The Hot Run

I'm not sure when it happened, and looking back, I'm thankful that I didn't realize it was transpiring, or I would have been devastated.

But somewhere in the mix of celebrating an avid, daily running regimen, I withered on the vine and my go-to practice fizzled into an occasional 2 or 3-mile jaunt, small potatoes for my repertoire.

Sick of feeling in a rut, I re-worked my play list, grabbed a loud running skirt, stupidly neglected to bring water and headed out for 6 miles in the hot sun and the high humidity.

I will grant you that there are insane mother fuckers out there who thrive on running in the heat and do quite well, that is definitively not me.  Resolute that I would not make my come back on a treadmill and resigned that it's just as hot at 7am as it is any other time of the day, I sucked it up and went out.

At first, this happened...envision being in a sauna where you keep looking down at your toes, sweat drips into your eyeballs and you just can't get a good breath.  Then, going up my first hill, I panicked, thinking, I'm going to get dehydrated (which upon reflection was probably a smart piece of intuition), but nonetheless, I was committed.

Three miles in, I sunk into the reality of the fight. The hot run is an official bitch baby.  And then this song came on...

 And I just kept pushing and believing and hoping and praying and wondering...who am I?

What can I do in this life?  Who do I want to be?

I hallucinated back to a podcast exploring the difference between knowing and following your curiosity.  We live our lives thinking that we should know exactly what makes our heart song complete with the ability to claim our passions and live our lives linearly.

When the truth is, particularly if you're middle aged, like me (God damn it, that's still so weird to write), you recognize that life is finite and guaranteed to no one and that it's okay to change course, try something new, get busy getting interested in something that sparks wonderment or intrigue.

Aside from running, writing, moving a small business forward and familying...I'm still trying to stay open to what lies on the horizon for me.  What makes me trepidatious (in a good way)?  What do I wish to infuse into my being?  Where do I crave to spend more of my time?  What if I hate it?  How will I know?

By the time I explored these topics, I was drenched.  Ridiculously so.  But I had completed the mileage and made it back to my front door, barely.

It seems to me, that curiosity is where it's at and that knowing is for the birds.  Passion is powerful...but it's often singular.  The world affords so much to sink into...to feel, to know, to incorporate, to try-on...here's to wonderment...but maybe with a little less humidity.