Running Back

I'm a runner. Well, not really a "runner" runner, but I run, or at least I jog, but running sounds way cooler, so let's just go with that. I've run two marathons and for the moment that is enough. I run for health and I run for fitness. I run for sanity and if I'm being honest, I run so that I can fit into my favorite pair of jeans. I run because it's much less expensive than paying for therapy. I run because I'm able to and with that comes a certain sense of obligation. I've been running for almost 20 years and come to think of it, maybe that makes me a "runner" runner, after all.

I first started running when I was in college. My best friend and I would go to the campus fitness center (the "HPER") and run on the walking deck that overlooked the basketball courts. Actually, we didn't do a whole lot of running. We mostly just walked and watched the off-season athletes play ball below. At the end of my freshman 15 (or was it 20?) I decided I'd better start running for real. I got serious about running when I decided to compete in the Miss Arkansas Pageant system. Evidently I didn't have a "good swimsuit." I received all sorts of advice on how to remedy my swimsuit scores---truly, it's amazing what you open yourself up to when you choose to model in a swimsuit, but the most memorable was when one local director (not mine) told me he had some ideas on how to help me find my waist. Do you have any idea how many years of running therapy one needs to recover from a statement like that!? And yet, at the end of the day, I think that director may very well be the reason I continue to run. In some ways I'm still that 19 year old girl looking for my waist!

Running though is sometimes more than just hitting the pavement. Running can be what we do when things get hard. Certainly, I've been there as well. I've run from jobs, cities, people and even churches. The one that I regret though, is my decision to run away, with one year left, from the University of Arkansas. For reasons that would bore you beyond measure, I didn’t want to go back for my senior year (my second one that is.) Everything, and everyone around me was changing and I wanted a change, too. So, I packed my bags, asked my brother to join me and headed out on the adventure of a lifetime in the great state of Nebraska (which sounds so funny when I read it out loud because let's face it, Nebraska isn't really the sort of place that screams adventure!)

O.K., so, I know you aren't supposed to live your life with regrets, and, even if you have them, you certainly aren't supposed to admit to them, but sometimes that doesn't work for me. I concede that constantly looking back and living in the past isn't all together healthy but sometimes, I would argue, just sometimes you have to go back in order to move forward. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm running back to a year (1994) and a place (University of Arkansas) where, one simple decision changed the course of my life....I life that I love; a life for which I'm grateful; a life greatly blessed. And yet, with all of the joy that followed, why do I still have feelings of regret? It's in search of that answer that I find myself running (well, at least driving) back to a place that I called home for 4 years. I have no idea what I'll find or what I even hope to accomplish, but this much I know: I want to be an example for my children that it's never too late to get it right; that's it never too late to forgive or ask to be forgiven; that it's never too late to finish what you started.


(to be continued! sorry!)