Move It.
Someone once told that me that energy stays in your body, and you can either let it sit there and take up space or you can use it to do something. My husband is deployed right now. We’ve done this multiple times over the 15 years we’ve been married, but this time something has been different. I’ve been moving the energy from the moment he left.
That morning, the morning he left, we woke the kids up extra early. My husband was getting picked up by some guys from his team and then heading to the airport together. I made hot coco for the kids and strong coffee and tea for us, while my husband set up the Uno cards. We sat around the coffee table, the five of us, and played Uno and sipped our hot drinks. Every few minutes my husband would glance at his watch, and we would enevidably catch each other’s eye. The minutes ticked down until finally a van pulled up to our house. It was time to say good bye. The kids all took turned giving dada extra big hugs, and finally it was my turn. We were both holding back tears as we leaned into each other one last time. We prayed for each other quickly and kissed. Once he let me go I had to turn away quickly to wipe the tears off my face. I didn’t want the kids to see.
We sat on the front steps and watched “Our big daddy man” as the kids call him, walk away from us. Giant duffle bags hanging off his arms and a baseball cap covering his salt and pepper hair. We saw him climb into the vehicle and with one final wave at the four of us huddled on the front steps the van pulled away and he was gone. And with his departure arrived quite suddenly a new energy. It was empty and yet suffocating at the same time. I can feel it even now, clawing its way up my back and resting somewhere right between my shoulder blades.
We have to move the energy and create something with it, otherwise it will consume us.
Is that what my friend said to me? Nah, it must have been more eloquent than that.
The rest of the morning was a blur. The kids got ready for school while I made breakfast and packed lunches. Somehow, we managed to get ready for the day, and even made it to school on time. I was upbeat and positive about the upcoming months and held the kids extra-long before watching them walk into their classrooms. And again, more energy trickled down into my chest.
As soon as I got home and faced our big house that was empty and quiet I knew I had to keep moving. I went upstairs and cleaned up the scattered cereal bowls, and half drunk glasses of water. The chaos from the morning. I mixed myself some pre-workout and sipped it slowly as I replied to texts from friends who had reached out. I could feel the teaars welling up inside of me as I thought about the engery threatening to put me into bed for the remainder of my kid free day.
Instead, I went out to the garage to our gym. I put on loud music that would be at home in any Crossfit box. It wasn’t until after the warm-up and well into my second set of push-ups that I started to cry. Except, I wasn’t crying I was sobbing. My heart felt like it was breaking in two as I tried to envision not seeing my best friend for six months.
I don’t want this post to be a sad one, and I promise I have a point. The point of the story, and maybe something different than I’ve done in the past, is that I kept doing the push-ups. Even as the tears streamed down my face, and snot dripped out of my nose. Even as I ugly cried while Drake blasted from our speaker. I did the damn push-ups. When the workout was finished, I felt exhausted from lifting heavy shit and from the release of emotion that spilled onto our garage floor. That energy that was strangling my chest into a tight ball of hot pain was released into the form of perfectly executed push-ups, squats, Arnold presses and hundreds of small jumps over a rope.
The next day I did the same thing.
Today, six odd weeks later, I am still doing the same thing. Moving energy out and using it to string words together, play with my kids, take care of our home, run miles, and do more push-ups.
What do you do with that energy inside of you? Gotta move it, baby.
-HR