2020, the year we lost time, I found myself

Running is great! I shed 15 kilos and a husband!

I walked/ran 3.3 million steps last year. First, I ran to get away from my pain, then I ran to feel the pain, then I ran to get a hit of that endorphin release!

Running is like a state of trance, one can move with their thoughts, and become one with that fluid motion. It helps us see clearly through the haze of lethargy.

All that running freed my soul from the confinement of a sorrowful life with a man who didn’t want me, a life I didn’t need and made me a better person for it!

We separated just one week shy of COVID restrictions being implemented. So here I was, always fighting to get my me time and now I had it. All that time in Iso when the kids were at their dad’s. At first the silence was a relief. I could hear the birds chirping as I sat down for that uninterrupted cuppa. I wept, for days! It can be a shock to the system when you are used to a chaotic life of moving from one action to another.

The stillness outside amplified the noise in my mind, and it was not pleasant. It was hard to realise that to continue to put a band-aid on our failing marriage, I had ignored my soul. I hadn’t stopped to enjoy my plants, hear the birds chirp, watch my kids watch the great snails’ migration from one end of the street to the other.

I spent the first 3 months of my new life as a single woman, mother of two focussing on learning basics of life. I had never bought groceries; it has been entertaining to watch myself fumble and learn how to get the right groceries. The first time I did an online order, I did not update quantities of loose fruit and vegetables, and ended up with one mushroom, one red onion and a banana! No Michelin star chef could make something out that now!

Introduced myself to a spanner, got a funky screwdriver. If I sound like a barbie doll, I am not, I can handle a motorcycle just fine and am very handy in a garden. I just never needed these skills before. I did my first ikea assembly – a wobbly study desk for my son. It still works, so not all bad eh!

At first, I focussed on things I needed to do to continue a semblance of the life as I knew it. Bought way too many groceries, cooked too much! Ate too much, we could blame COVID induced Iso for that, but I think it was just me. Put on 4 kilos, just eating all the great stuff I cooked and baked. Loneliness slowly crept in, the days when the kids weren’t with me were the hardest, sometimes I felt like I was the only person in this world. The need for someone to just hold me got so unbearable sometimes that I would go for late night runs. I have run at midnight once. I should caution you, in the middle of Melbourne winter, when the wind’s howling and the streets are wet, no sane person walks these streets, it is not ideal to go for a run