Still doing it...after all these tears

It's after 9:00 p.m. and I hear the raindrops falling outside my window. My sweaty running clothes are in a ball in my hamper and somehow although I'm tired and a little drenched ---I feel good.

Training for this 5k-- is reinventing me. The girl whose lungs blew after just a short jog around the block is no more. Though she's a hell of a ways from her goal, she still is not anywhere near where she started and what's ahead- the marked goal points- seem within reach.

This physical journey is challenging the alternate reality I lived in- the one set up out of necessity by illness. I could have given up this quest and rested when sorrow hit. The last month was difficult experiencing the loss of my grandma. Yet strangely, the stress of this time has not deterred my plan. Running and being active every day is therapeutic, even through hard times. Heck, it's even good medicine for a bad date. Is there such a thing as a good date in your thirties?

Sometimes when I am on my jogging path the world comes into focus differently. The feel of air moving against me, the sounds and the rushing colors of life passing me-- I feel all of this-- up and down the street where I live and beyond...it feeds my breath...it makes me feel alive. I can push past the barrier of what I thought was possible. I now finally understand what the

Z-Man was talking about.

My neighborhood is full of joggers doing the same thing I am. Almost all of the time they're faster than me. Sometimes I eat the dust from their $200 custom running shoes. I'm not in it to win. I'm not in it to prove anything to anyone but myself. I am in this because somebody once believed in me--that I had this physical strength within me--when I didn't so much believe it was there. He isn't here any longer...but every time I breathe fuller and stronger...I know now that he was right.

Sometimes you need some time to let wisdom sink in...

Life is full of disappointment and hardship...but it is also ripe with possibility.

My inspiration