"Sometimes a thing gets broke, can't be fixed." - Kaywinnit Lee Frye

I've been puzzled lately by how heartbroken I've been feeling, given that there isn't anyone in my life at the moment to feel heartbroken about. I was thinking about it all morning, as I yanked my reluctant body out of bed and poured a bunch of green tea into it, and then flung it into the pool and swam lap after lap after lap, finally beginning to breathe clearly and swim those long smooth strokes that I get into after about half an hour.

I still didn't have an answer when I got out.

And I didn't have an answer after I'd gotten home and showered, and kicked the cat out of the bathroom, and thrown some dry clothes on, and called the bike shop, and set off for the bike shop, and hung around the bike shop while they put a different-sized cog on. And I didn't have much of an answer as I rode over the bumpy roads and onto the bridge and through the semi-deserted Wednesday night streets and on and on and on into the mild night.

And I didn't have an answer as I pulled up in front of my building and felt that now-familiar reluctance to get off my bike, ever. I didn't have an answer as I ran into my super in front of the building, and he smiled at me and said hi in his sweet, friendly way.

I didn't have an answer as I slung my wheeled steel bird over my strong shoulder (all that swimming) and hauled it easily up the stairs. I didn't have an answer as I crammed a bunch of food into my face. I didn't have an answer as I stared at the work I ought to have done this afternoon and will have to do this weekend.

I don't have an answer still. But I can tell you this: I am a lot happier now, just sitting in my well-exercised body, than I was earlier today. Which suggests to me that it doesn't matter so much if my heart is broken - even if it turns out to be broken as a sort of lifelong state of affairs - if I can just get enough endorphins pumping through my veins and brains.

I'd forgotten that I didn't get any exercise yesterday (my knees were killing me, so I took it easy), and how glum that tends to make me feel. And how I just sit around feeling old and creaky and eating too much chocolate and yogurt and other things that tend to give me a stomachache. And how I wake up unwilling to face the day.

And how I put on my swimsuit and notice that it's so saggy that it's almost like swimming naked, though without the inherent sensory appeal of that.

I ordered two new suits tonight, even though I have no money to spare, and even though I'd already dropped quite a lot at the bike shop. Because I think these are my loves - the bike and the pool. And love is worth it.