Inertia

A body in motion wants to stay in motion and a body at rest wants to watch TV, eat crap, and lay around.

CONFESSION: It has been almost two weeks since my last run. It’s been so long that I’m kind of afraid to get back out there.  I am already anticipating how bad two weeks of no running, limited water intake and a carb heavy diet is going to feel when I get off work today. Honestly, I am dreading it a little. I don’t think I have taken this much time off from running since…before I started running. In the back of my mind, I know I have to though. And not just for my body, but for my mind and my future. I choose to run because I know; inevitably it will get me back on track in all of the aforementioned areas. Choices are powerful in that way. They are kind of like magnets. Think about it, every time you make a choice, more choices, people and thoughts that match it come rushing at you. It’s like one choice becomes a cluster of choices and that cluster of choices becomes a lifestyle. Running is the type of choice that leads to other healthy choices, naturally.  Trust me. If you eat fried food before running, you will regret it. If you don’t drink enough water before running, you will regret it. If you drink too much alcohol before a run, you will be sick, groggy and slow…and then you will regret it. It’s like once you make that one core choice, every other choice you make will change to support the first one. It’s really an awesome thing to experience, when the core choice is positive. But when the core choice is negative, the destruction is exponential.

For me, things started going downhill last week. After meeting with the publishing company and being a given a quote that looked more like a phone number than a bill, I started to unravel on the inside. I didn’t say anything to anyone; I just stopped by Kroger on my way home and picked up some Krispy Kreme donut holes. The next day, I learned that the grant that pays my salary is not going to be renewed or extended. So pretty much, after November 30, I am out of a job for at least a month. That night, I ate Popeye’s for dinner. Then between the fast approaching deadline of my book release, the loss of my job, and the overarching pressure to conceal my anxiety of both, I drank soda and ate cupcakes for about three days. In the midst of this, there just wasn’t any room in my head to think about to running. After five days without running, I knew I was going to be slow and so the excuses NOT to run kept coming and coming. I was sick. It was cold. I felt bloated. I needed to do some more edits. I was sleepy, and so on and so on.   Plus, once I decided not to run, I didn’t care what I ate, how much I drank, or what time I went to sleep. I just let go for 11 days. I didn’t realize that one small decision could have such a huge impact, but now I get it. Lately, I am moody and sad. I was on the verge of tears all day yesterday and for absolutely no reason. (Well, no reason except I have been eating low vibration food and not working out for 11 days). After these past two weeks, I totally understand how people feel when they say they just don’t feel like doing anything. I saw that happening to me, but I can’t let it continue. I know that the more I choose to be inactive, the more reasons (and people) I will find to reinforce my continued inactivity.

So, I choose to move. I have to move. I have to move my body to keep my mind active. I have to keep my mind active to reduce the anxiety. I have to reduce the anxiety so there is enough space in my head to create. And I have to create to be sane. I also know that thinking about all the things I need/want is overwhelming. It’s too much to think about focusing my mind, stopping the anxiety, and being inspired to write at the same time. So why not make one choice that can take care of all three? I think it’s like that for all of us.  We all have so much going on in our heads and most of us feel pressure to just get over it. Not knowing what to do with the pressure of our thoughts, we become destructive. Then once we look at all we have destroyed…the thought of trying to put it back together is even more overwhelming. I know that it’s impossible for me to repair 11 days of abuse with one run…but it’s a start in a right direction.  I just have to remember that just as one choice led to all this destruction, one choice can lead me back to where I want to be. I am not going to worry about trying to fix it all today. I’m not going to try to right all the wrongs I created before today. Instead, I am just going to make one choice and watch what happens.

What do you choose today?