A pillar of salt

Life is never boring around here. And almost never includes enough sleep. Last night I got home late from work and SR and I had a long conversation about religion. I tend to see the positives of pretty much any organized religion (involvement in the community, spiritual inquiry, empathy) and SR thinks those aspects of religion are ruined by wars, closed-mindedness and exclusionary thinking. Of course there are extremes in anything people have strong emotional feelings about, that is our human nature. We actually mostly agree, it's just we emphasize different aspects of religion. Anyway, it was soooo late at the end of our talk and SR has to get up way before the sun to see patients in the ICU. But we stayed up longer anyway, because we are still so in love. And need to touch each other. I kept thinking last night about when we were in a nearby state for a weekend back in the spring. I'd never felt a feeling of connection so strongly with another person. All we did was run and talk and make love and sense our closeness. It seemed as if we could at any moment burst into flames and become ashes rising together in the atmosphere without bodies or reasons or thoughts. Just love for each other. And that is religion and that is spiritual. And if it's not, then nothing is.

I used to need organized religion so much. It felt so right to me to share beliefs with people. Lately, I have been thinking of the REM song a lot, "Losing your religion" (a great love song) and though I feel less of a compulsion to go to church, my religion is anything but lost.

Anyway, life has been really good the last couple of days. SR and I went running and I beat my time record for running the 12 mile route I've been doing for the past 2 months. And no pain! It was a beautiful day.

And we got to have wonderful call room sex the night before that. It is still so thrilling and beautiful.

In other news, a week ago, SR's ex-wife's partner's water broke at 29 weeks. They, of course, were quite stunned and scared. She was admitted to the hospital where SR and I work. SR and I went to visit them. Anyway, I ended up doing a lot of explaining to them about what it means to have your water break, why the baby doesn't "go dry", what the treatments are and how well they work. For whatever reason, a doctor had not been around to see them yet at that point. I guess SR's ex said to him 2 days ago "I really like SL Girl. She did such a good job explaining things to us in the hospital. I see now why you are perfect for each other."

I must say that made my day. I guess I can be kind of an awkward person in real life, especially around the ex. But I'm glad she was able to see a better side of me.

So the ex's partner had the baby yesterday at just under 30 weeks. The little 3lb girl was intubated initially, but is now extubated and in the NICU. We're all hoping for the best and honestly the prognosis is good.

I can feel the question already: Was she a runner, too? No, she wasn't. The water breaking prematurely is associated with infection and, interestingly, the western diet. Women's water breaking prematurely happens a lot more frequently now than it did say 30 or 40 years ago. And the details of that need to be more fully worked out, but I won't get into that anymore here.

Well, time for the run now. I've had a number of people tell me in the last week how healthy I look, so that is quite reassuring to me... and hopefully to those of you who are worried about my weight and exercise. And, by the way, I do appreciate the concern.

Running Song of the day: See the Sun by Dido