To Run

If there's any suggestion I can give the current generation that I feel would be really beneficial later in life, it would be this:  learn to like running now.

Running makes a top ten list in my life.  In fact, it's number one on my "Things that Make Me Want to Vomit" list.  It shouldn't shock you that my former PE teacher (who is now a coworker of mine) still laughs over my aversion to pounding the pavement...er, track.

No one could argue with my reasoning that running would probably be a surefire weight loss technique.  I'm pretty sure it's impossible to shove a piece of toast in your mouth if you're busy trying to keep your thighs from setting fires because they're rubbing together so quickly.

There's another reason.  Look at this:

source

Look at her.  She looks so...focused?  Free?  I don't know what word would be more fitting because "not frustrated" and "not stressed" aren't great terms here.

I've been thinking about running a lot over the last few months.

First, there was the fact that Lil Bro moved.  Then, Big Bro got married and moved and took Sheena with him.  (I mean, I guess you have to live together when you're husband and wife...but whatever.)

Then there were realizations, actions and decisions.

And now, there's me wishing I liked to run, because I'm completely jealous of that girl in the picture.

I almost wrote, "Change blows."  But not all change does.  If I lost 40 lbs over night, I probably wouldn't believe that change was a slight of fate (if I believed in fate).  It only really blows when it isn't on the list of things I specifically requested.

When Robert Frost penned "The Road Not Taken," I wonder if he considered the possibility that one road was blocked.  Barred.  Impassable.  The road less traveled may never have been the first choice in walking paths.  It changes the tenor of the poem to learn that road may have been shoddy seconds when the walker had to turn back after learning that the first road ended.

These last four weeks have been proof to me that roads end.  So I've smiled, gritted my teeth, discussed it with the people I'm closest to, pretended it didn't exist with everyone else and believed that God has a plan.  It's not an invitation to pity me, but rather an admission that it's often easier to write covertly about difficult things than to talk.  I can type through gritted teeth, you know.  But the same act makes conversation a little difficult.

So through gritted teeth, I've prayed to be a runner.  I need the grace to pace my breathing, move my legs and forget about the places I can't run.

I need an open road.