone. I was making sure to stay in the light (albeit dim light) as much as possible and watching the shadows. I was my normal, paranoid self, anxious and honestly frightened. It was... stepping out of my comfort zone, trying something new.

For once in... as long as I can remember, I truly felt free.