Sneakers and Wine

  This past week felt busier to me than recent weeks and left me feeling pretty run down and burnt out.     I tried to keep my routine but I struggled because I was sleeping a lot more.     I couldn’t seem to force myself out of bed in the mornings.     I wasn’t quite sick, just exhausted.     My extra needed sleep required me to sacrifice other aspects of my daily routines.     This always feels like a struggle to me because the structure of the routine keeps me on track.     But this week, fitting everything in was just more than I was able to keep up with in my self induced exhaustion.     On one of my early morning runs, trying to shake off the stress of feeling overwhelmed, I caught myself scolding myself for failing to meet my own high expectations of what I can do in twenty four hours.     On weeks like this that run me into the ground, sometimes the things I want to do, like running and yoga, ha...

One thing I have been trying to incorporate more often is trail running.     It’s challenging in different ways then running.     It demands my presence in each moment, I don’t have the room for my thoughts to wander too far.     When I run on the road the time passes quickly because I can be careless at times and daydream my way through. The ground below my feet is fairly reliable with each stride with the exception of the occasional uneven storm drain but I quickly recover from those.     The trails do not allow for that same daydreaming, the ground changes and shifts beneath my feet  constantly and it forces me to stay present and focused.     I have come to love this practice.       The other day, I decided to get in a trail run before work.  It was cold and gray with temperatures around 15 degrees Fahrenheit.  I had hoped the mud was frozen and the soft coating of snow that had recently fallen...

  This past Sunday was 15 years since my son passed away.  I thought a lot about Aidan all week.     Fifteen is such a big number, so many years. This anniversary felt hard, lonely – the whole world moved on without him but there’s a part of me still stuck there, 15 years ago holding on to him, wishing for one more miracle.     For me it hurts like it happened yesterday but 15 year later, raw and broken. I feel like I should be more okay than I felt most of this week after living through the past 15 years.     It starts to feel like no matter how much time passes the raw unexplainable brokenness will never stop.     It’s dark and lonely, but I have learned over the years to find places to also love the darkness.        I love running in the dark mornings.  Eventually as I get into the run, for just a moment I feel like the whole world belongs to me and absolutely anything is possible.  There is a s...

  Happy New Year!   I started running again a lot this past year, although not as consistently as I need to or would like to.  I have struggled with changes in my routine and finding a rhythm to life.  The past couple years it has felt like every time I got moving something would switch it up again and I’d fall right off the track I was on.  I changed careers and work from home now, my house was full with all my kids during COVID and then it was just my youngest son and I and then another son moved back in.  Living with adult children is a very different dynamic than living with children.  The expectations on both sides are challenging to navigate. I’m also back in school working on another degree and sometimes work is just very demanding.  Well, the truth is, those are all my excuses.  It’s the hill and obstacle I  built on my path to give myself reasons to not do what I know I need to do. The wor...