Am I Running FROM Something or TO Something?....Yes

"Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive"
Dog Days Are Over, Florence + The Machine

I get asked a lot of questions about running...select from the following.
"How do you find time to run?"
"Why would anyone want to run that far?"
"What do you do with the kids?"
"How long did that take you?"

Quick answers “I make time”, “To prove to myself I can”, “I have an awesome husband”, and “Less time that you’d think”.
And you know I pose questions to myself as well...specifically the title of this post...

Am I running FROM something? On most days, hell yes! A bad day, a crappy email, a dinner meltdown, a pile of Halloween candy that's singing to me, a crabby mood, you name it.

But more importantly, Am I running TO something? And I've started to realize that the answer to that question is also yes.

Several good friends and autism mamas have stressed to me the importance of not forgetting yourself in all of this. They've reminded me that if I'm not functional, none of this is going to work.

So running is how I stay functional, a way that I'm physically forced to have "me time" on a regular basis. Some women go for a pedicure, some women go to happy hour, some women curl up in a tub with a good book...and while I would thoroughly enjoy all of those things, I just don't have the time to do all of that regularly and stay sane. But I do find time to run. And my amazing husband makes sure of that.

And it's in his best interest to keep me running because it keeps me sane...and it's cheaper than therapy. I joked with a friend on Facebook about the fact that I run so far so that I don't crack and hold up a Target or something, but there's probably some truth to that.

Remember that scene in Father of the Bride where Steve Martin loses it because the number of hot dog buns in a package is disproportionate to the number of actual hot dogs per package?

Yep, I'm basically one spilled glass of milk away from that scene on a daily basis.

So I run...I run to survive. The monotony is soothing, the physical exhaustion calms my busy brain and lets me actually put together a coherent thought. Sadly I don't run and appreciate the trees or the sunset or the cars passing by. I run and slowly work through my series of lists that are constantly circulating in my brain. I would think that if someone could visualize this list-based layout of my brain it might look like the arrivals/departures board at an airport combined with the stock exchange ticker, multiplied by 100.

But somehow between the first step out of the driveway to the last turn back into the cul-de-sac, it all starts to make a little sense. Priorities are made, problems are solved, feelings are dealt with. I come back a better woman than the most likely frazzled wife and mom that walked out the door an hour or so before.

I know many of you are thinking “she needs to go to yoga!”. And you know what? I LOVE yoga. Completely adore it. If yoga were a competitive sport, I would have gotten a college scholarship. I’m extremely flexible and very well balanced. Taller, skinnier friends have wondered how it is I do it…it’s in my genes, I’m a little wide set and low to the ground with strong legs, I was made to balance on those hips and find strength in those legs ; ) But the problem is when they tell you to quiet your mind…it’s impossible for me. I just can’t. I absolutely can’t. Instead the lists that I mention above seem to get louder, and yell at me for just laying there. I still love yoga, but I need the running first. The running calms me, the running keeps the bad feelings at bay, the running keeps me “me”…

"She has to run everyday or she goes crazy, she's like a border collie" - Phil Dunphy, Modern Family
I am always one missed run away from a meltdown.
I run from the bad of the day, so I can open myself up to appreciating all the good…and there is so much good. I need that reminder every single day, and regardless of what goes wrong, there is a smile or an arm wrapped around my neck that makes me remember, makes me appreciate, gives me the strength to do this all over again tomorrow...and for that I am so grateful.