Thursday, November 19, 2009

A Different Kind of Craving

Lately I have been craving something totally new to me, particularly while pregnant. In the last few weeks, I have been noticing an increasing craving towards exercise. How weird is that? And not just any exercise either ... I feel like running. I feel like throwing on my warmest, thinnest clothes and heading outside for a run, not a jog, a run.

Now, I can't just start running; at 20 weeks pregnant it would be extraordinarily unwise to start up such a vigorous exercise regimen. If you didn't do it before you were pregnant, you can't start up now. I feel guilty if I even slightly jog to the mailbox, as if the extra exertion might somehow injure my unborn baby. So actually going for a run is out. But I feel the itch.

I've felt the itch before, too. And the pattern I'm seeing in my itches to run is something I should have figured out a long time ago. When stressed, and I mean really stressed, I get the itch to run; to flex muscles that have been bound up by tension, to take in a deep, scary breath and shake up my lungs, to make my heart beat faster, harder ...

And to literally run away from it all ... if only for a moment.

Don't get me wrong, I love my life. It's almost impossible to have a bad day when you have a son like mine; the kid is sunshine personified. I guess it's just that lately everything else has been creeping in; worries about the future and what life will be like when Paco arrives, the loneliness that so often accompanies being a stay-at-home mom, the pressing need for me to get our house in order - these thoughts and more are pressing on me.

And, just for a moment, I'd like to run.

(No, I'm not going to run away from my little family here. I could never, NEVER do that. I would never do that. My run always loops back to home.)

1 comment:

beth said...

that exercise itch is just to get you ready for when you have two in the house demanding your time and attention....seriously, I think it's true !

at least that's what happened to me....