Shifting

Yesterday I ran one of my favorite 5K races.  It falls on my birthday weekend every year and I’ve found it’s a great way to begin the process of mentally reviewing the progress and growth of the past year.  It’s my baseline, my starting point since I have run this race every year since my divorce.  And I always discover, in some way, that my life again has shifted forward.

  

I love the way things like birthdays and end of year holidays often cause us to reflect, glance, not stare,  in our rearview to see where we came from while we continue forward.  And today when I glanced in mine, all those ugly, broken, painful,  moments were gone. At least the ugliness of those moments were gone because I realized that every single moment, every challenging hill to climb brought me to where I am right now, making me who I am and without all of it, I would not be who and how I am today.  

For years I felt I had been handed a very unfair life.  I was heartbroken and would say I felt like God was laughing at me.  I was convinced the universe was punishing me for a past life or something terrible I had done. Often I felt like every time I recovered from one thing or another, the rug would get yanked again from under me and there I was, on my ass,  again.  It got to the point that I was waiting for the shoe to drop all the time, I was waiting for and expecting more and more to go wrong. Then one day, my good friend, Ann said to me, “Maybe, just stop expecting things to go wrong.”  It had never occurred to me but I gave it a try, shifted my focus to the good things around me and away from what wasn’t working,  and little by little everything just began to work out and come together.   

It took time and practice to shift my life from expecting the worse to just having faith that everything is really working out for me perfectly.  And today all those “punishments” of my past looked more like blessings when I glanced back at them. The contrast of those painful and scary moments allows me to appreciate and be grateful for things I might simply walk by today with little to no appreciation, like being enveloped in the warmth of the New England Autumn colors. Sometimes, I feel like I’m running through a painting, it’s so beautiful.  I feel like that is so awesome, to finally be at that place on my journey, that the ugliest moments are beautiful now.  And the truth is they always were.  Perhaps I wasn’t supposed to appreciate their beauty until now, life is funny that way.   

I’ve also discovered the blessing in my miles.  There is nearly nothing that strips a person to their soul as completely as a silent long run. I did not do nearly as much running this past year, moving, shifting my focus into other areas - things I love to do and have made me stronger.  I miss running and again, in the beautiful way that life ebbs and flows, my focus re-shifting again back to running.  I found myself coaching a Girls On The Run team with Ann this year.  As I watched the girls run, I found myself longing to be training for another marathon again, something I was sure would be a one time thing for me.  

But that is the joy, the thrill of life, the shifting.  This past year, I’ve learned to embrace the shifts as they come. Shifting slowly, allowing the flow of life to take me where I need to be. People, things, places, shifting into and out of my life.  And when I allow the shifts and stay present in my moment, what always remains is exactly what is meant for me to grow and evolve, it’s all the right people, places, and things for this moment, right now.  And all that other stuff, it’s just stuff.  

I’ve decided the reason that first mile is always the hardest is because that is where I shed the “stuff.”  The heavy, unnecessary baggage I carry and hold on to.  By mile two I have freed myself of most of that burden, getting lighter on my feet and closer to my soul.

I’m sure this next year, my life will shift again.  I hope that I can remain present in my ever-changing now, trust, be grateful, and just go with the flow and blessings of the shifts as they come.