Lessons of the Hurt

I could list all of the things that I’ve learned, but that might a) be the longest blog post in his­to­ry and b) like­ly result in me for­get­ting what the top­ic is about one third of the way in.

Which…I sup­pose could be comical?

Regard­less, today I’ll focus on just one thing that I’ve learned.

Only one, but it’s pret­ty important.

I’ve learned how I grieve.

More specif­i­cal­ly, I’ve learned TO grieve.

I’ve spent a good por­tion of my life push­ing through dif­fi­cul­ty, in the hopes that if my ham­ster wheel kept spin­ning, that I wouldn’t have to feel, or hurt, or miss.

It works for awhile. Liv­ing the numb life has its perks.

But inevitably, loss comes back to bite you. You can’t just ignore and “keep on truck­ing” through things that hurt.

And, per­haps the most impor­tant les­son — that’s ok.

It’s ok to hurt, it’s how we grow.

In fact, I may go so far as to say we HAVE to hurt to grow. How else will we know what we are capa­ble of? How will we know what is tru­ly impor­tant? With­out the dis­ap­point­ment and the loss, how do we find the moti­va­tion to aim higher?

Griev­ing, for me, is a solo act. Almost sub­con­scious­ly, I retreat.

And the fun­ny thing is, it takes me by sur­prise every time.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that most peo­ple know why they are curled up on the couch con­tem­plat­ing life.

Me?

Puh­lease peo­ple. Have you read this blog?

I gen­er­al­ly don’t fit the mold.

Frankly, I usu­al­ly fig­ure out that my brain is full of ques­tions when I notice that I haven’t blogged in awhile. When I find every excuse in the world not to sit down and do some­thing that I love, then I know it’s time for a deep heart to heart with myself.

Late­ly, my brain has been on an end­less noodling cycle of “where do I go from here?”

I have had time to grieve the loss of my beloved teach­ing career.

Or rather, been forced to. Find­ing the con­tents of 7 years of teach­ing in your office clos­et will do that to you.

And truth­ful­ly, I know I’m still in the process of let­ting that go. I’m not in a rush, I know it will be awhile.

But what I haven’t ever real­ly sat down and thought about is what hap­pens if I nev­er get the oth­er pieces of my “for­mer” life back?

I don’t mean that to sound depress­ing. I mean to con­vey the sim­ple conun­drum of the situation.

What do you do when every­thing that defined you, is no longer a part of your life?

My life has been on hold since 2011. I’ve had, ya know, a cou­ple of things going on.

Just organ loss and med­ical mys­ter­ies, no biggie.

But I think sub­con­scious­ly I always thought that I would go through all of these hos­pi­tal days/months/years in order to erase every­thing, and set­tle right back into my life as I left it.

Not exact­ly how that all worked out.

I know that I’m on this jour­ney to learn, and grow, and find out who I real­ly am. And I know that I have unearthed new pas­sions and firm­ly estab­lished what is tru­ly most impor­tant to me in this beau­ti­ful, crazy life.

But what I’m still fig­ur­ing out is what to do with the things that I’ve left behind?

Spring for me has always been the sea­son of run­ning. Going all the way back to the Penn Wynne Ele­men­tary School Olympics, spring was a time to RUN.

And you are, by the way, read­ing the blog of the 5^th grade high jump cham­pi­on. Pray­ing Man­tis legs do indeed come in handy in the scis­sor kick. Penn Wynne Pen­guins represent.

Any­way — SPRING. RUNNING. (Do you SEE why I get noth­ing done??)

I hap­pen to keep good com­pa­ny with a lot of run­ners. In fact, many of my close friends are run­ners, which has always worked out well for moments when I com­plete­ly nerd out about the lat­est edi­tion of Run­ner’s World, or I want to talk about every detail of an upcom­ing race.

And late­ly, my hus­band has tak­en up running.

He has worked SO hard, and I am incred­i­bly proud of him. He has found a ded­i­ca­tion and deter­mi­na­tion that I don’t think he knew he pos­sessed, and I am his absolute #1 fan.

But I would be lying if I did­n’t say that watch­ing my part­ner do some­thing that was for­mer­ly “my thing”  hit me hard.

I missed every­thing — the long week­end runs, the train­ing plans, the feel­ing of walk­ing through the door after a great run, and the feel­ing of walk­ing through the door after a bad one. I missed the feel­ing of los­ing your­self in your run, and I even missed the ear­ly alarm clock times and the sore feet.

I had nev­er expe­ri­enced run­ning on the oth­er side. I had nev­er stayed behind while the oth­er per­son went out in ter­ri­ble weath­er to run (and con­se­quent­ly, had nev­er expe­ri­enced the wor­ry of when they would return). I had nev­er felt like an out­sider in the run­ning com­mu­ni­ty. I had nev­er even been a spec­ta­tor at a race.

So I had to fig­ure it out, and through that process, I had to grieve.

I had to hurt a lit­tle, in order to learn a lot.

Run­ning may not be over for me for­ev­er, only time will tell how that card will play out.

But I want to stay in the present, to live in the cur­rent, beau­ti­ful, moment.

And right now, I may not be able to do what I know so well, but there are still many things that I can do. I know now that life is beck­on­ing me to dip my pray­ing man­tis legs into new endeav­ors, and I am eager to see where they take me.

On Sun­day after­noon, I took myself on my own lit­tle Boston Marathon. I dragged out the old (ter­ri­fy­ing­ly tight) sports bra and my favorite run­ning socks, and I ran 800 meters. I could bare­ly breathe, every­thing hurt, my feed­ing tube was bleed­ing, my right eye was blurred, and it was a 50:50 chance on my lunch stay­ing put.

In short, it was the most enjoy­able half mile of my life.

I ran for the lives lost and for­ev­er changed at last year’s marathon.

I ran for my friends and fam­i­ly run­ning this year’s marathon after months of training.

I ran to know that I am still part of some­thing bigger.

I ran for my heart.

And best of all, for the very first time, I ran along­side my hus­band. Side by side, we fin­ished my lit­tle mini (very mini) marathon, and then he con­tin­ued on and I start­ed my extra­or­di­nar­i­ly slow, and a smidge painful, walk home.

It may have been my farewell tour. It may have marked a tem­po­rary hia­tus. But in my heart and mind, I am and always will be a runner.

Boston­Strong.