"I just finished eating"
"I haven't eaten enough"
"I could just go to Nubody's on the bike?"
"I hope no one sees me"
"It's really cold and... *cough*... I don't feel that great"
"It's that time of month"
...
Honestly.
The excuses could go on forever so just the feat of getting my butt out the door is a battle in itself. Once I start, then the decision turns to "Where do I run today?"
It's not like Antigonish is a mini San Francisco, but it definitely has it's fair-share of hills that should be taken into account when you chose your route. Personally, I like to plan my run to get the up-hill stuff out of the way. It's nice to get it over-with and then the flat land and down hill stuff is such a breeze.
When I was a little girl, Hawthorne Street seemed like the most enormous street ever. I only walked it if I absolutely had to. I remember in the summer, Lesley and my babysitters use to make us walk it and it seemed like it took all day to walk down and get some ice cream and go to the park and then walk back up. So the other day when I decided I would run up to my home-home from my X-home, I thought for sure it was going to be kind of difficult.
It wasn't. It turns out, Hawthorne is not that up-hill... it's fairly flat. And it turns out, it's really quite short.
I dunno why but all of this got me to thinking about how life is kinda like that. Not only do certain things seem to be in higher grade than they are (for example, I was SO nervous to not use a math work book when I graded from grade 2 to grade 3, but it ended up being not so bad once I got there and had to use... a scribbler... big D folks... or the fear of going to University in grade 12 and feeling like you'll never be ready for it) but also when we step out into our big scary world there are easy routes, and hard routes.
Sometimes we don't take any routes. We just wait for things to happen.
Sometimes we take easy routes. We do what we know we can do, we stay on the worn out path, and we are undefeated but totally unchallenged, bored and unchanged.
Sometimes, though, we step out of the comfortable path we're use to. Our pace slows down because we aren't use to it. Sometimes we don't even know if we'll make it - we don't know how much we can handle. Sometimes we keep going. Sometimes we take breaks. Sometimes we turn around. Sometimes we give up. The choices we make, and the paths we embark on, will inevitably affect the condition of our hearts. Just in the same way that our bodies will adjust to the same old work-out if we do them every day, our souls will remain static in the times we stay safe because it's habit and it's what we're use to.
All I know is...
I want more. I want to feel tired and keep going. I want to not know how many blocks there are to go before I will be finished. I want to push myself beyond my limits - beyond what barriers I've reached in the past that stopped me. I want to move into my runners high and feel challenged. I want to chose the path I'm not use to - the one I don't want to take, but that God wants me to take. I want to grow. I want to be changed. And then, I want to do it again.
When the burden seems too much to bear,
Remember, the end will justify
The pain it took to get us there.
-Rk
Remember, the end will justify
The pain it took to get us there.
-Rk
