I just got back from a cold run under sunshine. I am still sore from running my last marathon. Not my muscles, my tendons and bones. My muscles repair themselves, but there seems to be parts of me that just may never heal. To stew in self-pity and stay suck in sorrow over that would lead to me giving up running forever.
I am going to make a runner cocky statement, but I think runners find gratitude in very unique ways found nowhere else. Running breeds gratitude, partly because it is impossible to run fueled by resentments without having them changed. Resentments may get you out the door, but somewhere out there on your travels you will find gratitude. Maybe for your legs, for your experience, for the sunshine, but also for your life and your family and your memories. The rush of blood in your veins and influx of fresh oxygen fueling your muscles breeds gratitude and well-being. It is where our love of life either explodes like a volcano in our brains or grows like a fungus in a petry dish in our heart. The distance and time forces contemplation. The energy we give and get back paints it all in a spiritual glow.
My favorite race sign of late has been "Some Day You Will Not Be Able To Do This. Today Is Not That Day." It gets me out of thinking of the inflamed tendons and slowing times. I am able to run, to finish marathons even. This statement won't always be true. These are the good old days of future memories I am living.
I have more than most, and certainly much more than I deserve.A beautiful family. Gainful employment. Twenty-plus years sober. My problems are first world problems, and my possible pasts are filled with much worse scenarios than I have fallen upon.
Father Martin is a recovery icon who spoke to me in grainy black and white VHS tapes, but I remember his words: "Gratitude is the hinge upon which sobriety swings." As someone in recovery, having gratitude is a life-saver. You don't go drink and drug when you are grateful. It is self-pity or resentments that bring about misery. Resentment is the number one offender is an AA cliche that I am okay with.
Father Martin
So I hope to run and feast on gratitude, for someday I will not be able to run. Someday I will be just like that Turkey I am about to eat: I will be Dead and fodder for another organic being.
And that's a freaking miserable thing to write. But it's not cliche.
Someday I will not be able to. Today is not that day.
