Energy Conversion

I have one gloved hand clutched to a large cart taller and wider than me. The smell of the peonies on the bottom shelf is delightfully unescapable.  The weight of the full cart of flowers and dirt is forcing me to plant each foot intentionally as I lean all my weight forward to slowly drag the cart uphill. I can feel my heart rate rise and my breath deepen as my body requires more oxygen to sustain the pace I intend to keep.

Legs on fire, I reach the top and coast the cart into the garden center. I’ve taken on a job merchandising perennials… those who don't know,  perennials are plants that come back every year. My job is to make beautiful plants look even prettier on a display.

I’m good at it. Color, design, physical labor, I rock that shit and my area is on fucking point.

I dig my fingers into the dirt of large pots, grabbing two in each hand at once and make my way to the front cap shelves. There are customers perusing the small Carnations I put out on the table earlier. The aisle is small so I stop a few feet away and let my arms go straight. (a straight arm is more efficient than a bent arm) I can feel the pots start to slip so I grip tighter. My biceps start to talk to me and after a minute a little shake comes in.

I know I could easily put down the pots and unload the Delphiniums on the top shelf to a different capper. I don’t. I let she shake get more intense.  A few moments later the couple moves on an so do I. The pots land on the metal shelf and I arrange them to look appealing to the next set of passing customers.

This is my day, over and over again. Drag full cart uphill, pick flowers up, put flowers down, drag empty carts (I usually wait until I have 2) uphill (different drop point), get full cart, flowers up, flowers down… over and over again.

I tell you with great certainty, I work faster and harder than anyone else there. I take no time to smell the roses. I consider my time there my workout. A 4 - 8 hour workout.

15 lbs gone in three weeks kinda workout.

And I know exactly the last time this kind of thing happened.

I was wildly unhappy in my marriage. I got married too young to a man 10 years my senior. Right out of college, never on my own… parents house, college, marriage. Not finding myself first was one of the worst mistakes of my life. It was easier to be his wife and in his huge shadow. Discovering who I am was scary and quite honestly I was afraid I wouldn’t like me. So I chose to be second class in my own life so he could have all of first to stretch out in.

Suddenly I found myself in my mid 30’s, not wanting to be in my house and not wanting to be around him. I didn’t feel taken care of because I was so consumed with what he wanted. I wasn’t feeling heard because my voice wasn’t welcome... by him or me alike. I didn’t know how to get my voice back. The few times I tried to be heard I was shut down quickly and with a dismissiveness that purposely relayed my insight didn’t matter. I allowed it not to because I didn’t think I had to power to make it matter.

So I found something I did have power over.

It started out with lengthening my runs. I was a dyehard 5 miler. Nothing more, nothing less, for years. I bumped it up to 6, then 8. Mostly uphill in the first half, the biggest hill coming at the end of mile 4. I can remember the day I made it up that hill without walking. I had myself a little shameless dance party at the top.

Then I started doing two workouts a day. Sometimes Power Yoga and Running. Sometimes Running and Insanity. Sometimes Yoga and Crossfit. Basically any combination of the aforementioned.

Soon enough I bumped it up to three. Yoga, Run, Crossfit. Insanity, Run, Crossfit. Yoga, Run, Insanity…, you get the idea. 3 - 4 hours a day, 5 - 6 days a week, of working out. I gotta tell you guys, my body was BANGIN’. Like, I wanted to walk around naked all the time bangin’. LOOK at what my hard work has created!

And I was fucking miserable.

When evening came, quiet and dark surrounded me. There was no workout to distract my mind.  I cried, almost nightly. My husband and I alike silently observed and shoved it under the rug. We both prayed my feelings would just go away. Once the sun was over head again, to quote one of my former yoga teachers, “I put my sneakers on and would literally run away from my problems.”

Now here I am, different time, different kind of sadness, same behavior.

These past few months have been the hardest of my adult life. Blows just keep coming.

I hit my limit when the man I love, who understood because he was going through the same thing, the man who grounded me, had to leave. Not because he wanted to, but to quote his Father, “He was my angel on Earth. God needed my angel home.”

When I open my mouth to take a deep breath, many times a choking sound comes out instead.

Yet again, I can't even control my own voice.

You guys have no idea how many plants I throw out on a daily basis. Please adopt a bloomed out Perennial today. They come back. For the love of God, THEY COME BACK!

So…. I manhandle 200 lb carts uphill as fast as I can. I pick up as many full racks of plants as my arms will allow without failing. I take no mind in rearranging rows of tables 2 or 3 times as I see better solutions come to light. I go to the compactor and WHIP old product down the shoot, with the goal of hitting the bottom with every toss…. and have made a game out of knocking anything in the shoot to the bottom. ( I win pretty much every time.)

Walking back to the garden center, a coworker taps me on the shoulder, “You work too hard.”

I know. I want the hard work.

I want pain I have chosen to experience, punishment I can control. Pain I invite in to burn off the feelings I don't want I rising to the top.  Pain I can opt out of when it becomes too much.

While I now recognize my pattern of behavior, in writing this I also see, what I perceive as control, is actually only the laws of nature. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed. My body can only hold so much energy I take in...good or bad. The overflow can’t stay. The Law of Conversion of Energy makes into something else.

We all covert overflowing energy in different ways. Some people meditate and find it in creating stillness.  Some buy sports cars and find driving a 392 HEMI V8 down a county road to be the closest thing to heaven on this earth. Some take up knitting and find solace in the zen of knit, knit, pearl, knit, knit, pearl... It just so happens my way is through beating the shit out of my body.

I know, I know, it’s not healthy. It’s a distraction. It’s a way of not dealing with what’s going on.  It is however, the beginning of my process. It’s like a controlled forest burn. I need the old growth gone so new I can begin to grow a new, stronger ecosystem.

To take the steps to ensure I do grow, I talk to my Therapist weekly. I have found meds and the proper dosage that allow me function like a productive human being. I’m setting goals for my future and taking actions to make those goals come to pass. I can’t lie to you reader, I’m still burning off what is not serving me… And at the same time have started to convert some of my excess to create a future with a voice, my voice & my vision. One I want and will not choose to let anyone to keep me quiet about.