{on the run}

2001 and 2002 were very dark years for me.  I had just had my heart broken, I was at odds with the people around me and I could no longer recognize myself in the mirror.  I had graduated the summer before and somehow, I had forgotten why I had started it all in the first place.  Anger and sadness, when left to their own devices, can take on a life of their own.  For me, they had taken over everything.  I had completely lost myself.

During the summer of 2002, I bought my first pair of running shoes.  I had never run before and never had an interest in running before but I needed something…anything.  I needed my life to be different and something about the idea of just running – anywhere – appealed to me.  I don’t know if I wanted to run away or just run off the anger that I was feeling but, whatever it was, I was broken and somehow needed to put the pieces back together again.

I have never stopped running since.

Sorting through the ghosts of my past was a very daunting experience that I still work at every day however, something about the weight of the world seems easier when I run.  Since that first summer, I have gone on to run a handful of 10kms races, six half-marathons and one full marathon.  Each race reminds me of one more thing that I was able to forgive and let go of.  Every pair of shoes seems to have a story and every race number has its own struggle.  As Sarah McLachlan so beautifully sings, “Heaven holds a sense of wonder…and I wanted to believe…that I’d get caught up when the rage in me subsides.”

Then I got pregnant with Avery, and my life soon went from running daily to throwing up a half a dozen times daily.  It was hard.  Really hard.  But I assumed that – like my pregnancy with Hudson – it would eventually pass.  But it never did.  And then the day came when my doctor told me that, even if my nausea did start to pass, I couldn’t start running again.  My body had gone through too much by this time and trying to run again would be dangerous for myself and our baby.

But the problem was that I didn’t know how not to run. My mind didn’t know how not to run and to say that losing my ability to do so had an impact on my mental health was a huge understatement.  Probably more than anything else…running healed me. The countless hours spent in the rain, in the snow, in the sunshine…I’ve left pieces of my old life out there and in turn, found myself all over again. For every finish line, I could always look back and see the distance that I’ve gone, and no matter how hard that journey may have been, it could never be taken away from me. That is – of course – until a doctor tells you otherwise…

But that was then…and this is now.  And later this afternoon, I will lace up my running shoes again and hit the pavement for the first time in close to a year.  I’ve been given the thumbs up from my doctor and spent the last month at the gym making sure that my body was ready.  And for better or for worse…now is the time!  While my days of intense healing are long behind me {thankfully!}…I’ve realized over the past number of months just how much I had fallen in love…and I just can’t handle the wait any longer!!  My running shoes and I will be reunited again at last…and though I’m sure it will take us some time to get to know each other again…I can assure you that there will be a second date!  Great loves never die…