I No Longer…

Inspired by Aggie Kesler’s post ( https://aggiekesler.wordpress.com/2021/03/22/no-more ), I used a prompt from a book by Natalie Goldberg.  The prompt is “No More- What do you no longer have? Go for ten minutes.”

I no longer am tormented by extreme symptoms of bipolar disorder.  Although I’ve been told that I’ll never get rid of the illness, I have learned to manage it with medication, therapy, and life skills.  Every day, I wake up grateful that I feel fine, not stuck in a crushing, relentless depression nor caught in a whirlwind of manic thoughts and activities.  After decades of severe mood swings, I have become calmer and more content than I ever thought was possible.  I celebrate my sanity every day.

I no longer run.  I miss this terribly.  I was an athlete, playing sports from childhood through college, and continuing for many years after college.  Throughout the years, I have won many awards and honors for competitions, including being in my college’s Athletic Hall of Fame.   I have run 5K races and marathons and everything in between.  Also, I have coached athletes for decades.  Through it all, I have jogged, run, or sprinted almost every day, unless I was injured.  However, now my knees can’t tolerate running.  I have had three knee surgeries that let me continue for many years, but now I have too much damage to proceed to run.  So, I bicycle daily (indoors or out) and lift weights to stay in shape, and that’s acceptable, but I rarely do it with the same joy and freedom that I felt when I ran.  On my best days of running, I felt like I was dancing.  Of course, other times, I felt that it was just plain hard work.  Still, I miss it.

I no longer am angry at my ex-husband.  (Today would have been our anniversary.)  He made mistakes, I made mistakes, and despite getting counseling and trying to change, we failed to stay together.  I wish him well.