Mile 0

A couple weeks ago my family made the move from Texas to Alaska---just a quick 4,000-mile jaunt up the road. It was tiresome and trying and long. But it was also so very beautiful.

The trip took us along the famous Alcan Highway. The beginning of the highway is studded with markers and signs proclaiming that travelers have reached the official start, aptly named "Mile 0."

(It was all very amusing considering that we had already driven 2,900 miles at that point.)

As we started our last 1,000 mile push of the trip, I joked that what many people consider the start of their journey was the end of ours. It didn't take me very long to realize that the joke was on me.

The very next day after we "finished" our 4,000-mile trip, we climbed right back into the truck and drove dozens more miles in search of a new home. As we walked into all the empty spaces and tried to imagine how our lives would look there, it hit me:

I had just driven 4,000 miles to get to my next "Mile 0."

I wasn't done... Not even close! I was gearing up for the next wave of new sights, new experiences, new people, new elements, and new opportunities.
What I had been considering the end of our journey was really just the approach to the starting line of the next one.
(Getting there had just been so daunting that I forgot!)

But so much of life is like that.

A million miles of memories and experiences linked together in a string of days. A million bumps. A million twists and turns. A million detours. A million new adventures.

We press on every new mile, burning fuel and rubber just to get to the next marker and the start of the next journey.
Another tomorrow.
Another Mile 0.

And it's tiresome. And it's trying. And it's long.

But it's also so very beautiful.

(Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV)
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Bring on the next mile.

Building Blocks

This past week, my family began our big move from Texas to Alaska. In four short days, we've blazed through six states--just shy of 1,900 miles.  (And friends, that's a lot of miles!!)

It's possible that we are a bit nuts to take on such a big road trip. We didn't have to do it--the Army would have flown us all to our next home just as readily. But I guess I've always been the type of person who needs the journey. I enjoy feeling like I've "earned" my destination, you know? Four thousand miles of roads I'd yet to travel seemed like way too many to simply bypass by plane. I've yet to decide whether I have a gypsy soul or just a fear of missing out.
(Either way, we're committed to the craziness now!)

Luckily for me, I married a fellow-adventurer and quite possibly birthed the two best car riders in the history of mankind. No one ever complains when we hit the road, and even the dogs get excited to load in the back of the truck. We always try to make sure that the road trip is an adventure for everyone, so we break up our travels with little day trips along the way. Yesterday, we took a short detour from our move route so the kids could see Mount Rushmore.

It was my second time to see the impressive stone carving. (But I was only ten the first time, so I remembered very little of my first experience.) As I looked up at the mountain with my children, I tried my best to imagine what it would have been like almost 100 years ago, dangling from the precipice and blasting off chunks of granite, chiseling and chipping away in such fine detail, manipulating the artistic concepts of shadow and light on such a massive scale.
I wondered what on Earth would spur these men to risk their lives for a rock. Why did they choose to put this monument here in the Black Hills? Why did they choose these faces? How hard was it to keep this funded? What were they hoping to achieve here?

President Franklin D Roosevelt, standing at the monument in 1936, said this:
"I think that we can perhaps meditate a little on those Americans ten thousand years from now, when the weathering on the faces of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln shall have proceeded to perhaps the depth of a tenth of an inch...

Let us hope that at least they will give us the benefit of the doubt, that they will believe we have honestly striven every day and generation to preserve for our descendants a decent land to live in and a decent form of government to operate under."

Why did they put the rock there? So that when "children" like me looked on their weathered faces and wondered why, I would be looking at the building blocks of my nation: principle, progress, preservation, and liberty. It was put there so that I could remember what I have been given, and what I should strive to pass on.

Looking at those rocks and thinking about those men made me think of another story I had heard with a similar message:

"And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord." (Joshua 4:5-7a)

Why did they put the rocks there? So their children could look on those stacks and remember what the LORD had given them; so their children would strive to pass that blessing on to future generations.

I love that the Bible specifies here "when your children ask"--not if. Anyone who has ever even been around a child knows that they are wired to ask Why? How come? What for? They are wired to watch us. They are wired to wonder at what we've built for them.

It all begs the question, What "stones" are we leaving for our children to look at?-- Because they are watching and they are wondering. What is it that we're building? Is it something they would be grateful for? Is it something they would strive to preserve and pass on?

I have no idea if my children will choose to take giant road trips with their families when they get older. I have no idea if they'll remember all the miles they've traveled and all the sights they've seen. I have no idea if they'll fully appreciate the historical battlegrounds and monuments and experiences and adventures.

But I'll keep stacking the stones anyway, piling them high in hopeful anticipation that years from now they will be staring at the building blocks of a happy childhood--Something they'll be grateful to have been given and that they'll strive to pass on.

Back to Basics

Several weeks ago, I challenged myself to run 13.1 miles on the beautiful trail by my house. It was not an official race, it was right in the midst of readying my house and my family for a 4000-mile move, and I planned to run it in June, in Texas--therefore, I lovingly dubbed it the "Half Outta my Mind." (Should've made a t-shirt. That was a missed opportunity, for sure.)

Y'all, I'm so happy to announce that last week
I ACTUALLY DID IT!!

(Picture or it didn't happen, right?) ;)

It's funny to me how proud I was of those numbers and that accomplishment, especially considering that the same numbers would have been sorely disappointing for me a few years before.

