My life list

What do you have on your computer background right now? Is it a nifty picture of a landscape from some place you've never been? A picture from a memory you miss? A graphic that you found?

I was looking at mine the other day and asked myself 'why?' Why do I have something to look at everyday that has no relevance to my life? Is it because I like the mountains or because I simply don't pay attention to the noise I let into my eyes?

It was nice to look at. It was convenient. It was one of the seven different landscapes I could choose from at start up . But after thinking about it, I realized- I'd rather look at something boring that has meaning than look at something thats just distracting.

I opened up Paint or whatever that little witchamajig is and typed out a list. Its similar to the lists you put on your mirror or your dresser. It's a simple reminder to myself to follow these few steps daily, with no background or graphic or pretty little image behind it. Just words. It says:

1.) Wake up and breathe
2.) Believe today is going to be better.
3.) Cry if you need to.
4.) Dont give up.
5.) Change something, anything, or everything.
6.) Try to love yourself.
7.) Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself

Forgive. Yourself.

As much as I write about the things I do, I find myself neglecting those insights in my outside life. This is just a simplified version of everything I've been trying to embody over the past few months and have failed to complete.

I was on one of my no destination runs last night listening to my Ipod. It was brisk, maybe 30 degrees, no snow with the night sky being clearer than air. I was going through a patch of neighborhood that had no street lights, leaving the moon to be the only thing to guide my way. I was starting to feel my right knee tense up and my breathing get heavy and I was becoming demotivated. Being on the verge of quitting, I had this intense emotional uprising. Like a volcano of loss and disappointment with my body. At that very moment, shuffle and its almighty wisdom turned over to a song my soul needed. More than water, more than a break, more than a serious cuddle session. The intro started to 'Talking to myself' by Eminem and all of that emotion immediately synthesized into everything I could ask for. I took off. As the song built into the chorus, I began sprinting and crying. In that darkness, miles away from where I stay, I felt my body hurt as much as my heart for once. I told myself 'keep going. Push through this. The pain will be gone in a few days.'

With tears and snot and a depraved grimacing look in my eyes, I finally had a complete break down. In the middle of no where, listening to words about being heard or understood by no one, I wept. I knew my body couldn't keep going at this pace. My knee was going to shatter. My dog was going to choke from my speed. I was going to trip or tare a muscle or fall face first into unforgiving pavement.

This was the first time my physical met eye to eye with my emotional. I realized that we can all talk about growth and progress and moving on but when all is said and done and we're left by ourselves, those words are just forcing our hearts to go at speeds we can't handle. Our hearts are complicated creatures. Ones that have less defined signals than our bodies do. But if we listen to what we can't hear, and understand that some days, we're not going to meet our expectations or do what we wanted to do or feel the way we wanted to... we will allow the healing process to happen naturally and unforced. Sometimes, we just have to accept that not everything happens on our own clock and gets completed by hurrying and sprinting.


7.) Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself.

Forgive. Yourself.