songs of experience

My circle of moms didn’t disappoint. I went to them openly with my greivance that no one was reading what I was “assigning” and they told me “Yes, YES, we are! Sometimes we just don’t know what to say in response.” What a relief. I had felt so alone in my passionate freakdom. Maybe the Hemingway piece was too esoteric. I don’t know; I guess I’ll stick with running quotes for a while:

This week’s reading is from a collection of testimonials called, “How Running Changed My Life.”

What Is She Running From?
by, Jeannine Bergers Everett

“Who on earth knows who they are at twenty-five? I’m not so sure I even knew at thirty-five, but I was more open to the possibilities. In my work as a researcher into human behavior, I was looking at the role of title and declaration on decision and action. In this work, I saw the relationship between open declaration and commitment to achieve . . . you aren’t what you eat, you are what you say you are.

During this time, I met a woman who did research in balanced lifestyle and goal setting. She put me through an assessment that she found predicted overall happiness and emotional well-being. I did pretty well – I have a good life. Except for one area.

I participated in physical activity, but I had no goals. I was just working out to work-out. Because it was what I should do, but not because I was trying to do something in particular. I was sort of taken aback. I’m a pretty goal-driven person by nature, but had no goals as far as my physical fitness was concerned.

I went back to my own work about title and declaration. We give ourselves so many titles that we don’t deserve – lazy, selfish, unworthy – all negative. What would happen if I gave myself an undeserved title that was positive?

At that moment, I became an athlete.

I asked myself, what would an athlete do? An athlete would run.

I went to a running store and got a good pair of running shoes and a reflective jacket. I figured out how to rearrange my schedule to fit in an hour each day to train. I got a running diary, and read some inspirational books.

And I started running. A little each day. But when people asked me what I did, I never said, “I’m starting to run.� I said, “I’m a runner.