The fog is clearing

After nearly a month of being more or less trapped in the house dealing with my precious little girl's illness and death, I had a healthy dose of fear that I would not be able to get back into my old routine. What if this bout of sloth stuck and I slid back down the mountain I've been climbing for the last two years?

I was more than a little bit relieved when I felt an urge to go to the gym less than two days after losing her, but that was immediately overwhelmed by two contradictory and undeniable feelings: to not want to talk to anyone, and guilt over taking a step towards my normal life without her in it. So I didn't go.

And so it went, every day for the last several, wanting a little bit more to go work out, and feeling a little bit less guilty about that, and a feeling little bit more able to talk to people in public without melting into a sobbing puddle. I've already learned that, because my gym is so intimately small, any absence on my part is noted and I always get a "where have you been" upon my return. That's the big reason I haven't gone back. I wasn't ready to tell KellyAnnTainaMichelleDebbieSusanKarenMarinaBarb what happened.

I still don't feel prepared to face my weight training class, where we chat for the 90 minutes we're together, because the teacher is a dog lover and that's what we often talk about. And I don't want to go on the treadmills, because you always end up chatting with the girls when they pass by. But I'm starting to feel that itch, that undeniable need for a good workout. I think maybe I'll go for a swim, because that's the one place at the gym I can be alone. Or possibly a bike ride if I can talk my husband into pulling my knobby-tired tank down off the ceiling. It's been unseasonably warm the last few days - almost 40 - and the snow has mostly melted, so a bike ride might not be too bad.