Getting Started

I'd just like to start this post out by mentioning the fact that I am, for the 80 millionth time in the last year, doing something I said I would never do: blogging. Blogging is something that moms who don't go anywhere, the techy kids at school, photographers, crazy running people, annnnnnnnnd pretty much anyone who has any sort of passion do. I simply am not passionate enough about anything to spend that much energy telling other people about it. Or at least that was my initial objection to doing anything like this, until I discovered this fact: I am passionate about myself. To a ridiculous degree. How many hours, days, weeks, and years do we spend thinking about ourselves? For me it’s been about 18 years… 19 in December. It’s not an abnormal thing, or even a bad thing… it’s just a fact of life, BUT for me it means I have motive to write. It’s about the only thing I can come up with that I won’t get burned out writing about. So here goes.

I thought about giving some background information about myself, but the story is simply too long, and I fear that I would finish and cease to write further…. So I’ll just dive in, and let the details of my life work their way into this blog as they become pertinent to what I happen to be writing about that day.

Today I ran. 9.5 miles to be exact. And while to some that may seem an impossible distance (it was to me at one point) and to others an easy day in their brutal schedules of long distance training, for me it fell somewhere in the kinda hard, but definitely within the realm of possibility area. I never ever considered myself a runner by any stretch of the imagination, but I have always found myself running for some reason or another since I was in first grade. As a kid I did a few track races and ran track for my Middle School in 8^th grade. But in High School I opted for soccer (THE ultimate sport… that I no longer play) and forwent any kind of real running outside of conditioning for soccer. However, when I found myself assigned to work the running camp portion of the bible camp I live at, I was introduced to a world that I am not entirely opposed to. And so, because I don’t completely dislike it, and mostly because my mom loves it, I run from time to time. Usually I run with her, and while she’s kinda slow some days (she used to be really fast, but then she had five kids and adopted three… myself included, and is getting back into it) it’s always a lot of fun just to be together and I definitely get a decent work out most every time. However, my dad and I are currently training for a 16 mile mountain-ish race in August (more to come on that) and so today I ran with him. We started from the school he was coaching basketball at and did a loop that landed us back where we started (as loops so often do). It was pretty much a really wonderful run. I felt kinda tired, but was able to finish at a definite stride-out pace. The only killer thing about it was that it ends on a mile long hill, which just simply sucks. The very best part of the whole thing was the smell of clover. It is in full bloom and has such a wonderful sweet honey smell. There really is nothing like it in the whole world.  It is really hard to describe the sensation of smell, but I was essentially enveloped in the warm, comfortable, safe world that clover lives in. It’s one of the best feelings in the world.

One of the coping mechanisms that I use to get me through long runs like that is to sing (strictly in my head). The song that ran through my mind like a broken record today was that old-ish song by The Byrds that has a lot about seasons and turning. As it so happens, there is also a chapter in the bible that goes like this: “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven— A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stone; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace. What profit is there to the worker form that in which he toils? I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. It occurred to me while washing the dried salt off my face in the shower that this happens to be a rather pertinent concept to me at this time in my life. It just so happens that most people my age in our current society are getting ready to head off to college to make something of themselves. Or getting married (everyone seems to be doing that these days). Whatever it is that they choose, most are beginning to merge themselves into the adult world. And I, well… am not. In most ways it is the opposite, I am reestablishing myself as a child. When I turn 19 I will be officially and legally adopted into the family that I already call my own. Yes, I know, strange… but oh so necessary. For a plethora of reasons, I find myself with no High School diploma, no definite plan for my life, but for the first time ever, just barely beginning to walk in this world that we live with ease. However, the whole “not graduated from high school” thing was an area of extreme stress on my part. But I was reminded today that there is a time for everything. God has a plan; a plan that is good, and perfect, and right; a plan with my best in mind. And right now the plan is for me to heal. It is the task with which I am to occupy myself.

So this is a blog about healing: the frustrating parts and the rewarding parts. And the small parts… definitely the small parts, like taking the time to smell the clover on a run.

This is the closest picture I have of me running. It was right after a run with my mom. I'm on the left, she's on the right.