We're Not Going Far

Mellifluous: An Exhale Blog Hop

The sky outside is gray and gloomy; an overcast to match my mood. But the sun is trying to peak through the clouds for its last two hours above the horizon and I feel an itch to get outside. “I’m going for a run.” I walk into the sunroom to find my oldest doing Spanish on her tablet. I used to be so good at keeping them off screens, but the older they get, the harder it is. Technology makes some things, like Spanish—which I don’t speak—so much easier. Especially when I feel crunched for time and need them to learn from someone else. But as helpful as it can be, I also know how addictive it can be, and their daily tablet use grates on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

She looks at me, her eyes glazed over, and shrugs.

“Come on!” I try again. “You need to move today. You don’t have anywhere to go this afternoon. It’ll be fun!” As my girls get older, it feels harder to carve out time together. We used to go on so many adventures when they were little. On the spur of the moment I’d throw them in the car and go to playgrounds, museums, nature preserves. The year of Covid, we hiked nearly every day. I long for those empty days, but I know they will likely never return.

As homeschoolers, we have more time together than most families, but some weeks feel so packed with lessons and extracurriculars that there’s little time leftover for unstructured fun. I remind her we signed up for the Reindeer Run in just a couple of weeks. “We need to go check out the route!”

She finally agrees; whether out of a true desire to go for a run with me or just a desire to get me to shut up, I don’t know. It’s usually my younger daughter that runs with me, so her assent feels like a treat. In the car, we talk about where we might want to run. 

“We could run by the beach, or in the cute neighborhood by the library.” In my excitement over her company, I’ve forgotten my plan to try out the race route. The car rolls to a stop at the end of the road. We sit at the stop sign and wait for an opening to turn left. 

“I don’t care,” she says from the backseat. The echo of the blinker fills the car.

“Oh!” I say, in an excited tone; “I remember now! Let’s run the race route and see what it’s like!” I pull up the map on my phone and consider where to park. She is silent the entire ride, and I wonder what she’s thinking about. We get to the race starting point and I have trouble finding a parking spot. Frustrated to be spending my running time in the car, I decide to park by the ocean and slightly edit the route. 

When I finally turn off the car, I turn to her and offer my left headphone.  “I can’t run without music. Do you want this one?”

“No,” she shrugs again - a typical move for her lately. “They don’t fit in my ears. Maybe that could go on my Christmas list!” She perks up a little thinking about the holidays. 

“I’m not sure if they make them that small,” I say; “But if I can find some, I’ll add them to your list.” I silently go back and forth over whether or not to leave my headphones behind. I really want to be fully present with her, but I also know I won’t make it very far without tunes. I learned this the hard way several months ago when I left my headphones at home. I need the strong beat of uptempo music to keep me moving when I really just want to give up. I settle on bringing only the right bud, and turn on ambient sound so the music blends into the background of the street. That way when—if—she talks to me, I can hear her without having to turn the music down.

We start by walking to warm up our bodies. “When are we going to run?” she asks, not thirty seconds after we’ve begun.

“I need to walk a few minutes first. My muscles are cold. And old.” She laughs; we often joke about my feeling old lately. She always assures me I’m not. When we hit the three minute mark, I start to jog. “I can walk faster than you run!” She playfully teases me and I can’t help but laugh.  

“You can go ahead of me; I’ll meet you at the end!” I tell her which direction to go when she reaches the stop sign and watch her run at her quicker pace. I think back to this time last year, when she was never home. Her dance schedule required her to be at the studio six days a week. Some days she came home happy; other days she came home in tears. We walked through months of hard conversations and decisions. I did my very best to listen to her, and empowered her to listen to her gut. 

In the end, we cried for days knowing she had to find someplace else. Leaving what we know is always scary and often painful. Forcing her to do it broke my heart. But I knew in the end, exploring other options was the only way she could grow into her full potential. I wanted her to know the greater world awaits; that better things are always up ahead.

I jog to the beat of the music in my ears, pumping my arms in a form of arm dance. Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger, Shepherd’s Geronimo, Walk the Moon’s Shut Up And Dance, Meghan Trainro’s Better When I’m Dancing. I let my feet change tempo to match the beat of each song. When George Ezra’s Shotgun comes on, I cheer to myself. “I love this one!” 

She slows down when she reaches the next stop sign and waits for me at the turn. My heart wells up with gratitude. Maybe she’ll want to run with me once a week, I start to think. We run together for a few more minutes, then we walk a few. We continue this pattern, running a bit, then walking, alternating every sign post or so. By the time we get to a mile and a half, she’s tired and lagging behind. 

“I’m tired,” she says; “how much longer do we have?” 

“We’re only halfway done,” I take my single headphone out and stash it in my pocket. “You need the music! It’s easier if you have a beat to keep you going!” Finding it impossible to turn the bluetooth off on my phone while running, I slow to a stop. 

“What are you doing?” she asks. 

“Turning my bluetooth off so you can hear the music!” I replay Shotgun and she tells me the beat is too slow. 

I make a big deal out of moving my entire body to the beat. “You just have to make a dance out of it.” I tell her we’ll run to the end of the street then take a left. “You can walk if you want, but I’m on a roll and am not going to quit.”

She sees that as a challenge and runs ahead of me again. Our time together is like a dance where she goes between running faster than me and slowing down, allowing me to catch up. Almost as if she wants to go it alone, but then realizes maybe she isn’t quite ready yet.

When we reach the final leg, she springs ahead to the car. I slow my pace and snap a picture; I want to remember this moment forever. She looks so small up against the great wide world. The older she gets, the more opportunities open up; there’s so much world for her to explore. I know as the years go by, she’ll go a bit further ahead of me each year, into the great unknown, until she leaves the comfort of our home and starts a life of her own. And whether I’m with her in body or not, I’ll always be right behind, cheering her on. 

At the bottom of the hill, she turns around and comes back to meet me. Annoyed by the brassy sound coming from the phone, I turn the music off. We walk the final quarter of a mile and talk about everything and nothing all at once. “Can I sit in the front?” She asks, when we reach the van. 

“Sure,” I say. “We’re not going far.” 

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Mellifluous".