13.1

Sunday I ran another half marathon, one that I have trained for since January. I guess training paid off, as I shaved roughly 10 minutes off my previous 13.1 time, coming in at 2:16:07! Not bad for someone who's Real Old. My pace time averaged 10:24 per mile. I couldn't believe how every mile marker came so quickly and how good I felt to be running so well! At the finish line-- after I recovered a bit from that final push-- I actually cried with happiness.

I've gotta tell you, I'm Real Happy lately. It's as if the universe just shifted. As if it suddenly realized it had been sitting on my chest for the past couple years and apologetically moved over.

Many things have transpired to bring me to this place of peace, but the bottom line is this: I'm going to be okay. In fact, I'm already okay. I looked at my Life Interupted entry in the August 2007 archive just now. I didn't realize how brutally accurate I had been with that entry. It's everything I've just spent eight months in therapy for, and it was spot on. I have learned so much about my life and my self. I am so thankful that I'm still here. I'm so grateful to be feeling better. I have come to understand so much about the pain I was feeling when I wrote that, and while the process of getting to this place of peace and wholeness has been excruciating at times, I made it!

If you read that painful entry, you'll be happy to know that all the boxes of stuff I was so ready to give away or burn are the very same boxes I brought to my new life. For some reason it seemed so right to unpack those sweet memories and set them up here. I polished them up, sheepishly apologizing to them for having ever wanted them gone, and set them in places of honor here. I have my Cheery Cherry kitchen again, dotted with red and even some pink for fun! My sewing room is a riot of color and creativity. My fabrics and yarns, all arranged in rainbow spectrum, call to me to come and play. The things that came out of those boxes were little treasures that signalled my hopefulness in a bright and sweet future. I had wanted them gone because they seemed to mock me back then. They were remnants of the best times of my life. That life was over and nothing came to fill it's place.

Now that winter season is over. I am so happy to have my life. I'm thankful for all I've had over the years. This new season is promising and sweet and fresh. Like taking off winter boots and walking barefoot in the new spring grass. Thinking Wow! Has the grass always been this wonderful and I just didn't see it?

Indeed.