The Reckoning

Here's what happened...

I woke up at 4:30am, turned on the coffee machine, stumbled to find my shoes and a sports bra that smelled like barf, began making excuses why I shouldn't have to get up and run, inhaled half of a gooey, brown banana...it too smelled rancid, cued up my music and left the house.

It's dark at 5:15 in the morning and my worst fear running alone is that I'll find myself in a precarious position that I can't run away from.  Pushing my fear to the side, my legs felt heavy, my breath was irregular and my heart just wasn't in it.  But this always happens.  I have to give myself the first couple of miles before I find my groove and am grateful that I made my way to the great outdoors.

Somewhere along Happy Hollow Boulevard where there are lots of trees, a deep ravine and people that seem to pop out of nowhere walking their dogs or cycling, I got scared...or rather the dude with the big dog caught me off guard and I gasped and then started sprinting up a hill.

When I got to the top, I stopped and let the tears well up in my eyes.

I've been praying for a friend of a friend who is my age.  A 40-year old beautiful woman with 3 children of her own who has been battling cancer for a long time.  This past weekend, it looked like she may be nearing the end and really painful, heart wrenching decisions needed to be made by her family.  The text messages from my friend nearly brought me to my knees.

Why am I here able to run up a hill away from a pretend scary man and his dog and she is in a bed hooked up to a never ending line of chemo?  Her parents are watching their child die and her children are watching their mother fight for her life.  All of it is horrific, tragic, incomprehensible and defies anything that I can wrap my head around.  It just feels wrong in every way.

After I managed to get 5-miles in, I came home to a quiet house, poured the biggest cup of coffee, closed my eyes and stretched.  While feeling pain in nearly every muscle of my being, I began thinking about the ways that we reconcile where we are in our lives and the ways that we reckon to make things different.

What is good?  What is bad?  What could be better, different, enhanced?  What simply is and will probably always be?  When is it enough?

My friends often laugh because I'm the one always asking the big, philosophical, often unanswerable, unknowable questions.  I rarely find myself having a "small talk" chat with really anyone.  I can't help but get to know you...the things that really define who you are and what you care about.

It just seems to me that life is too short not to.  It also seems that life can be unfair and untenable and that if we don't reckon with ourselves what we want from it...well, then...one day, it may be too late.

While reading, I stumbled upon this quote that we should all consider:

“I choose many voices to consider and reckon with, rather than just one to tolerate.”  T.F. Hodge

Let the questions come.  Let the wonderment arise.  Let the voices battle each other.  Let your heart ultimately guide you.