Reflections on a Run

Sometimes, you go for a run to make sense of things. Or to be alone. To run off anger. To cry. To expel the despair welling up inside of you. Maybe to shake off the unfairness of a wound. There are a million reasons, all compelling. All profoundly personal. 

There is a deep sense of familiar rhythm on a run like this. A tempo that stirs from a place in the depths of your chest and longs to be matched- by your feet, your pulse, your breathing. 

Today, what I notice with clarity is the amazing sameness around me. I've pounded this sidewalk hundreds of times. I observe certain things I've beheld over and over again. The crack in the sidewalk that's patched over with blacktop. The metal mark of an old local fence company. The spot where the tree grows too low. The squiggly line where the sprinkler at the school makes the dirt run across the white of the sidewalk. 

I've run this route so many times. Anxious times. Times when I was filled with fear, or uncertainty. Sad, broken times. Joyful, victorious times. 

I have wept along this path. I have spoken, out loud, the very words I would not allow myself even to think in the quiet places of my mind. Things that have been...

...ugly

...my worst insecurities

...my broken hopes

...my anger over betrayal

Sometimes you go for a run to make sense of things. You want to feel and be numb. You want to rage and be made calm. You want to find a way to have justice, yet be content without it. 

To be more specific, more vulnerable, I want those things.

I look up at the gathering clouds, and see within them a strip of blue sky. It seems comforting, a promise almost. A sliver of something clear and good amid a sea of gray.

And then the rain starts. Sprinkles at first, and then large, fat drops. They hang on my eyelashes. Drip off my hair. It, too, the rain, seems reassuring. Cleansing. Soothing. 

Sometimes you go for a run to make sense of things. And sometimes, things don't make sense. And it is ok. 

And that is enough. Because truly, things don't have to make sense. They often don't make sense.

Sometimes you go for a run to make sense of things. And you end up with the same questions you started with, but with a sense of peace. 

Peace, I'm learning, is better than all the answers. 

Moving Forward....

I don't like the phrase "moving on". I mean, I know there are some situations which are aptly described using these words, but somehow it doesn't fit my life

..... I prefer "moving forward". Because, although things have changed in my life, I haven't moved on. I've worked through and pushed past and carried on..... 

I am broken and healing. Changed. Better. Stronger. More sure of who I am. Less afraid. I understand some things I wish I didn't, but I can see how I am wiser for the discovery. 

I have known hopelessness, despair, faith, grief, rejection, and acceptance.

I have seen, and boldly experienced the goodness of God.

I am, above all, thankful. 

......and continuing to move forward, one step at a time, one "next right thing" at a time.

It seemed appropriate to start a new blog. I have no desire to go back through all the recipes and posts in http://running-upward.blogspot.com/  where I chose to share the tidbits of my daily life and somehow sanitize it, as though what was my life now needs editing. I don't regret my life, any of it. I refuse to act as though I didn't fully live and love the years of my life because it didn't turn out the way I'd planned. (I feel as though this paragraph somehow creates a mental picture of me stamping my foot and crossing my arms, which isn't entirely ill-conceived....)

I am looking forward to this part of the journey. Wherever it leads, I know that freedom will be a recurring theme. I relish that. Immensely.