Stabby.

The elliptical and a pretty rockin' playlist have been my daily dose of therapy lately. Kansas is many things, and one of those things is certainly predictable. Just when the weather feels lovely, pleasant, ideal-- you can guarantee that it will only last a few days before the next extreme comes out to play. Spring? Autumn? Around here, those seasons are limited to a week between freakishly freezing cold to unbearably sticky hot. So when I start to get back into running, it's too hot to go later than 6 a.m. And with a newborn who hasn't quite figured out the sleeping-at-nighttime thing, 6 a.m. and I aren't exactly speaking.

And being just shy of four weeks post partum, my hips could use a little more transitioning.

So the elliptical is my friend.

Its placement in our home was determined based on my initial desire to watch Netflix while exercising. However, my brain has been programmed to use my sweat time as processing time, and I have yet to find a movie that can keep up with my thoughts. Instead, I blast some power music-- songs that go with how I'm feeling, and sweat out the icky stuff while I rock out.

While I was doing this last night, though, the icky stuff didn't leave. Instead, a thought traversed across my brain, and stopped right in the middle. It wouldn't budge, it wouldn't leave, and it made me angry. You see, for the past couple years, I've been dealing with a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff that I won't go into detail about, but that stuff has resulted in a lot of angry miles run, a lot of tearful journaling, and far too many chocolate chips consumed (to the extent that my almost-three-year-old refers to chocolate chips as "mommy medicine"). One of the things that I've been dealing with that relates to the sticky thought, though, was that someone close to me touched my physically, repeatedly, in a way that made me very uncomfortable (Harassment? Assault? It's all too complicated to even label-- "inappropriate" is what I've landed on). A people pleaser at heart, I didn't speak up. In all the training and experiencing I have advocating for other people, helping them to find their voice, I was stifling mine and experiencing intense misery as a result. It got to where I was having a physically-ill response whenever I was around this person, and escalated to the point when I couldn't be quiet anymore. Finding my voice six months ago, I finally spoke up, and put a stop to what was happening. Unfortunately, it also resulted in a lot of people whom I thought cared about me calling me a liar.

Stress. Frustration. Recurrent trauma.

Anyway. I was processing a lot of what was going on while sweating stuff out, and something popped up-- Justice. What would justice look like? As I turned that over and over in my mind, my strides per minute increased, my feet stomped angrily, and my random air guitars became more intense. Because as I was mulling over this idea, I realized that there is no such thing in this situation-- no matter what happens, he will still have made me feel dirty, cheap, worthless, objectified, and nothing will undo that.

It made my heart ache. Not only for my pain, but also in thinking about anyone who had been raped, sexually assaulted, sexually harassed-- no matter what happened (and usually, nothing does in terms of consequences for the perpetrator's actions), it won't undo the icky feelings. Time, therapy, and processing can bring healing-- but nothing will rewind time and make that icky in that space of history go away.

My therapist is helping me to find my voice. For too long, I've sat with the idea that I can't tell someone they don't have the right to touch me if I don't want them to. I have to be polite, kind, respectful-- and that means letting other people do to me whatever they want. So I'm taking these feelings-- these stabby, angry, frustrated, unvalidated feelings-- and fueling the fire behind my voice.

And that voice is feeling pretty awesome lip syncing to Glee on the elliptical.