Straining Toward Ease – FIT IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Every time I make a wish, blow out a candle, throw a penny in a fountain or do a piece of work on myself, I ask for ease in my life. Ease was my word for 2025. It keeps coming back, a wave washing against the shore of my mind.

Ease is the memory of a moment emerging from sleep. A cat kneading my hair, purring. Sunlight. My partner next to me. A weekend day stretched out ahead of us. A run. Good food. Lying on the couch with a novel. Time with friends.

That life no longer exists.

Hear the grunting sound, as I push all my weight against a heavy load of unease, hoping to shove it aside and finally step into lightness. Straining toward ease.

When I saw the movie, The Odyssey, the line that stabbed me in the heart was Odysseus describing the Sirens’ song: It told you that what you most want is what you can’t have. And what you most can’t have is what you already had and lost.

The good food, the novel and the couch, the friends are not lost. They are still in my life. And the running, well, in this moment, the tendonitis that prevented me from running in August has cleared up. My runs the last couple of weeks have felt fluid and strong. Last week I did my first handstand since my shoulder injury in mid-May. After a period of injuries, my body is at ease. Not lost.

And some part of me is still not satisfied. I want them all. All the eases. All at once. I’d be at ease, if I could just have …  What I already had and lost. My wish steers me toward the rocks.

Every day some source I read or hear tells me that whatever ails me can be cured by mindset. Sometimes I want to scream at them, that’s easy for you to say, you have (insert things I wish I had: a loving relationship, or financial security, or an important job), try being me!

So much self-pity in so few words. I am frustrated with myself. If only I could wave a mindset wand and wish my dis-ease away.

I’m tired. I’m in mourning. I’d like to believe that’s not self-pity. Not there yet.

Dear Time, can you do your thing?

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Published by Mina

Writer. Playwright. Performer. Citizen. Traveler. Enthusiast. Author of Run Like a Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives and Run Like a Girl 365 Days a Year, plus other stories, books and plays.
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