I Get To Run

One reason I love running is that it's a vote for me.  When I run it feels like a new start each time. It feels like anything in my life is possible.

I am looking so hard for a new path. There has been so much change in my life over the last few years. Most of it has felt like hard pruning. Only one or two things have felt like water or sunshine or fertilizer. I wonder if I've been moved to a different location in the garden and I just haven't noticed yet?

For you non-gardeners, before you move a plant you cut it back drastically. You have to do that because when you dig it up you will inevitably chop off a lot of the root system. If you don't cut a significant portion of the top off the remaining roots can't sustain the plant and it will fail. Once the root system re-establishes itself the green stuff grows back.

So maybe I've had my tops cut off and my roots disturbed and I can't tell where I am yet.

I've been trying a lot of new things. I've been looking for the next direction. I feel like I'm being blown all over the place and the next direction is, well, all over the place. Things start then stop. Things look good then they just die out. Something will work for a bit but I know it's temporary and I'll have to figure out something else soon. Some things are just obviously wrong. I get discouraged sometimes. I'll get it eventually - I think - but it seems to be taking so long and I seem to get so much wrong.

Then I get to go running. I start over. I run my head into a pulp and wake my body the hell up. My lungs pump, my blood flows, I sweat, my nose runs (TMI!) My bones, tissues, ligaments get a good pounding on my terms. Life flows through me again. I'm new.

I can let go of the mistakes and miss-steps. I've cleared out the debris and can see a way to keep trying to move forward. I can find a way past the things that fell and blocked my path - at least the next immediate step, even if it doesn't turn out to be a good, long stretch of road.

Roads, paths, prunings, wind. It's all very confusing. What is the analogy here? Life isn't coherent so why should I have to be? Here's the analogy: complete tumult. And then I get to run.