A beginning in the end.

Soaking in the hot water, the bubbles foaming around me, I let myself sink, sink into the depths, sink into the heat, and sink into myself. Down past my shoulders I slid, until I was on top of the water, legs out straight, fingertips to the stars. It was my last night here. After what seemed like an endless summer, it was over, and too quickly. Many like to say that they have had the best summer of their lives without any discretion to the particular summer to which they are referring. Mine however, truly was unforgettably the best of my life. I was un-tethered to anyone or anything, leading me to learn things I never thought I could know. I only hope this year will be as rewarding and fulfilling as the summer I learned what it feels like to be me.

It’s not what you are to others, but who you are to yourself.

It’s not who calls you, but when.

People and events don’t determine your past, you do. It matters only how you perceive, recall and react.

Losing someone close to you does trigger the cycle of grief; ride it out to its fullest, the bigger the waves, the bigger the thrill of riding them.

Being self-centered does not serve anyone, especially yourself.

It’s not only acceptable to have many facets, but encouraged; the more sides to a gem, the more precious. Let go and just be.

If you ever begin to doubt humanity, look at your pets, they must have some reason to love and trust you.

Never underestimate the power of family.

It’s always alright to move on, no matter how fast.

Always follow through. Dependability is rare and treasured.

Give everyone a chance to redeem themselves; they will probably surprise you.

Sometimes, first intuitions are always right.

To be continued…

Day by Day, Moment by Moment.

If someone were to ask me who I am, right now I couldn’t tell them. Not because I don’t know, but because I choose not to identify myself with single words that have a tendency to be misconstrued and force myself to continually live up to those definitive manacles. To the contrary, I know plenty about myself on a momentary basis.

I know that I love plaid flannel shirts, leaving my hair down and dirt on my jeans.

I know that I can’t stop moving and doing; I am constantly on caffeine overdose without the added caffeine.

I love people too much and hate people too little, but most will never know how I divvy up my positions.

I know I have dreams too big for my britches but I will get there someday with a handy little tool called duct tape to cover the holes.

I make more mistakes than I can count or remember, sometimes repeatedly, but when it comes to trusting you and you betray me, trust me, I will never make that mistake again.

I am the sweetest person you will ever meet but if you try to change me, I am a bitch.

I know the best thing I ever did was leave him and drop my plans for more school, in order to live day by day without regard to the future. I have captured such an inner calm and freedom it’s inexplicable. Without the shackles of the future requirements and the burden of the labels, I am like a butterfly whose wings have finally dried and the time has come to fly. And fly I will, far above anywhere anyone can see or perceive, because you see, you’re not me.

Weight lifted.

Giving up & letting go.

Perfectionists, and particularly me, don’t like to hear those two defeatist phrases. They defeat the point of ever striving for something.

But sometimes it can actually be for the better; sometimes letting yourself forget the restrictions you put upon yourself is what is necessary.

And sometimes the best is just to let things happen, forgive and forget, as it were.

Everyone and everything comes and goes, like the ebb and flow of the sea along a coastline.

…

I woke up this morning with nothing on me. I do not mean actually, of course. I had nothing holding me back or down. The weight lifted. I can only attribute that to the past several days during which I have had to deal with the doctor’s orders not to run for a few weeks due to shin splints and/or hairline fractures in my shins that have been plaguing me with pain. For me, it had become just another fact of life; I cannot remember a time without my “leg aches.” I simply refused to give up my love of running, even for a little while. But what I had not realized is that my love had also become a shackle, a goal I had placed upon myself and had to be achieved in certain measures within certain times. So when I woke up this morning, the realization came to me that if I just let go, if I just gave up, just for a little while, that with hopeful healing my love of running would evolve into something more endurable regardless of whether the pain stays or goes. In the end, I hope that the next few weeks will not be in vain; I hope that despite the outcome physically, I will be able to rejoin the ranks of the running and do so without restraint, without weight.

…

So give up, and let go, but only every once in a while. ;)

Fit is Freedom.

In the never-ending search for the ultimate freedom, it becomes apparent that the freedom of the soul, mind and body are quite different and thus require unique mechanisms for attaining. Or are they? It occurred to me recently on a run in the lower mountains in Colorado that I felt more free and uninhibited with tennis shoes and a vague idea of where I was than with my possessions in my car en route to another destination. It is rather an intriguing feeling; the idea that the most free I have ever felt involves only logistical restraints, such as figuring out how to get home and whether I would have the energy, than the prospect of a new life, albeit tied down by physical obligations like my car and housing. This led me to wonder, what is freedom to me and how do I pursue it?

It was at that point I realized that my ultimate freedom was the result of my actions at the moment: running without regard to location, possession or time. Through the perpetual motion, the incessant beating and breathing, nothing was still, nothing was stagnant. And while my pursuit of freedom was the motivator, my body was the enabler. Without the strengths and weaknesses combined and the continual testing of those limits, I would never have experienced such a moment; a moment that makes life worth living.

Besides the purely philosophical, there are other more practical reasons for the proposition that physical fitness allows for freedom. The following are merely examples of the multitude of possible manifestations of fit freedom.

• If you have people who love you and are concerned for your well being and wait on edge by the door until you return from your adventures, being able to extend those adventures by, say, a few miles, can prove to be quite liberating during as well as amusing upon returning.
• You can eat what you want and not have to starve yourself to be a skinny bitch.
• You can live longer, but if that’s not your goal you can die gloriously doing whatever crazy shit being fit allows you to do. Like climbing Mount Everest. Or like getting hit by a car while street running. Or lightning when you get caught in storms.
• You can run across the street to beat the light or make it to your favorite restaurant before it closes without getting a stitch in your side.
• If, by chance, you are at a party and the cops just happen to show up, you can hop fences and avoid the inconvenience of questioning and/or potential arrest (all depending on the kind of party you are attending, of course).
• It is always great sport to try and outrun a rainstorm. It is advised, however, to not bring your ipod along.
• If you’re having a bad day and the last thing you need is a mugger to make off with your purse, being fit will allow you to knee the bastard in the balls and take off in your Prada heels.* The mugger will probably be more fascinated with the fact that you can and are willing to run in heels than in your purse at that point.

*Note: No Prada shoes were hurt in the testing of this theory.

Run it out.

Of all the many ways to escapes life’s difficulties, there are few that have positive repercussions outside of the initial forgetting of the self. It seems that all other methods of coping (drinking, binging, drugging) involve a generally negative result, that is, people remember drunken escapades, binges lead to weight gain if you’re lucky coronaries if you’re not, and accidentally hooking your brain on a character-altering concoction. Despite the unfortunate fact that a majority of people turn to these ways of losing life’s problems for the moment, and eventually themselves, some others choose a strange form of self-mutilation: exercise. The ceaseless sweat beads on the brow, the burning pain in the limbs, the gasping for breath and the aches that make you feel a million years old not only make your brain scream “Stop! For Christ's sake, stop!” but also cause others to wonder why you do it. You do it because in those moments when your brain is consumed with messages from your body, it’s no longer preoccupied from messages from itself. In a way it’s a trade-off, physical pain for the absence of mental or emotional, that only you can decide for yourself. Is it worth it? Even if you decide it isn’t, the least you end up getting out of all the hassle is a good night’s sleep, and there’s always something to be said for a bit of time in an alternate reality of dreams, right?