On Finding What You're Searching For

"It's not about getting up every morning and getting a workout in. It's about getting up every morning and searching for your soul"

I wrote that quote. Yep. I absolutely just quoted myself. I wrote that quote years ago, when I write most of my own things, in my head, during a run. Everything intelligent or inspiring that I've ever thought, or probably ever will think has happened during a run. Almost four years after thinking that in my head during a sunrise run, I feel like I've finally run enough miles so that that soul search that I was on, has finally come to an end.

I definitely believe that it takes a long time to completely understand yourself, who you are, and who you're going to be. But it occurred to me that that particular part that I had been looking for, at that particular moment has finally been "found".

When I wrote that quote I was training to make nationals. I placed my identity in being faster than everyone else. In running. Mostly in success. And running is what I was successful in. If you've read this blog long enough you know. If it's your first time reading, I'm here to tell you that in the past I lived a very unbalanced and unhappy life back then. And it eventually destroyed me. I thought that being better, being faster, that was what I would find at the end of my search. But it wasn't.

My search for my soul was far from over when I wrote that. As it turns out, I wasn't even searching for the right thing, even though I was in the right place. I still found what I was looking for,  just later, and not in the way that I expected.

I don't know exactly when I found it, but I know it wasn't at NCAA National Cross Country Championships. It was somewhere at the bottom of a lap pool that I stared at the entire time my foot was broken and I couldn't run. It was somewhere along the lonely dark miles I've run since graduating from college. It was somewhere during a night run where the moon was so bright and the air so cold, that I felt the peace finally…to stop running.

My point is this my friends: I thought that running was where I would find my salvation, but running was just the channel that I found it through. I found peace once I stopped running away from things and when I started running toward things. I was placing my value in what other people thought of me, and not what I thought of myself. Other people saw me as fast, and skinny, and talented and that's what I wanted. I didn't consider, however, how I saw myself, and what value how you see yourself has.

Once I got injured and stopped running, I realized that the only way to stop the path of destruction that I was on was to stop measuring my worth through other people and to start measuring it through my own standards. Standards that I had, at that point, yet to create. You know where I was at. If you don't read through any of my posts from 2011. But here is where I came to be:

My proudest race ever is not nationals. It's not my 6kPR of 21:49 that I set at regionals. It's not either of the times that I won conference or any other race I've ever won. My proudest race happened only a little over a week ago when, after not racing for over a year I signed up for a 5k and I finished it. It wasn't my best race or my best time. I didn't win, I was second. But I got myself out of bed that morning and ran a race, in front of other people, even though I may never be as fast as I once was. But you know what? That race took a lot more determination than I thought I had, and that truly taught me about being strong. My proudest moments in running now, my new set of bragging rights, are in my training runs. Sometimes after a 13 hour workday, I hop on the treadmill at 9pm and I still bust out 6 miles of a temp workout. Or after those long days I'll take to the streets running mile repeats under the moon on a parkway I have all to myself. On Sundays I run about 20 miles, and those last 3 miles are some of the hardest for me, but I still make it. And sometimes, I take pride in having the strength to give up a workout for the sake of spending time with family, or on my schoolwork. And finally I have my peace.

On your own search, just remember that sometimes you end up where you didn't expect, and that turns out to be better….in the long run :)

On Letting Your Soul Breathe

"This is going to be hard. Life is going to be hard. You have to remember to always leave room for your soul to breathe"

It's been a long time since I was a serious blogger. I felt the urge to start a new blog the other day. Started new blog. Deleted it. I've probably started and deleted like five different blogs since my last blog post on here. And yet, I can't do it. Nothing I create seems to be home like this blog is. And so, I'm here to start fresh on an old blog.

I'm back to blogging here because it feels like my only thing that I have thats all mine, that allows me to be me and no one else. Right now I just feel so lost in all of the different areas of my life. I keep looking around and not recognizing anything from from where I'm standing right now.

Since the last time I blogged (on a weekly basis) I feel like I've become a different person. When I think of myself I no longer see the happy, carefree, running hippie that I used to. I feel…old. Older. Bogged down. Between my homework and my responsibilities I feel like I'm carrying around an extra 100 pounds. When I'm talking to people, regardless of their age, I feel older than they are, like I've lived an extra 10 years.

I work a lot, but everybody works a lot. My days are somewhere between 8.5 and 13 hours long. Whenever I complain about this I feel like a giant tool because I'm the one who signed up for graduate school, I realized it would mean days like this, stress like this, sleep loss like this. I realize I should shut the hell up and stop complaining because some people work way more than I do. Some people have way more stress than I do. But still, the feeling of falling down a giant slippery hole remains. I feel like I'm always behind, always late, always…not good enough.

Not that I have more to do than most people, because I don't. But for me right here, right now, it's too much. I don't have enough time for my soul to breathe. I feel like I'm suffocating.

Every day I see very sad people who dump all of their sadness on me. There's the woman who can't stop using cocaine, there's the kid who wants to see what it would feel like to kill someone, the little girl who wants to stab her mother, the teenager who spends every time she sees me in tears. I love these people, each of them. And I love my job. But what's missing is between the therapy-class-homework-nannying-cleaning-planning is that there's just no room left in my life for…..well me.

What I need, who I've lost, was that fun-loving crazy happy girl. There's just not room for her anywhere. I have to get up every day and wear black dress pants and a conservative top. I had to say goodbye to that free spirit that I loved so much. What I need is to run wild in the woods for hours, to spend time on the beach, to read for pleasure, to wear clothes that I actually feel like represent me.

I think it's important in the midst of chaos, whatever yours happens to be, to make that room to let your soul be able to breathe. I'll be working on finding that myself.