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Marathon | Sep 07 2002

Woke ridiculously early, given how little remained to do this morning. The mover guy is due in an hour and a half, at 10:00 a.m., and all I have left to pack is the air conditioner (which will be last) and this computer. All the dishes are packed, so I’m eating my banana and peanut butter sandwich off a manila folder.

My question this morning concerns crying. Is a certain amount of crying necessary to complete the process of mourning, and if so, does the crying need to be spread out over time or can you do it marathon-style?

When I learned how to type, I ignored the instructions that came with the program, which said to practice just an hour a day, and instead typed three weeks straight, eight hours a day. No doubt it took longer this way in terms of total hours, but I also reach proficiency much faster in terms of days.

When I work out, I sometimes wonder what I’d do if you could distill the pain of an hour-long session into a single minute. Which would I choose—one minute of super intense pain, or one hour of on-again, off-again discomfort?

I realize there are people who don’t cry at all, or very little. How does that work? What happens when they get sad? Or do they simply not get sad? Perhaps they get sad a little, then immediately do something to stop feeling sad. I know I’ve been avoiding certain songs on the CDs I’ve been listening to while packing. I’ll hear three notes, feeling a wave of heaviness flood my chest, and rush over and hit the NEXT button. It’s not that I’m afraid of crying; I welcome it, actually; it’s just that not every moment is a convenient moment to lose it.

Two days ago in the gym, some damn song came on the radio about giving love one more chance, so I had to walk out of the room and quietly weep on the stairs. I was nervous the whole time that someone, a fellow gym member, would discover me there, which made it difficult to really let go.

Because I packed the utensils last night, I didn’t have anything to spread the peanut butter with. I considered using the scissors I’m using to cut packing tape, but that seemed gross, so I decided to use my forefinger. As it turns out, it’s difficult to spread peanut butter with your forefinger, particularly if you use real peanut butter, the kind ground from peanuts at the health food store, and if you like to keep your peanut butter in the refrigerator. I knew it would be difficult, which is why I considered the scissors.

I have to stop here because it’s time to pack the computer. Now would be a good time to listen to sad songs and cry—who knows how long the mover guy will be?—only I already packed my CDs.