Forward Motion

I was on the phone with my friend Mike two nights ago. We text and talk just about weekly, especially during the summer months as we like to rehash the week’s episode of True Blood. Mike and I have been friends since ’97 and he is part of my heart. He and his wife have been trying to sell their house. It’s a bad financial deal and they just need need NEED to sell…

Two months on the market and things were getting desperate. When we were talking he mentioned forward motion…that was a goal.

“you know when you’re stuck in traffic, and you switch lanes only to go just another car length, or just a mile or two faster than you were…it just makes you FEEL better about it? You’re not necessarily going to get to the destination faster, but because you are in motion, your head wraps around it and you just feel better.”

We talked of his plans for his family and their forward motion, and seriously, I think the house heard us talking. I think we aligned our mojo and threw it at the situation.

They got an accepted offer on their house last night.

It got me to thinking, though…about Forward Motion as more than just a phrase tossed out in a conversation and more about how it applies as a life theme.

Newton’s First Law of Motion states:

 

I. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

There are the obvious connections, the bike riding, moving the furniture and clutter around and out of my space, the grad school thing, taking the next steps in life…but think about it a little deeper.

Or better yet, think about the opposite.

When we’re stuck.

It’s so easy to get stuck.

My personal sticking point is usually first and foremost my weight. I struggle with it. I know who I am and what I really look and feel like inside this body, and I can do amazing things to counteract and continue forward motion in regards to it…but one little somethin, one little external force…a bad Christmas, a dismal lonely winter, bills and fear of money and how I manage it, insecurity and loneliness and desperation, a fight with someone I regarded as a true friend…any of those things can stop me in my tracks. Road blocks. And the only path that I can walk leads right to the fridge or the drive through or to the wine rack.

Then it becomes a vicious circle. The weight makes me feel ugly and unloveable and like I will never have a healthy relationship again…and those Voices are in four part goddamned harmony, singin’ out louise, and I eat and drink to drown them.

Stuck.

In a circle.

Look kids! Big Ben! Parlament!

And then, with a little forward motion, and perhaps a change of scenery…the circle is broken. It comes in the most secret times of the day. The darkest times of the night, but it comes.

And clarity can return, bit by bit.

And MY voice becomes more resonant and clear than The Voices, and begins to drown them out.

It’s just a kernal. . . an idea planted.

It’s just a step. . . five minutes to breathe gratefully by yourself.

It’s eating a vegetable. . . drinking water.

It’s just a car length ahead. . . a mile or two faster.

Forward Motion.

It’s become a touch stone for me this week, I think, because it’s attainable.

An object that is in motion tends to stay in motion…the trick is staying in motion. Knowing how to maneuver around the road blocks, navigate through the traffic.

It’s just a car length ahead. . . a mile or two faster.