still runnin’

Hey all,

I think things are becoming more normalized in my life in a “the only constant is change” sort of way. It’s becoming clear to me that; as I reflect on the past in an ongoing exercise to reconcile the future, things were always in flux, always changing. Moments of total chaos followed by a brief reprieve, followed by a mixture of happy and sad events.

They say “if you’re going through Hell, keep going,” and although the horizon sometimes feels like a Hellscape, I’m reminded and comforted by the fact that without bad days, you wouldn’t know what a good day feels like. Silver linings… dark clouds…

I used to write a lot about the 4 food groups – pressure, stress, time, and friction -as a way of ensuring growth and development. All beautiful things are a product of these 4 painful elements of life… it’s how diamonds are formed, it’s how babies are born, and it’s how seeds become flowers. I was on about that quite a bit through the pandemic as I trained for a triathlon and a half-marathon, and the main difference between those bouts of struggle and these bouts of struggle was that I chose those ones, whereas the ones that I’m finding on all sides of me now are not of my choosing.

Or are they?

There’s an inevitability with life that it will end. Grieving will occur and gratefulness for the time spent will come into view eventually. Between now and then, there will be graduations, student loans, stock market fluctuations, mortgage renewals, moving days, tattoo appointments, triathlons, work days, thunderstorms, vehicle payments, computer crashes, gigs, records, trips to the mall, new furniture, declining credit cards, birthdays, holiday weight…

… you get it.

And guess what – we choose the vast majority of it, one way or another. I suppose that’s why our biggest problems and traumas come from the things we didn’t – or wouldn’t – have chosen for ourselves. Nobody chooses their parents… nobody chooses to be held up at gunpoint… nobody chooses to be assaulted… nobody chooses to be gaslit or gossiped about… nobody chooses disordered thinking, or disordered eating, or chronic illness, or anything like that.

But they do choose what to do about it.
And what I know now through both first-hand and second-hand learning,
is that it’s never too late to make a change, and take control of your circumstances.

And so… I keep runnin’… both physically and mentally… literally and figuratively.