Purge

I have started so many posts in the last few weeks, but haven't been able to squeak out a complete one. In order to purge myself of this cursed backlog of unposted posts, I resort to bullet points listing the highlights of all of these posts, which, while thematic, will NOT weave into a cohesive piece.

• There is a storm brewing.. literally, outside. The air is hot, sweet and feels prickly on my skin. I love nights like this. One of the things I savor about the weather here is the tendency for hot, stifling summer days, where you feel like you have to race the sun to the nearest shady spot before it sets your skin ablaze, followed by roiling, hectic thunderstorms as soon as the sun goes down.
  
  Tomorrow morning I will go to the Y and swim laps until my limbs ache. I think I'm actually become an 'active' person - it's odd to think of myself that way. I've always been the artistic type, the introvert, the quiet homebody. But to think that the idea of being able to swim laps is enough to make me leap out of bed in the morning is such an odd thought. I feel like the more active I become, the more my mind starts to clear as well. I'm able to think more productively, set goals, accomplish things. Experience things, savor an emotion, wipe the slate clean and move on. No more dwelling (or not NEARLY as much as before) no more moody days - I'll have a moody afternoon, at best.
  
  Thankfully I've moved past the point in my life where I feel like I have to be a living advertisement for myself all the time, which is a line that I think many people don't ever have the opportunity to cross in their lives. Sure I can look neat and clean when I'm out and about and professional at work (as professional as one can look in work gloves and an apron), but I am also willing to sweat non-stop for an hour until my face is red and my clothes are soaked without worrying about what others may see when they look at me. I will throw on a bathing suit and jump in the pool and swim laps, next to competitive swimmers who can make four laps in the time I complete one of mine, and I won't even notice they are there because I'm too busy listening to my muscles sing and feeling my body move in the water.
  
  I've never really been the athletic type, I don't think I ever will be, but I can enjoy this facet of myself as something new and different. I've always been the artistic type, the loner type, the homebody type.. I think I can deal with a new type thrown into the mix.

• You know that sound, when you've just walked out of a concert, or a loud movie theatre? That ringing sound? If muscles could make that sound, mine would be doing so right now. So many muscles in my body are singing out loud, making themselves known to me through little jolts of tightness, soreness that makes my movements more slow, more liquid.

• Going to bed now. But I'll be leaving the window open to invite the storm that's brewing to wake me up when it arrives. I know it's coming.. I can see it on the radar. I can feel it blowing in, in the way the wind whistles in the alleys between houses. I could feel it in the air, in that electricity that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
  
  I won't be upset if it wakes me up. Promise.

There, that's much better.