You see, I used to be fast.
Like, first leg in the 4x100 meter relay, fast. Like, ran my very first ever distance race at 8 minutes flat, fast. Like, not making a sub-2 half marathon means that I’ve completely failed, fast.

But I’m not who I used to be.

***

I’m not sure how many of you have heard this story before, so it’s probably time to share why I write about running all the time. A few years ago, back when I was still pretty fast, I got sick with some kind of mystery ailment. I started having the sensation that my ankles were being squeezed all the time by giant bands, and it would make my feet completely numb. A few weeks later, along with my feet, I felt the same squeezing sensation on the crown of my head and it would make the left side of my face go numb. A few weeks after that, I also began having shooting pains down my left arm. This eventually led to tremors in my left hand. I couldn’t focus on anything. I was tired and disoriented all the time.

I felt like a walking time bomb. The episodes would seem to come out of nowhere and without warning. Sometimes the shooting pains would wake me out of a dead sleep. I stopped running altogether, because I didn’t know when the next bout would strike, and it felt unsafe for me to be out on the trail if one came on.

I basically lived in a doctor's office. We did nerve conduction studies, brain MRI's, spinal MRI's, and ultrasounds. And blood work. So much blood work. Diabetes testing, Lyme’s Disease testing, all kinds of gut testing. Everything was coming up empty. We never figured out what was going on. We couldn't tell whether this was something real, or if it was brought on by anxiety (my husband was deployed,) or if it was a product from some kind of injury. (I have always been a bit rough on my parts.)

Eventually I was put on a nerve inhibitor and some migraine medicine to manage the bouts of pain and neuropathy. I had basically conceded to the fact that I was never going to be “cured” and that I would be practicing some form of symptom management for the rest of my life.

It was pretty much the pits. I cried a lot, y’all.

Along with the medication, I was sent to physical therapy twice a week after a spinal image revealed some compression. I was told that the compression did not explain all of my symptoms, and probably wouldn’t help with everything, but it could keep me from needing surgery.
For the next two months I worked on all kinds of flexibility and strength exercises. I was the only person there under the age of 50. I wanted to laugh it off, because it didn’t feel like they were making me do things that were big enough. I was a generally fit person with certifications in nutrition and fitness. I just couldn’t see how core stabilizing exercises and stretching were going to help me. I wasn’t out of shape. I wasn’t inactive. I wasn’t old. I was sick, right??

Wrong. It was amazing to me how many simple things I couldn’t do. Squeeze a ball. Squat with a band. Walk on a treadmill. Seriously, they would strap this ex-runner onto treadmills with a harness and lift me up so that I was “walking” without putting any pressure on my lower body. The more I committed to doing those exercises with perfect form, the more I realized how out of shape I truly was.
I had been humbled.

I faithfully kept my appointments for two months and did my at-home therapy as prescribed every night at home. And like some kind of crazy miracle, I started to get better. Like, WAY better. The exercises that weren’t supposed to cure me were making my other symptoms fade away. My mystery episodes were becoming fewer and further between until they quit coming altogether. I weaned myself off of the neuropathy medication that I was told I would probably need for my whole life. (And I cried a little more, y’all!!)
After a two years of feeling trapped in my body, I was free. I honestly felt brand new.

It's crazy to me that after all I had been through, the answer to my turnaround laid in some core strengthening and stability exercises.

***

I often wonder if so much of my struggling over the years stems from the fact that I am always pushing beyond my call of who God made me to be. Sometimes he gives me a job to do, and I laugh it off because it doesn’t feel “big enough.” Sometimes I put so much pressure on myself to perform and achieve that I literally crush myself under the weight of my own expectations and aspirations. I was compromising form in all sorts of areas so that I could be counted among the best.
I needed to become okay with just letting myself be okay.

The crazy thing about this seven-year-old blog is that I still tell all of my old stories from “when I was fast.” I re-post them and I remember being that girl. But I’m not her anymore.
I’ve been humbled.

-I’m not the girl who makes 27 resolutions at the start of the year. I’m the girl who maybe makes one resolution in February, if I feel like it. I’m okay with that.
-I’m not the girl raising two preschoolers and trying to promote my “expert stance” on motherhood. I’m the girl looking to other good mothers to help me figure out where I’ve screwed up and how I can fix it. I’m okay with that.
-I’m not the girl who thinks being married for four years is a “long time.” (Yes, I actually said that.) I’m the girl lucky enough to know that ten years in, our love still has a lot of growing up to do. I’m okay with that.
-I’m not the girl who runs sub-2 half marathons anymore. I’m the girl who thought she was never going to be able to run them again, and so now that she can---Praise God!---runs them just for fun. I know that it's crazy, but I REALLY AM okay with that!

-Better still, I’m not the girl who claims to know what she’s doing anymore. I’m the girl who trusts that God does. You best believe, I’m okay with that!

I don’t know if I will ever be as fast as I once was, but I’m okay with that. That girl injured herself trying to take on too much too fast. She was centered on the wrong things and it broke her down. Now I’m the girl who is learning to take on a lighter load—not because I don’t want to work, but because I need to know how carry the weight the right way.

I used to be about performance and presentation, but now I am about perseverance and grace—not because that makes everything easy, but because I’ve truly discovered more strength and stability there.

I used to be crazy, and I still am. But it’s in a brand new way.
And I'm okay with that.