2010: off and running

First, I'd like to lead with the following statement: I have been running. Not a lot. But enough. During the holiday break, I managed an every-other day ease-back-in set of runs. Back at work for two weeks, I've not managed any weekday anything, but the weekends have been consistent and it's enough to remember to keep coming back. Ahhh.

My goal for this year is to remember who I am. All of who I am. And to believe that embracing all of who I am will guide me through the right choices, not the easy and comfortable ones, but the right ones. And in there, down deep and lost a little under my mess of a core, is an athlete dying to get out. I'm committed to respecting her this year. She's pretty fucking tired of waiting at the back of the line.

It all sounds noble, but I've gotten a pretty big shove -- a double whammy from the universe, which I infinitely trust only for the fact that it's in the cuves that life has thrown me, the unexpected leaps into the unknown, that I have found the greatest reward. Here we go.

The first is that the opportunity that I knew better than to count on, but nonetheless allowed myself to aspire to, along the way leaving my guts, my heart, my energy, my running, my friends, and most significantly my family exposed was suddenly pulled away, rather unceremoniously and still without a lot of clarity or resolution. Disappointed? very. Relieved? Also very. I've not blogged too openly about this -- although I allude to it constantly and it is the main culprit in my choice to sideline my running. However, ironically, I was so afraid of showing weakness (because that's what start-up technology execs and venture capitalists do: they troll the running blogs of recreational running moms) that I was afraid to share openly the depth of the challenge this has brought me this past year.

Interestingly, fear drove it on all fronts: fear of being seen as someone who couldn't handle it, fear that maybe I couldn't handle it, fear of losing the opportunity and the promise of finanical independence it might bring (now that we are being really truthful), fear of failure (other women figure this out, don't they?), fear of waking up at 45 in the same place I find myself at 43: running shoes unde the bed, kids still looking for someone to help them tie a shoe, read a book, or to explain why I have to leave again. I see in this loss the opportunity to really understand what I need to do and what I can do for myself and my family. While this issue hasn't fully resolved and part of me is screaming to delete this post less I sabotage it further, I think I know my answer here, and someone how sharing it makes it a commit to myself not to chicken out.

The second whammy I'm not quite ready to share, but it's driving some personal clarity on what matters, interestingly timed with the above. It's also driving me to run. I feel like it's the most important thing I can do right now. Like everything this past year, my overwhelming first response was disappointment: why haven't I been running, saving, taking better care of myself? Thankfully, my second response was to just start. Funny, my first two weeks of the new year seem a microcosm of the past 20. Maybe that's the lesson of the last decade, the gift that comes with being 43: it's never too late. It's about adjustments and not being afraid to change course and not getting so caught up in regret we can't embrace where we are and continue to move forward.