Ready, set, … …?

Well. I’m laughing right now. My ears and fingers are frozen, my breathing is hard, my face is red, and I’m so utterly soaked. But I’m laughing.

Today was the John’s Creek 5k race- a fundraiser. It’s supposed to be the time of your life, with music and balloons and free food everywhere you go. And if you win the race, you get- more free food. And I was looking forward to this 5k since the beginning of this week, asking every friend of mine if he/she was going. Only two said yes. Everyone else replied with a “Dude. It’ll be cold and rainy- do you really think it’s worth it? You’ll probably get sick.” But I said, who cares? It feels better to run in colder weather anyway.

Well, here’s the deal- I missed out. I woke up at 7:40; the race started at 8. And when I realized the time, I shot out of bed and blindly ran around the little space in my crowded room, pulling out drawers and digging out the exercise clothes that had been buried in the deepest depths of my drawers; I hadn’t run since summer. At that moment I got a text- “Where are you? It’s about to start in a minute!” And then I sat down and thought, wow. I’m going to be late. And upon realizing that, I slowed down. It should have motivated me to hurry up, but I didn’t.

I knocked on my mother’s door and asked her if I should still go; she shot out of bed faster than I did. As I was just starting to pour the Frosted Flakes in my cereal bowl, she was already opening the drawers to find her keys. Except they weren’t there. So we spent 5 minutes searching for her keys; she found some, tried them, and realized they weren’t the right keys; we spent another 5 minutes searching for them again. Once we finally started to get going, it was 8:10. But there’s more. Once we finally arrived in the general area of the place, we drove around for another 20 minutes trying to find Lifetime- the gym where the starting line was.

We couldn’t find the place until a policeman was nice enough to smirk at us and point us in the right direction, while trying (and failing) to hold back his laughter. When we got there, people were already finishing the race. And so I went home, disappointed and at loss for words. I had missed the race. I had missed the race.

The whole time, my mom was in hysterics, laughing all the way home. “That was a good experience. Ohhhoho, that was a good experience.” And I was shaking my head, thinking to myself, I didn’t get to experience anything. So I went home and took a lap around my neighborhood, angry that I hadn’t run just thirty minutes earlier. And I ran in the cold, windy weather with the rain pouring down, until I finally started laughing with the adrenaline that was pumping through my veins. Nothing mattered.

And now here I am. So I didn’t get to experience that amazing feeling of finishing a 5k- that motivation of pushing on, pushing on, pushing past the maximum that you can push. I probably wouldn’t have been able to without fainting anyway, since I honestly haven’t had a good run since summer. But who cares? It was a good experience. Of what? Well, I don’t know. Of getting up on my time. Of motivating myself a bit more. Of going to Lifetime- now that I know where it is- to get on a treadmill every now and then. Of running in the rain and experiencing a bit more of what’s bigger than me. Of disappointment. Of life. I mean, if I hadn’t missed the race, then I wouldn’t be so motivated right now to go to the next 5k that happens. At least I had signed up and gotten out of bed- that’s the first step, right? Well, it’s a huge step for me at least, because I’m not the type of person to go to these huge fundraiser things anyway. So it’s a start.

Well, this morning was a refresher to this past week, anyway, since I’ve been having mood swings faster than a mood ring could read. Happy, sad, happy, sad, angry… it’s frustrating. And all these emotions have simply made me lazy, unwilling to get up every morning and live another day, and even more unwilling to pick up a Bible and read where I had left off a few weeks ago. It’s a horrible feeling. But maybe after today, I’ll be back to my old regular self. Maybe I’ll be able to finally get moving again, after these past two weeks of a standstill. Sometimes you just need a break before you can leap forward again, you know?