Our gym just spent a kazillion dollars remodeling, getting all new weight machines and stationary bikes and clocks that can't tell time. Last night, as I ran on one of the shiny new treadmills with its own private television screen, I plugged in my headphones to watch the evening news.
Those of you who know me beyond bloggerland know that I can be a bit of an unemotional clod. I think I have gotten better through the years of beginning to allow myself to... you know... feel. So many of my experiences in life encouraged me to build walls to protect myself from disappointment. (I know this is getting personal, but hey, it's my blog for crying out loud.) Like the proverbial rock star in Pink Floyd's, The Wall, many of us are conditioned to keep others at arms length. Most people I know who come across as cold are actually functioning adults still carrying around a frightened inner-child who will do everything to avoid getting hurt.
Where was I going with that? Oh yeah. Emotions.
When my kids started going to school and getting older, I found myself laughing more, eyes welling up with tears more, and even feeling anger in healthy ways. And you know what? It felt good. It felt right.
My boy and I went to an AC/DC concert last year. As he stood in the chair next to me with his arm over my shoulder, and as Angus started this massively loud riff to "Thunderstruck"--(I think I've told you this story before.)--I looked at the thrill in his eyes and just burst into tears of joy. I must have looked like a total idiot.
Last night was the same thing. There on the treadmill. Sweaty. Old race t-shirt. Headphones plugged in to the little TV tuned to the NBC Nightly News. Brian Williams' smooth voice narrating the scene when the first miner walked up to his son and embraced him, both of them in tears.
(Goodness gracious, I'm tearing up even sitting here writing about it. I think the technical phrase is "Blubbering Idiot.")
So I'm running on the treadmill, all these people around on other treadmills and bikes, and I'm grabbing the sleeve of my shirt to wipe tears away that are just pouring out of my eyes. Husbands and wives and children and parents and friends reunited. It was like the opening airport scene from Love Actually when people hug so tight it knocks the wind out of you.
It made me wonder. Why don't we embrace one another like that all the time?
After a couple of the interviews with the miners and their families, I noticed an emerging theme: Family. One of the miners said it, as did one of the wives of a miner who had not yet surfaced: "Somos una familia grande."
"We are a big family."
Consider yourself warned. If I see you today, you're probably going to get hugged. Or tomorrow night, if you live here in Houston and you come to the concert at Miller Outdoor, we might just embrace one another like we haven't seen each other in months, like the reunion of those families who articulated what we might need to remember more often as celebrants of God's gift of human connection:
We are a big family.
