Today

Some time over the course of the last nine years I became the kind of person who exercises in the morning.  Don’t misread – I’m still not a morning person.  I have just learned to enjoy starting my day this way.  The fact that this has become who I am is most evident when I don’t do it.

Today for example, I decided to run my four miles (8K training) in the evening.  I started lamenting the fact that I rolled over for that extra hour this morning on my walk home from work: It’s going to be 7:oo before I’m done, this sucks.  When I got home I decided to charge my phone (so I could listen to music while slogging it out on the treadmill).  I emptied the diswasher.  Went through the mail.  Finally I left.

When I got to the gym I lamented not getting new running shoes a month ago before those calluses turned into blisters.  I wished I had remembered band-aids.  As I logged onto the wireless network and scrolled through my Pandora stations I thought about creating a more upbeat one.  Four miles.  On the treadmill.

And then the music started.  There’s only us.  There’s only this.  Forget regrets. Or life is yours to miss.

Exactly what I needed to hear.  At exactly the right moment.  A chill ran up my spine and a humbled smile pulled at the corners of my mouth.  I am running four miles because I can run four miles.  People are having babies, mourning the death of parents and for the next forty minutes all I have to do is put one foot in front of the other.

And so I did.  I took a deep breath and started running.  I finished and came home.  I made dinner and poured myself a glass of wine.  I read good things that fed my soul and didn’t give rolling over in bed this morning a second thought.  Because this is the only shot I have at today and it deserves better than that.

 

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