Long distances are addictive.

12.86 miles today.  I ran for 2 hours straight. Am I tired?  Yes, but I want to keep moving.  I feel great.  The funny thing about longer distances is that you start to see some real changes in your body.  Had I known that 5 years ago, I probably would have started running 10 miles + back then!  I always thought that the 5-6k frequent runs did it. Nope.  My body feels longer and leaner than it ever has before.  I feel great. 
The hubby and I have definitely turned a corner.  We have managed to avoid having the same fight we had every weekend for over 4 weekends now.  Talk about progress.  I even made decisions to do nice things for him unbeknownst to him.   Now my running motivation is still my running motivation and I want to keep it because whatever helps, right, but we are not fighting over the previous stuff.  I take it as a win. 
I think I have finally figured out my mother's motivation for her "illness" as I will call it.  (Illness sounds better than craziness.)  She is deeply afraid that we will become her.  Her self loathing is extreme.  She figures if we are gainfully employed and have opportunities that she feels she did not have, we will be just fine.  The irony being, of course, that she did have opportunities.  Her other, deeper illness kept her from grabbing those opportunities.  The other irony is that we all have different paths.  The path she sees for me, is not the path for me. I have to follow my own path and make my own roads, and I am quite capable of doing so.  It the self doubt that she drilled into all of us that I think holds us back and is now holding my nephew back to a certain degree.  I realized over a year ago that I never really push myself.  I never take myself to my limits.  I can take an extreme amount of physical pain.  I totally internalize it.  Despite that fact, I never push myself physically and as physically fit as I was, that was very disappointing.  I was afraid to push myself.  Why?  Not because of the pain.  I can take it.  Hell, I took over 6 hours of a slipped disk without pain meds.  That was enough to make anyone seriously consider ending it all.  I was afraid because I was afraid to fail and not meet my own expectations and look foolish.  So I never pushed.  Here I am now running over 12 miles.  Is 12 miles my limit?  No.  I could have done another mile today.  Yes, I could.  I think 14 might have been my end today.  The point is that I am not so fearful of failing now.  Keep in mind that going into my run today (and mentally this started last night) I was leery about running for 2 hours.  I was seriously questioning if I could do it.  I ran for 1 hour and 48 minutes last week, but for some reason that extra 12 minutes was plaguing me.  That is what she did to me.  She makes me wonder and question and once you start that, you start to think it is just better not to try.  How awful is that? 
I have come in the last several hours as my realization hit to feel really sorry for her.  The self loathing has to be unbearable.  I do not hate myself.  I may wonder about myself a lot and doubt a lot.  After all, I am still very much a work in progress and I have 36 years of this junk pounded in my head, but I no longer hate myself and constantly think that I am doing everything wrong.  No longer.  So anyways, I am pushing and I am pushing on.  There is a lot I can do, and I know that now.