Half-Remembered Math and Physics

Over the weekend, J had to literally drag me out of bed. He stripped off the warm blankets I'd buried myself under, pulled me to a standing position and said firmly, "Go running. You'll feel better."

Sometimes I just crash. Intellectually, I understand exactly what it is that I need. I'll feel the gloom sinking in and think frantically, "stem the tide now!" but somewhere between the bed and the medicine cabinet, I end up hugging a pillow on the couch watching endless episodes of Law & Order SVU while popping m&m's and becoming steadily non-responsive.

When I was little, I remember someone telling me that in the vacuum of space, you could throw a baseball and it would keep going at the same rate of speed, in the same direction, for eternity. It would have to encounter something of equal or greater mass in order to stop or something traveling at a greater rate of speed to change velocity.

{Since then I've learned that this would be true in a perfect vacuum, and while space is a vacuum, it is not a perfect vacuum. Sorry. Technicality.}

The point is, that image has stuck with me. Sometimes when depression starts, I feel like that baseball traveling along the same undeviating path for eternity. Helpless. Unable to stop or change direction without some kind of outside force.

Well, on Saturday J was that outside force.

He threw those blankets off of me, dragged me to my feet, gave me a hug and then shoved me out the door.

At first, I could barely walk. My feet felt like lead and a sob was stuck somewhere deep in my chest, threatening to escape. I decided to run until I didn't feel like crying anymore.

10 miles later, I was out of water, hot, tired and sunburned. But instead of feeling like a baseball on a doomed path, I felt like I'd found my orbit.

Thank heaven my man is of equal or greater mass.

{Is that line only funny to me?}

{Sorry.}

{I'm kinda happy right now.}

Huzzah.

{Image}